Sweet Sweep

Oh, how sweep it is.

The headlines are only talking about the Mets' tumble; I choose to talk about the 72nd win of the season. Church has finally relaxed, and good things come from it. I'm not sure if he gave up hope or if someone gave him a firm talking to. Either way, my Ryan is hitting nearly .400 in the month of September. He got his 43rd double; if he had been allowed those extra 100 at-bats, I have no doubt my boy would have made it to his desired 50.

The plan was to “win every game,” according to Schneider. Now the plan is “to sweep the Phils,” as Church so concisely put it. Ryan Girl #1 and I have had this plan for a while; it's good to hear the Nats finally had it occur to them too.

Only the first game of this series came easily, 13-3. Austin just keeps getting worthwhile hits, and pitchers keep being foolish enough to walk the men in front of him. Tuesday night looked like another blowout until Colome and the Human Heartburn (Chad Cordero) allowed 3 runs each. Rauch finished it off and fell on Schneids in relief when we got out of the ninth still leading 10-9. If it wasn't for the Mets quiting the game in the top of the same inning, allowing Batista to saunter into home on a hit that didn't even approach being deep enough, we would have gone into extra innings. Wednesday night it looked like the Mets had finally become angry enough at us to grab a victory. But, alas, poor Willie Randolph, Ryan Church continued to plague him. A homerun to give us energy again, and a 3 for 5 night to make all of DC feel good.

It wasn't just Church that had himself together this week. Kearns is on fire. Batista keeps doing well. Fick is actually on a hitting streak. Zimmy started a beautiful and extremely long double-play. Bergmann pitched a fantastic birthday game for himself, getting his own double-play started. Shoot, even Ryan Langerhans knocked that white and red spheroid out of Shea Stadium.

As it currently stands, the Nationals are in a strong 4th place (if the Marlins lose tonight, it's clenched). In the whole of the MLB, we are 10th from the last. We are not the lowest scorer in the NL. We have met our goals. And we are ever so far, far away from looking like the '62 Mets. Let's see how Zimmerman does this Friday. It should be good; the boy has to consider his own birthday a holiday.