FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 2010
KLMNO
BASEBALL
ASTROS 6, NATIONALS 4
Washington
C.Guzman ss-rf Morgan cf
Zimmerman 3b A.Dunn 1b
Willingham lf Clippard p Nieves c
Bernadina rf Storen p
Desmond ss A.Kennedy 2b Maldonado c Morse ph Capps p
J.Martin p
W.Harris rf-lf
Totals
Houston
Bourn cf
Keppinger 2b Berkman 1b Ca.Lee lf Pence rf P.Feliz 3b
Manzella ss Cash c
Moehler p Byrdak p Daigle p
Michaels ph Fulchino p Lyon p
Lindstrom p Sullivan ph
Totals
Washington Houston
AB R H BI BB SO AVG
5 0 1 1 0 0 .313 5 0 1 0 0 0 .259 2 2 2 0 1 0 .311 4 0 0 0 0 2 .274 4 0 2 1 0 1 .277 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 .203 3 0 1 1 0 0 .244 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.00 1 0 0 0 0 1 .263 4 0 0 0 0 1 .239 3 0 2 0 0 0 .273 1 1 1 0 0 0 .300 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 2 0 1 0 0 0 .250 2 1 1 1 0 0 .186
36 4 12 4 1 5 — AB R H BI BB SO AVG
4 1 1 0 1 0 .271 5 1 1 0 0 1 .300 5 2 2 1 0 0 .246 5 1 2 3 0 1 .213 4 0 1 0 0 1 .276 4 0 1 0 0 0 .222 4 0 0 0 0 1 .200 3 1 2 1 1 0 .206 2 0 1 0 0 0 .333 0000 0 0 --- 0 0 0 0 0 0 --- 1 0 0 0 0 0 .196 0 0 0 0 0 0 --- 0000 0 0 --- 0000 0 0 --- 1 0 0 0 0 0 .188
38 6 11 5 2 4 —
000 101 002 — 4 12 3 111 000 003 — 6 11 0
Two outs when winning run scored. E: C.Guzman 3 (5). LOB: Washington 7, Houston 8. 2B: Zimmerman (14), Bourn (11), P.Feliz (8). 3B: W.Harris (1). HR: Cash (1), off J.Martin; Berkman (6), off J.Martin; Ca.Lee (7), off Capps. RBI: C.Guz- man (17), Willingham (37), Bernadina (14), W.Harris (17), Berkman (23), Ca.Lee 3 (26), Cash (2). SB: C.Guzman (2), Bernadina (3).
Washington
J.Martin Storen
Clippard
Capps (L, 0-3)
Houston
Moehler Byrdak Daigle
Fulchino Lyon
Lindstrom (W, 2-1)
IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA
5C 8 3 2 1 4 103 2.31 1B 1 0 0 1 0 28 2.25 1 0 0 0 0 0 13 1.77 C 2 3 0 0 0 17 2.81
IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA
5B 5 2 2 1 3 67 6.49 B 0 0 0 0 0 3 6.23 B 2 0 0 0 0 14 0.00 1 1 0 0 0 0 8 7.17 1 1 0 0 0 1 15 3.47 1 3 2 2 0 1 23 3.47
Inherited runners-scored: Storen 2-0, Byrdak 1-0, Dai- gle 1-1. HBP: by Lyon (Zimmerman). T: 3:01. A: 21,814 (40,976).
HOW THEY SCORED
Astros first: Bourn grounded out.
Keppinger safe at first on Guzman’s error. Berkman singled, Keppinger to
third. Ca.Lee singled, Keppinger scored, Berkman to second. Pence sin-
gled, Berkman to third, Ca.Lee to sec- ond. Berkman was out advancing. P.Feliz popped out. Astros, 1-0.
Astros second: Manzella grounded
out. Cash homered. Moehler singled. Bourn hit into a double play, Moehler
out. Astros, 2-0.
Astros third: Keppinger lined out. Berkman homered. Ca.Lee lined out. Pence struck out. Astros, 3-0.
Nationals fourth: Zimmerman sin-
gled. Dunn grounded out, Zimmer- man to second. Willingham singled,
Zimmerman scored. Bernadina flied
out. A.Kennedy lined out. Astros, 3-1.
Nationals sixth: Morgan grounded
out. Zimmerman walked. Dunn flied out. Willingham singled, Zimmerman
to second. Bernadina singled, Zimmer- man scored, Willingham to third. Ber-
nadina stole second. A.Kennedy
grounded out. Astros, 3-2. Nationals ninth: Desmond struck
out. A.Kennedy lined out. Morse sin-
gled. W.Harris tripled, Morse scored. Guzman singled, W.Harris scored. Guz-
man stole second. Morgan grounded
out. Nationals, 4-3.
Astros ninth: Sullivan grounded out. Bourn doubled. Keppinger grounded
out. Berkman safe at second on Guz- man’s error, Bourn scored. Ca.Lee hom- ered, Berkman scored. Astros, 6-4.
Batting and ERA Leaders
Entering Thursday’s Game
Batters
Rodriguez .325 123 Guzman .316 174 Gonzalez
.304
Zimmerman .302 159
Totals
1.50
Avg AB R H HR RBI
13 25 7
46 31
40 55 14 48
Pitchers W-L ERA G SV IP BB SO
Slaten Martin
1 0 6.0 0
Clippard 7-3 Hernandez 4-3
1 16 0 16 0
11 31
.258 1807 238 466 47 232
2-0 1.08 11 0 8.1 4 5 0-1
5
1.82 26 0 34.2 17 40 2.15 10 0 67.0 19 27
Totals 26-28 4.26 54 18 477.2 196 295
NATIONALS ON DECK
VS. CINCINNATI
Friday, 7:05 (MASN2) Saturday, 7:05 (MASN2) Sunday, 1:35 (MASN2)
VS. PITTSBURGH
Tuesday, 7:05 (MASN2) Wednesday, 7:05 (MASN2) Thursday, 7:05 (MASN2)
AT CLEVELAND
June 11, 7:05 (MASN2) June 12, 7:05 (MASN2) June 13, 1:05 (WDCW)
RADIO: WFED (820 AM, 1500 AM)
1
Washington Nationals
DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
It was another painful loss for the Nats and Ryan Zimmerman, who was plunked by Astros reliever Brandon Lyon in the eighth inning.
Guzma
nationals from D1
games in 26 games. Instead, in front of 21,814 at Minute Maid Park, the Nationals limped to 3-7 road swing and reached a new low point, three games un- der .500 for the first time. Six of those losses came by one or two runs. Three ended with the winning run — un- earned each time — crossing the plate. One ended after a 32- year-old infielder with 30 in- nings of outfield experience lost a fly ball in the lights. “It seems like all 10 days, real-
ly, on the road, anything that could go wrong for us has gone wrong for us,” Capps said. “We’ve just got to go out and take the luck out of it and just beat guys. That’s what we ha- ven’t been doing — I haven’t been doing.” Lee’s game-ending homer
was “the one mistake I made [and it] was the last one of the game,” Capps said. Lee crushed the first pitch he saw over the
´n, Nationals drop tough one
left field fence, ending an un- real bottom of the ninth. The Nationals had the game won when, with two outs and Michael Bourn on second base, Lance Berkman lined an 0-1 slider to right field, directly at Guzmán. Guzmán had come to spring training as the likely starting shortstop. When Ian Desmond emerged, the Nation- als asked Guzmán to try second base and, for the first time in his life, right field.
Guzmán had handled his
new duties without complaint and without committing any mistake. He had played well enough that Manager Jim Rig- gleman chose to leave him in the game instead of inserting Michael Morse on a double- switch. Guzmán, Riggleman figured, was faster and had more experience in right this year — 302 202⁄3
⁄3
.
And so when Berkman’s liner steamed toward Guzmán, the Nationals assumed they had
won. Guzmán knelt awkwardly and strained his eyes — he could not see the ball in the sta- dium’s lights. The ball bounded off his glove, his third error of the game after making two at shortstop. “It’s a tough play for a normal
outfielder,” Guzmán said. “More for me. To catch the ball in the middle of the light, it’s not easy.” “You can’t do anything if you lose a ball in the lights,” out- fielder Willie Harris said. “I know the feeling. It’s one of the worst feelings you can ever have, when you see the ball off the bat and then you lose it. He’s doing everything he can. That play made him look like a bad outfielder. He never saw it. There’s nothing you can do. I know the feeling.”
innings to Morse’s
A sudden, stunning rally in the top of the ninth gave the Na- tionals a chance. With two outs and the bases
empty, pinch hitter Morse, Har- ris and Guzmán smacked three consecutive hits — single up the
middle, triple to left that bounced away from Lee, an- other single. The condensed rally scored two runs and, for a moment, erased an otherwise listless performance. The Nationals squandered chances on offense and botched plays on defense. They extend- ed their major league high in errors to 50, having made 14 in their past nine games. In those nine games, they allowed 41 runs, 17 of them unearned. They stranded seven men on base and scored four runs despite four hits. In their first 10 games without catcher Iván Rodrí- guez, who is on the disabled list with a bad back, they played their least productive baseball this season. “It just seems like it’s been
many days of this, where we’re just not cashing in,” Riggleman said. “What could have been a miserable day for them turned out to be a miserable day for us.”
kilgorea@washpost.com
S
D5
Selig
will not reverse
ump’s call
Tigers’ Galarraga presents lineup card to Joyce before game
Associated Press
new york — The imperfect
game stands. An umpire’s tears and admis- sion he blew a call failed to move Commissioner Bud Selig to award Armando Galarraga the perfect game he pitched. The play and its aftermath quickly became the talk of the sports world and beyond, even to the White House. Selig said Thursday that Major
League Baseball will look at ex- panded replay and umpiring, but didn’t specifically address um- pire Jim Joyce’s botched call Wednesday night that cost Galar- raga the perfect game — 27 bat- ters up, 27 batters down. No hits, no walks, no errors. A baseball official familiar with the decision confirmed that the call was not being reversed. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because that element was not included in Selig’s state- ment. Joyce said he erred on what would have been the final out in Detroit, when he called Cleve- land’s Jason Donald safe at first base. The umpire personally apologized to Galarraga and hugged him after the Tigers’ 3-0 win, then took the field at Comer- ica Park on Thursday in tears. Tigers Manager Jim Leyland
picked Galarraga to present De- troit’s lineup at home plate before Thursday’s game to set up the emotional meeting with Joyce. They shook hands, and the um- pire gave the pitcher a pat on the shoulder. “I didn’t want this to be my 15 minutes of fame. I would have liked my 15 minutes to be a great call in the World Series. Hopeful- ly, my 15 minutes are over now,” Joyce said. Galarraga, who was barely known outside Detroit before this week, and Joyce, whose ca- reer had flourished in relative ob- scurity, became hot topics on Twitter. At least one anti-Joyce Facebook page popped up and fi-
rejimjoyce.com was launched. Joyce, a longtime umpire with a solid reputation, declined com- ment on MLB’s statement after Thursday’s game, saying he hadn’t read it. “There’s no doubt he feels bad and terrible,” Galarraga said after Detroit beat Cleveland, 12-6, on Thursday. “I have a lot of respect for the man. It takes a lot to say you’re sorry and to say in inter- views he made a mistake.” Denied the 21st perfect game in history, the record third this season and the first for a Detroit pitcher, Galarraga still got a prize. The Tigers and Chevrolet presented him with a new Cor- vette.
over.
Opinions poured in from all White House spokesman Rob-
ert Gibbs said: “I hope that base- ball awards a perfect game to that pitcher.” Told that MLB was not going to reverse it, he joked, “We’re going to work on an exec- utive order.”
With last minor tuneup, Strasburg sets sights on D.C.
strasburg from D1
body language — screams that he is ready. “That’s for you guys to decide,”
Strasburg said when asked if he was ready. Then he quickly add- ed: “I feel like I’ve been ready.” Asked later how he would ap- proach his big league debut, he shrugged, “Just another game.” Facing the toughest lineup of his brief career — the Bisons boasted the International League’s top hitter (Jesus Feli- ciano), two former big league reg- ulars (Mike Jacobs and Russ Ad- ams) and four others with big league experience — Strasburg sometimes had to work hard to navigate his five innings. At times, he struggled with his command, as he went to 2-0 counts to four of the first seven batters he faced, and the Bisons pushed him to full counts eight times. In his lowest moment of the game, he walked the opposing pitcher, Dillon Gee, with two outs in the third, drawing a mound vis- it from Chiefs Manager Trent Jewett. “As polished as he seems and as
Stephen Strasburg in the minors
Harrisburg (AA) Syracuse (AAA) Total
W-L ERA IP H R ER HR BB SO 3-1 1.64 22 13 9 4 0 6 27 4-1 1.08 331 7-2 1.30 551
⁄3 ⁄3
gifted as he is, there’s a lot to learn,” Jewett said. Asked later whether Strasburg is prepared for the majors, he said, “He’s excep- tionally prepared. I think every- one in the organization feels that way. And was he not prepared, I don’t think he’d be going. He’s a well-armed young man.” In his 11 starts, Strasburg aver-
aged 10.6 strikeouts and only 2.1 walks per nine innings. Granted, he was facing minor league hit- ters, but in the past 110 years only three big league pitchers have completed an entire season with both rates as good or better than those: Pedro Martínez (1999, 2000, 2002), Curt Schilling (1997, 2002) and Randy Johnson (2004). Strasburg’s minor league
WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) of .795 has been bettered at the big league level only twice: by Martínez in 2000 (.737) and
18 5 4 1 7 38 31 14 8 1 13 65
Walter Johnson of the Washing- ton Senators in 1913 (.780). Those numbers suggest Stras- burg does not belong in the mi- nors, and perhaps never did in the first place. Another indica- tion: the awe in the voice of the opposing manager. “Why is he here?” Bisons Man-
ager Ken Oberkfell asked, draw- ing a laugh from a media corps number around 25. “I’m im- pressed, very impressed. He’s ma- jor league.” Strasburg returned to Syracuse with the Chiefs after Thursday’s game, and Jewett said he didn’t know when the phenom would leave for Washington. Strasburg has a bullpen side-session sched- uled in Syracuse for Saturday. It could be his last unofficial act with the Chiefs. Strasburg is not much for re- flection, but when asked Thurs-
JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
“He’s exceptionally prepared. I think everyone in the organization feels that way,” Syracuse Chiefs Manager Trent Jewett said of Stephen Strasburg, who also had a fifth-inning single against Buffalo.
day how he would sum up these past eight weeks, as he looks ahead to the future, he bit. “It’s been a pretty big adjust- ment from college,” he said.
“There’s a lot more that goes along with playing professional baseball and being in the position I’m in. It’s been great. I’ve met a lot of great people along the way,
made a lot of great friends. I’ve learned a lot, and I’m excited to start learning up in the big leagues.”
sheinind@washpost.com
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