It was seven months ago on 28 March that John Carbone and I attended the Nationals’ opening day game amid much fanfare (photos above) and hopes for the season to come. The Nationals, with Scherzer pitching that day, lost 2-0 to the Mets.
The Nationals then proceeded to lose 30 of their next 49 games to land at a 19-31 record on 23 May (click here.) There was talk of firing Manager Dave Martinez and overall things looked pretty bleak for the curly W boys. Injuries and bullpen problems contributed to their early season miseries. I was beginning to think also that maybe Brother John and I may have jinxed them.
However, as proof of that darkest-before-dawn bs, from 24 May thru the rest of the regular season the Nationals turned it around and won 74 of their next 112 games to finish 93-69. They landed 4 games behind their division rival nemesis the Braves whom they just couldn’t catch mostly because they couldn’t figure out how to beat them in head to head competition. (Head to head the Braves won 11 of the 19 games against the Nationals.)
The Nationals however did earn a wild card spot where they fortunately avoided having to play the Braves in the post season (thank you Dodgers.) The Nationals won the wild card game, knocked off the heavily favored Dodgers and then clipped the Cardinals. They are now in the World Series where again they are big underdogs to the Astros who this season became only the 6th franchise to win over a 100 games three years in a row. This from a NY Times article:
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| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/sports/baseball/world-series-astros-nationals.html |
Mention of the Orioles brings up a “money” ball stat for you: the Nationals big 3 starting pitchers Scherzer, Strasburg and Corbin earned a combined $78 million this year. The Astros big three of Verlander, Cole and Greinke earned $73 million. By comparison, the entire Orioles payroll this year was $73 million.
It reminded me of a sign I saw recently in a restaurant talking about the quality of their food and paying for what you get. The sign read “Cheap food is not good and good food is not cheap.” That same logic can be applied to baseball players because good players are not cheap.
Go Nats! I’m glad too that the original National Ryan Zimmerman will finally be in a World Series and have my fingers crossed that he does some damage to the Astro’s very expensive pitching staff. Hopefully, I haven’t jinxed him here.
Heard the band Tranzfusion cover this Cars tune the other day and it reminded me what a great song it is. (Also, it reminded me of the time when Pam bought a new nightlight for our bathroom I guess so I won’t miss the bowl when peeing in the dark. I complimented her choice by saying “I like the nightlight baby.”)