‘Lofty View’
courtesy of ‘MudflapDC’
The Nationals had a real chance at beating the San Francisco Giants Saturday afternoon but squandered the opportunity losing 2-1. Washington drew nine walks throughout the day and only recorded two hits in the one-run loss.
John Lannan pitched well until the seventh inning collapse that cost the Nats a run scored by Giants third baseman Miguel Tejada to take the lead. The fourth inning was the highlight of Lannan’s day and for the Nats on defense.
After a fly out to right field off the bat of Giants second baseman Freddy Sanchez to start the inning, first baseman Buster Posey hit a double. Posey didn’t score though, thanks to Lannan.
Giants left fielder Pat Burell was called out, with Posey attempting to go to third, when he popped a blooper to Lannan. Lannan proceeded to chase Posey in a successful rundown before tossing the ball to first for the double play to end the inning.
The lowlight of Saturday’s game is the wasted opportunity to maximize on a poor start from a solid starter (i.e. Sanchez). Sanchez walked four of the first six batters he faced but the Nats failed to score. The highlight of Saturday’s game was Henry Rodriguez making his Major League debut, getting out the Giants in order to end the top of the ninth.
Washington’s biggest issue was their inability to score. The next two games against the Giants this homestand will be a good test to see if they can start scoring runs instead of stranding men on-base.
Rachel moved to DC in the fall of 2005 to study Journalism and Music at American University. When she’s not keeping up with the latest Major League Baseball news, she works on making music as an accomplished singer-songwriter and was even a featured performer/speaker at TEDxDupont Circle in 2012. Rachel has also contributed to The Washington Examiner and MASN Sports’ Nationals Buzz as a guest blogger. See why she loves DC. E-Mail: rachel@welovedc.com.
