This year in DC has been dominated by negative talk of 100 losses, the bullpen demolishing leads, GMs and managers being fired, debacles in Latin America, insanely long losing streaks and little positive outside of a couple of players. That’s just baseball. The last few weeks in football, especially if you like the Skins and U. of Maryland or Virginia, have been arguably worse than that. So last night’s victory in their final home game, as inconsequential as it was, was a great way to say goodbye to the hometown fans for the year. By now you probably know what happened – a walkoff Grand Slam to sweep the Mets for the first time since 2005.
The game itself was really good. Lannan pitched well, not his best day, but once again he settled down and pitched well. More on that tomorrow. Zimmerman hit his 33rd homer of the season. What a great year he had. 33! The Mets were up 3-2 in the 9th and, as is typical with the Nats, they were able to tack on a run. 4-2 in the bottom of the inning, they loaded the bases for Dunn with 2 outs. K-Rod walked him, the run scored, and Nats fans were probably thinking “now that they walked Dunn, that insurance run has made us lose again.” But instead of the typical Nats ending, the next batter, Justin Maxwell hit a deep fly to left that just cleared the fence. Home Run. Grand Slam. Game Over.
Here are some pictures of the event:
Of course, it wasn’t Maxwell’s 3rd grand slam of the season, it was his 3rd home run. On a side note, he has put together a nice September for himself. September is different, the numbers may look better than they appear. But still, since being recalled and playing on Sept 1, he’s hit .306/.370/.551, with 3 HRs and 5 BBs in 23 games. Not bad for a guy who was completely lost in the 13 games he played with the Nats in April and May. At 25 years old, he needs to produce in the majors pretty much now or never. Good to see he’s set himself up for another long look this spring. And he’s a Terp, so I root for him just a little bit more.