I didn’t think I was going to make it to the Yankees series.  But I had a little luck on my side – Ashley and her husband were out of town for a wedding, and my brother was their dog sitter.  As part of his payment, he received baseball tickets, so I obviously begged to be his date for the game.  Being a generous young man, my brother acquiesced.  How nice!

Of course, after that game, maybe I didn’t want to see the Yankees.  And no – it wasn’t because I was going to see Gio again.  It was because the Nationals played some piss-poor baseball defense.  They’d played so well in Boston and Toronto, sweeping both of those teams, but the team that showed up in Washington this past Friday was not the same team.  Maybe it was the toll of playing hard to close things out for 6 games, or maybe they’d had too good a time at the ZiMS benefit the night before.  Whatever the reason this past weekend was not great.

Things were decently close for 6 innings.  But then after allowing 1 runner to reach at the top of the 7th, Gio was pulled in favor of the recently-returned-from-the-DL Brad Lidge.  Lidge did very little of use – he walked 2, and allowed a single that put the Yanks up by 2.  In 1/3 of an inning, he allowed as many earned runs as Gonzalez did in the previous 6 innings.  CRAZY.  Everyone sitting around me complained, and when I heard later in the weekend that Lidge had been DFA’d, I was not surprised.

I wish that this post were the kind where you know that our team won the next game, so there was no reason to be sad.  But as of the writing, the Nats have not won since.  They’re still more than 10 games over 500, but considering how well they’ve been doing, and how they’ve got guys back in the lineup, you’d hope they’d do better.  How many times can I use the word “they” or a contraction thereof in a sentence?  Apparently 4.

ANYWAYS.  Nationals.  Baseball.  It’s June 20.  It’s officially summer.  Enjoy the good baseball times, be sure to drink lots of water, and put on your sunscreen, or you might end up like this lobster which tackled Teddy!

Full photo set here.