August 19, 2013
Ceci Ferrara
Sports Writer
Sports Insider
After a five-game win streak that included a sweep of the Phillies, the Nationals (60-63) traveled to Atlanta to face the division-leading Braves. Heading into Friday’s game, Washington had dropped ten of their thirteen meetings with Atlanta season, and manager Davey Johnson was hopeful his team would show they had improved.
Washington fell behind 2-0 early, but were able to scrap together runs in the fourth and eighth innings to tie things up and force extra innings. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much more to show. Atlanta outfielder Justin Upton hit a walk-off homerun in the bottom of the tenth for the win.
“It’s not easy losing, that’s for sure,” Jayson Werth told reporters after the game.
The tension from Friday’s game—which saw Bryce Harper getting hit by a pitch twice and the home-plate umpire issuing warnings to both teams—carried into Saturday night. The drama started early when both Stephen Strasburg and manager Johnson were ejected from the game.
Strasburg hit Upton with a pitch in the first inning, but it was not until he threw back-to-back pitches behind Andrelton Simmons’ back that home plate umpire Marvin Hudson decided it was intentional and threw Strasburg from the game. When Johnson came out to argue, he was also tossed.
When asked what had happened on the mound, Strasburg answered, “I can’t really explain it. I just didn’t really feel good out there and couldn’t hit the spot.”
With Washington leading 4-2, Craig Stammen stepped in for Strasburg and pitched three shutout innings. After adding three runs, including a solo homerun by Ryan Zimmerman in the eighth, the Nationals took a 7-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth.
But it was déjà vu for closer Rafael Soriano, who blew his second consecutive save by allowing a two-run homer to tie the game and once again force extra innings. This time, the game did not end so quickly. They played five hours and twenty-nine minutes—the longest game in Nationals history—until Adam LaRoche hit a solo homerun in the fifteenth inning to edge the Braves 8-7.
It turned out to be the only win the Nats would take from Turner Field. They fell 2-1 to the Braves Sunday afternoon in a relatively uneventful game that lasted the standard nine innings. While Gio Gonzalez pitched a solid game for Washington, the offense was unable to offer any run support, going one for thirteen with runners in scoring position.
“It’s getting to be kind of sad,” Johnson said of the men left on base. “We set the table and we don’t have good at-bats, we don’t drive them in.”
Atlanta now has a commanding fifteen-and-a-half game lead in the division, while the Nats find themselves nine-and-a-half games behind the Cincinnati Reds for the second and final Wild Card spot in the National League.
They next travel to Chicago to face the hopeless Cubs (53-70) for four games, where they hope to keep their dimming playoff hopes alive.
Mystics
After a rough start to the season (which included a five-game losing streak in June), the Washington Mystics have improved to 12-14 and third place in the six-team WNBA Eastern Conference.
On Friday they faced the New York Liberty (10-15), whom they had fallen to in their previous two meetings this season. But with stellar showings from Matee Ajavon (sixteen points), and fourteen points from Crystal Langhorne, the Mystics were able to pull away for a 66-57 victory.
With just a little over a month left in the season, the players’ focus is on advancing to the playoffs.
“Every game is so important right now,” Langhorne said.
Her teammate Ivory Latta, who added eleven points and seven assists, agreed. “If we continue to play like this we’ll definitely be a tough team to beat,” she said, adding “We just need to continue to play like this from now on.”
Unfortunately, Washington’s women did not fare any better in Atlanta on Sunday than the Nationals. After scoring twenty-eight points in the first quarter, the Mystics faded, scoring just thirty in the last three quarters combined and falling to the Dream 58-76.
“In the first half, we were an amazing team,” Latta said. “In the second half, I don’t even know what happened. I can’t really explain it. We just have to go home and correct the things that we didn’t do and focus on what we did well in the first half.”
The Mystics now trail Atlanta by three games in the Eastern Conference, and conference-leading Chicago by five-and-a-half. They will either make up—or lose—ground in the next few games, when they face Chicago once and Atlanta twice.
