I’m sitting on the couch watching the Washington Capitals. I should be at Nationals Park watching game five of the National League Division Series.
That’s not just wistful thinking, it’s math or fate or some combination of the two.
For three years the Nationals have been exactly .500 in games I’ve attended, going 7-7 in 2011, 10-10 in 2012 and 11-11 in 2013. This year they finished the regular season 12-11 before losing two playoff games.
I was sure that at 12-13, they would win games three and four in the best-of-five series against the San Francisco Giants. They had to. We needed a game five win to get me back to .500.
But baseball, for all of its beauty, can be cruel. And so here I am looking at guys skating around a sheet of ice rather than gliding across a diamond of grass and dirt, hoping to make good on the promise of what was a remarkably fun season.
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Twice we saw Stephen Strasburg strike out 11 batters (they were Padres in April, Phillies in June).
In May, Jayson Werth robbed a home run for the final out of a win over the Mets. A few days later, Denard Span went 5-for-5 on his way to setting a new team record for hits in a season.
August was walk-off month. Bryce Harper beat the Mets with a 13th-inning blast. Adam LaRoche hit a homer in the 11th against the Diamondbacks for the Nats’ third-straight walk-off win. We watched as they kept the party rolling with a walk-off on an error — the fifth walk-off in the span of six games and their 10th win in a row.
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September was even more special. While the Nats cruised to a division championship, we witnessed a pitching performance that comes along once in a lifetime as Jordan Zimmermann threw a no-hitter against the Marlins. In his next start, we cheered as he walked off the mound one out away from a complete game shutout in the playoffs. We had no idea what heartbreak lay ahead.
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This year in addition to logging starting pitchers for each team I also kept track of which shirt I wore to each game. I was hoping one would emerge as a truly lucky article of clothing, but that didn’t happen. The only ones with winning records were my Harper jersey (4-3) and racing presidents shirt (1-0).
This one, however, may have to be retired:
The Nats went 1-4 when I wore that to the park. So if you’re looking for a scapegoat for how things played out this year, blame it on the blue shirt. Can’t wait until next season.