10 Things We Learned From Last Night's Giants-Nationals Game

Nationals/Giants pre-game photo. Note the beards.

The short version of last night's Giants-Nationals playoff game is: Nationals blew a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th and then lost it on a home run in the 18th. Which, of course, is saying The Hobbit is about a hiking expedition. Scratch the surface of an 18 inning game and you'll find plenty beyond the score; dig deep and you'll find really interesting things like:

1. At times the game resembled the old "Action Hank" episode of Dexter's Laboratory. You kind of expected Jayson Werth's beard to charge the mound and attack Yusmeiro Petit's remarkable facial foliage. Just remember, Little Hank - It ain't the beard on the outside, it's the beard on the inside. Unless it's elevated, in which case a left-handed batter can turn on it.
2. Funny, the pace seemed just fine on that six and a half hour ballgame.
3. The Nationals are now working on a 15 inning scoreless streak.
4. I'm betting Jordan Zimmerman is wishing Stephen Souza had been out there to make a diving catch with 2 outs in the 9th last night, too.
5. Never mind Finding Bigfoot. If MLB Network wants a ratings hit, they need to send Asdrubal Cabrera and Matt Williams onto the field with NVG for "Finding A Consistent Strike Zone".
6. There are people who do postseason fantasy baseball. Those same people are probably drinking heavily today after reading all the 0-7s and 1-8 box score lines for various players. Or. to put it another way, there were fewer hits from both teams combined than there were innings played last night. One of the keys to getting length out of your bullpen in an extra inning game is short innings, and both teams obliged the other's pitchers. The main reason Yusmeiro Petit was able to go 6 innings was that he only had to deal with 4 baserunners, 1 of whom was put on intentionally to set up a double play and only 1 of whom got as far as second base. That's not a whole lot of pitching from the stretch, worrying about runners, or extended innings running up pitch count.
7. So at what point do we start calling Adam LaRoche "the ginger Abraham Lincoln"? Seriously, they're going to give his beard a dye job and start running him out there for the Presidents' mascot race.
8. Buster Posey, thrown out at home in the bottom of the ninth trying to score on Kung Fu Panda's hit down the line. Kung Fu Panda, thrown out at second trying to advance on a "runner's fielder's choice" to end the 14th. To those of us who remember the erroneous "safe" call of Posey's steal of second against Atlanta in the 2010 playoffs, that's sweet, sweet karma. (You're welcome, Tom Abernathy.)
9. Tim Hudson threw 7 1/3 innings of 1-run ball last night. Tim Hudson was on the roster of the original "Moneyball" A's. The movie of "Moneyball", which was made after sufficient tine and distance had elapsed from the original events, is now 3 years old. All of us middle aged men who are not Tim Hudson can now feel suitably shamed.
10. Giants backup catcher Andrew Susac pinch-hit in the 12th. (Note: he did not get a hit.). Washington backup catcher Jose Lobaton - the last of the former Durham Bulls backup catchers still left in the playoffs now that John Jaso and Stephen Vogt are both gone, never got off the bench. Both starting catchers played all 18 innings, catching a combined 485 pitches. So don't tell me you had a hard Saturday night compared to these guys. My knees hurt just thinking about it.