Nationals vs. Reds: Washington fails to get clutch hits - 棒球

Nationals vs. Reds: Washington fails to get clutch hits in fourth
straight loss

TOM UHLMAN/Associated Press - Washington’s Chien-Ming Wang had another
strong outing but the Nationals’bullpen didn't.

By Adam Kilgore, Saturday, August 27, 10:49 AM
http://ppt.cc/_8wJ
The Washington Post的報導

CINCINNATI — With the Washington Nationals’ best hitter this season
standing in the batter’s box and a runner on second base Friday night,
the lights went out. Michael Morse pointed to the tower reaching high above
Great American Ball Park, all its bulbs dark. So there was the answer to the
question: What else could go wrong for the Nationals with runners in scoring
position?

The Nationals lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3, when Miguel Cairo roped a
walk-off single to the left-center gap off Collin Balester.
But their offense, for the fourth consecutive loss, set the stage by
squandering scoring chances. While Chien-Ming Wang provided another promising
start, Nationals hitters went 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position,
bringing their four-game total to a mind-boggling 2 for 42.

“No one’s trying to make it rocket science,” shortstop Ian Desmond said.
“We’re just not getting hits with runners in scoring position. Simple as
that.”

Their one clutch hit Friday night — Wilson Ramos’s three-run home run in
the fourth inning — would have been enough had the bullpen held on. It could
not, and the Nationals dropped to six games below .500 at 62-68.

Tom Gorzelanny had pleaded for an opportunity like the one he received at the
start of the seventh inning, with the Nationals leading 3-2. Gorzelanny had
resisted moving from the starting rotation to the bullpen, but if he was
going to be there, he told Manager Davey Johnson, he wanted a job besides
soaking up innings in an emergency or a blowout.

With Tyler Clippard unavailable to pitch, Johnson gave it to him Friday night,
and Gorzelanny’s turn as a setup reliever led to the Nationals’ lead
evaporating. He started strong, getting Joey Votto to tap to second base. But
he allowed two hits, a walk and a run on an RBI single by Todd Frazier that
tied the game.

In the ninth, Balester recorded only one out, then allowed consecutive
singles to Drew Stubbs, Frazier and Cairo. Left fielder Jonny Gomes jogged
after Cairo’s smash for a few steps, but right away he knew there was no
point.

The sour end spoiled another solid performance by Wang in his sixth start
after a two-year layoff. He went six innings and allowed two runs, one of
them unearned because of Desmond’s 22nd error this season, on six hits and
four walks. He did not dominate, but he again provided the Nationals a reason
to believe he could again become an effective starter.

Afterward, he said he felt “90 percent” back to the pitcher he had been.
Wang still believes he can add velocity to his sinker, which sailed at about
90 mph most of Friday night. But he also felt he had more movement on the
pitch, and better control of it.

Before the tumultuous 2009 season that ultimately led to Wang’s major
shoulder surgery, he was coming off his second straight season with 19 wins
and owned a 3.79 career ERA. For a while Friday night, Wang had actually
bettered that this season. With two outs and the bases empty in the sixth,
his 2011 ERA sat at 3.62. Then he surrendered three straight hits —
including one of the three by Reds starter Dontrelle Willis — and his lead
shrunk from 3-1 to 3-2.

The Nationals had flopped offensively in their previous three games because
they could not hit in the clutch, and they took that bugaboo to an almost
comical degree at the beginning of Friday’s game. Desmond and Brian Bixler
drew walks to start the first inning, then the Nationals made three outs.
Danny Espinosa doubled to lead off the second, then the Nationals made three
outs sandwiched around a walk.

The first 10 Nationals hitters of the game either reached base or made an out
with a runner in scoring position. Ramos’s homer in the fourth snapped the
streak, but it started again. Ryan Zimmerman had chances in the first, third
and seventh innings to drive in a run, but he went 0 for 5.

“When your big guys in the lineup are a little cold, that’s a little
unnerving,” Johnson said. “But they’ll come out of it. They’re good
hitters. We’re setting the table for them, and they haven’t got it done.”

Different Nationals view the runners-in-scoring-position rut in different
ways. On Thursday, Gomes said the slump could become contagious. Morse,
conversely, did not even realize it was an issue until reporters broached
the subject. Four rough games out of 162 did not particularly worry him.

“No,” Morse said. “Until you guys said something. Like right now, I’m
like, ‘Huh?’ That’s for you guys to think of, not us.”

The trouble with the lights began in the seventh inning, as Morse batted
with runners on first and second. After he swung and missed to make the count
2-2, a bank of lights had gone out. After Morse chatted with two umpires,
they sent him back to the batter’s box. Willis threw one more pitch,
a 90-mph fastball over the plate. Morse watched it for strike three, and shook
his head on the way back to the dugout. The power outage, he said, had no
effect on how he saw the ball.

At the start of the eighth inning, just after the Reds had tied the game,
a second bank of lights switched off. Jayson Werth pointed at it as he walked
to the plate and reliever Aroldis Chapman warmed up. Umpire crew chief Joe
West called the Reds off the field.

The Reds at least had a sense of humor about the whole thing. After power had
been restored to the first bank of lights, the public address system played
Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” (Sample lyric: “We’re halfway there.”) Later, the speakers blared Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancin’ in the Dark.”

After the 17-minute delay, Chapman returned to the mound and Werth dumped a
single into center field. He would reach second base with one out after
Espinosa’s sacrifice. And, like so many Nationals base runners before him,
he would stay there.

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