Nats find a new way to lose. A walk-off grand slam.

Ryan Zimmerman at Wrigley Field by NavyYardNats for TalkNats

We should be celebrating a great Nationals win and instead a loss you won’t forget about for a long long time. The Nationals took a 3-0 lead into the bottom of the 9th inning and 4 runs scored on a pinch-hit walk-off grand slam by David Bote in a 2-strike count with 2 outs. A Max Scherzer gem was wasted as he exited at the end of the 7th inning with a 1-0 lead, and the Nats ran that lead up to 3-0 which should have been enough. A walk-off pinch-hit grand slam home run down by 3 runs with  2 outs is so rare you have to go back 39 years to Roger Freed. A similar feat was also acheived by Allen Trammel in 1988, however he wasn’t a pinch-hitter.

Manager Dave Martinez brought in his best defense in the 9th inning and with 1-out Wilmer Difo booted a ball giving an opening to the Cubs. Somehow it was ruled a hit. Hometown official scoring.  Ryan Madson was in to close the game and hit two batters to load the bases and the rest is history as David Bote smashed a strike at the bottom of the zone which was a decent pitch and he got under it and drove it into the batter’s eye in centerfield for the walk-off grand slam.

Max Scherzer and Cole Hamels were locked in a pitcher’s duel as Hamels had a one-hitter and Scherzer had a three-hitter. The Nationals scored a run on a Zimmerman walk followed by a Murphy single that Zim took 3rd base on followed by a Mark Reynolds sacrifice fly.  In the 9th inning, the Nationals got going with a Trea Turner hustle triple followed by a Juan Soto walk and an intentional walk to load the bases. All of this came off of Brandon Kintzler who then gave up a groundball single to Ryan Zimmerman for the 3-0 lead.

With this one run loss, the Nationals move to 11-20 for their record which is a .355 winning percentage. Finding new ways to lose.

This entry was posted in Recap. Bookmark the permalink.