Did I Do That? Yeah You Did Lidge

Yankees 5, Nationals 3

Four and a half hours of baseball, and the Nationals had no other choice than to put Brad Lidge into the ballgame.  And that is why, when it was all said and done, the Yankees defeated the Nationals in 14 innings on Saturday afternoon.

Lidge ruined the Nationals bullpen's 7 hitless innings streak, giving up a single to the first batter he faced.  Then before you knew it Texiera was standing at 3rd base after a triple, and the scoreboard read 5-3 in favor of the Yanks.

Brad Lidge made two appearances in the series, giving up 5 runs while only getting 3 total outs.  His ERA is now over 9.  Davy Johnson may have to make a tough decision coming up.

But the game should never have even gotten to that point...

Tim Timmons.  This is a name I should never know.  But a terrible call at homeplate in the 8th inning kept the game tied.  The following freeze frame shows the Nats scoring the go-ahead run at home, but the umpire called him out and the game went on...a long time.

Got any cheese?  Steve Urkle did as he threw out the first pitch, a strike.  Zimmerman took over from there throwing way too many pitches in 6 innings of work.  Zim threw 55 combined pitches in just 2 innings (3&4).  Pettitte and Zimmermann had basically the same stats.  Both gave up 5 hits, 2 earned runs, walked 3, and struckout 6.

Woah Mama!  In the bottom of the 2nd inning, Jesus Flores shattered his bat, but the ball went all the way to the wall.  That insane hit was not as good as this one, but scored 2 early runs for the Nats & Jordan Zimmermann.

Look what you did!  In a wild 4th inning the Nationals defense fell apart and the Yanks snuck in a run.  A non-hurting dropped fly ball in left (runner at 3rd was forced out) followed by a double play throw to first that couldn't be scooped by Tyler Moore, and then an Ian Desmond booted easy grounder let a run in from third.

Davy WTF:  In the 6th, instead of walking the 8th batter with 2 outs and pitching to Andy Pettite who is terrible, they pitched to Chavez who drove in the go-ahead run on a double.

No Sweat My Pet!  But in stepped Ian Desmond in the bottom of the 8th to make up for his previous error.  Dezzy jacked a no-doubter out to left field.

 Later in the 8th, on a shallow single by Adam LaRoche to right, Tyler Moore went 2nd to home and on the replay clearly touched the plate before he was tagged after the throw by the right fielder.  But with no replay in baseball the umps out call could not be overruled. It looked like the play of the game, but it happened so "early" in the contest.

6 innings of hitless work for the Nats bullpen, then Lidge came in and gave up a hit right away.  It was soon over for the Nats, losing the series to the Yanks.

Harper had a rough day.  He struck out 5 times in the contest (0-7 on the day) and got more angry each time.  By the final 2, Harper was jawing with the umpire, slamming his bat, throwing his helmet, and giving staredowns.  Fans held their breath as he had a chance with runners on 1st & 2nd in the bottom of the 14th, but he grounded out to end the game.

14 combined pitchers in the contest...Nats try to prevent the sweep tomorrow afternoon...