Why Did I Think That Was A Good Idea?

I had the (mis)fortune of being in attendance at the Cardinals/Nationals game last night...yes, the one with two rain delays totaling two hours and forty-five minutes that finally was called at 11:40pm after completing only six innings. The evening was capped off by arriving home at 1:40am after Metro (which had stayed open late special to accommodate the fans) somehow managed to forget to leave a train at L'Enfant Plaza for those fans transferring to the Blue/Orange lines and had to send one back down the line to retrieve us.

Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking on Wednesday evening when I purchased my ticket for the game despite the forecast of rain for Thursday (note: at least unlike many of the fans, I didn't have tickets to the original version of this game, which was rained out back in May). The simple answer to that is the Cardinals were one of four major league teams I had never seen play (now only three: the Diamondbacks, Marlins, and Dodgers).

Random Observations/Highlights from the evening:

1) Albert Pujols didn't play. (Post-season update: this was one of only 2 games all season in which Pujols didn't play.)

2) Adam Dunn still can't field.

3) The Nationals struck out looking so many times (4, including 3 with runners in scoring position and less than 2 outs) I thought I was watching a little league team bat, not professionals. (And yet I insist, despite their record, that this Nationals team is actually the best one of the three years I've lived in the area...)

4) I hate intentional walks. For example: Top of the 4th, Cardinals up by 2 and threatening to add more, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. Their #8 batter was up, and the Nats intentionally walked him to load the bases and pitch to the #9 batter, the pitcher. The pitcher fouled out for the second out of the inning, but then the leadoff batter walked, forcing in a run. Why in the world would you walk the #8 batter with one out, all but assuring that you'll face the leadoff hitter with runners on base later in the inning? I realize the idea is to get the pitcher to hit into a double play, but, I entirely disagree with this strategy...chances are the guy was hitting 8th for a reason, with that reason being that he's NOT a dangerous hitter and should NEVER be walked intentionally.

5) Major kudos to the Nationals grounds crew. They still don't know how to dump the water off the tarp without creating a huge puddle in shallow RF (in fair territory nonetheless, although I think this might actually be an architectural/engineering problem with the stadium- more on this below), but they worked very hard after both delays to make the field playable.

6) 1,000 boos (from the roughly 1,000 remaining fans) for the umpires for canceling the remainder of the game at 11:40pm AFTER the grounds crew had spent somewhere between forty-five minutes to an hour working on the field and finally had the infield in playable condition again. Seriously?

7) When it's 12:30am, and the system was supposed to have closed at 12:00 but stayed open special for the event you were at, and you ask the Metro employee on the platform if a train is coming and they answer "no," you know that's a bad sign...

8) Nationals Park has some serious issue with rain drainage. As mentioned above, the grounds crew dumps the tarp in fair territory in shallow rightfield, likely because that's where the drain is (based on the puddles along the stands during the delays last night, it's definitely not in foul territory). They do their best to spread the water out and after dumping it there, but in June when I sat through a rain delay in a game against the Reds, you could still see (standing) water splashing all over when the rightfielder charged a ball several innings later. Wouldn't having the drains in foul territory and not dumping the whole tarp onto the field of play make more sense? Additionally, the coverage of the concourse for the 3rd and 4th decks is an absolute joke during a rain storm. Not only is it not all the way covered (there are large gaps between certain sections), but a large portion of the covered section leaks incessantly, splattering roughly half the concourse with water. Needless to say, squeezing two decks full of people into half a concourse is not an ideal situation. These are two major, unacceptable design flaws that the Nationals should fix as soon as possible.


All in all, a very long, interesting evening to say the least.