To say that I saw the Pirates’ meltdown and the Nationals’ eventual win tonight coming would be inaccurate, but only because I couldn’t actually see the game on my television. It was pretty easy to infer early on that the Mock Turtle* on the mound for Washington didn’t have much and it was all he could do to keep the levee from breaking. When the Pirates couldn’t pile on in the first, I figured it was OK because we’d already scored three runs. When we left the bases loaded in the second, I was a little worried. When we chased the Mock Turtle in the fifth with the bases loaded and nobody out, but failed to score, I knew how the game was going to end. Even with a three-run lead, the doom was imminent.
So we lost and split the series with the Nationals. On the bright side, the Nationals’ terrible pitching staff has lead to ‘Cutch finding his power stroke (he homered to lead off the game tonight, which means he’s only got 80 more leadoff homers before he catches Rickey Henderson) and Lastings Milledge got off to a pretty decent start before his 0/5 game tonight. I could probably find some more positives from this series, but it feels inappropriate after a split against the Nationals.
* If you see “Mock Turtle” and assume it’s an Alice in Wonderland reference, you’re partially right. At some point in time, I will almost certainly look back on the era that preceded this one and refer to Kevin McClatchy and Dave Littlefield as Tweedledum and Tweedledee and when I do, I’ll be one of those insufferable people that knows that that reference comes from Through the Looking Glass and not Alice in Wonderland. But if you see “Mock Turtle” and think to yourself, “Hey, wasn’t he a lame bad guy in that endless Astro City arc about the guy made of steel?” well, then you and I are on the same wavelength.
