We Were Playing the First Place Team?

There are days when you wake up as a depressed Nats fan: this past May for example. But then there are those other days when you bound out of bed and grab a cap that never had to be turned inside out for good luck.

Monday night's game looked to promise the first type for Tuesday morning. Redding had little to no control and allowed 4 runs off of 2 homers against the Mets. Redding went out in the fourth, and September call-up Albaladejo (The Kid, seriously try cheering for Albaladejo in the middle of a game) took the mound. There is a clear reason this guy claimed so many positive decisions in Columbus: the Mets never scored again.

From that moment on, the lackluster offense the Nationals have shown of late turned around. A barrage of hits, a plethora of Mets errors (one resulting in Nook Logan bunting for a triple!), and Ryan Church's (Ryan Girl #2's) homerun that took us from security runs to bragging rights, the second half of the game was against a different team. We took advantage of mistakes that were made and channeled energy from Manny to notch another win on our way to 72.

A game that started off as another depressing night for Washington, well at least for those not into football, turned around. The Nationals have made enough mistakes this season that we know how to take advantage of it when other teams do the same thing. The only people on our team not to get hits last night were pitchers, Langerhans (shocker), and Batista. For the second half of the game everything we did was right. We pulled it out and made something out of what looked like a guaranteed loss. You never can count out Washington. Like Zimmerman keeps saying, “we're scrappy.”

We all know that the Nationals aren't going to the win the pennant this year (Ryan Girls eagerly await 2009) and that the Mets and Phillies are battling one another for the NL East title. We get to decide which of these teams walks into the post-season and who has a panic attack on the way there. That's power, that's amazing, that's fun. This season, the spoiler, next season, the wild-card.

-The Ryan Girls