Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cardinals 9, Nationals 7

Somewhere, in the smoldering, sulfurous pits of hell, there's an empty director's chair with the name of someone associated with the St. Louis Cardinals on it. Other than the Faustian bargain, there's no explanation for what happened last night in DC - or, for that matter, what happened against Atlanta, or what happened against the Rangers last year, or the Phillies, or...
In any case, that just happened. And let's be clear - Stephen Strasburg would not have saved the Nats last night. Gonzalez, not Strasburg, was the Nats' best pitcher this year, and when he got a case of the yips it opened the door for St. Louis to come back. And to their credit, the Cardinals took advantage. Their bullpen shut the Nats down with power arm after power arm, and in the ninth, well, you could see guys so desperate they were trying to hit three-run homers off Grizzly Adams-alike Jason Motte with no one on base.
In football, in basketball, in hockey - the Nats would have been able to just run out the clock. Not so here.
And thus, baseball.


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