By Yours Truly
https://throneberryfields.blogspot.com/2018/08/cardinals-dejong-bangs-nats-gong.html
A solo's as good as a salami when DeJong walks it off
for the Cardinals . . .Believe it or not, the Nationals don't always lose on walkoff grand slams. When the moment is wrong, they can lose on solo walkoffs, too. And perhaps no moment was more wrong than Monday night in St. Louis.
The Nats have lost a few walkoffs this year. They lost one in June when Atlanta's Charlie Culberson hit a two-run homer off Tanner Roark. They lost one to the Phillies to open July when Andrew Knapp caught hold of one off Justin Miller.
Losing one to the Brewers in late July must have seemed like a mistake---the game-losing hit was a measly sacrifice fly. So must the one they lost to the Marlins a few days later---a mere game-losing single. Not exactly the Nats' current style.
But when the Cubs' David Bote ripped a game-losing grand slam off an ailing Ryan Madson Sunday night, it hit the Nats where it really hurt. Helluva way to end a weekend in Wrigley Field and move further on down the road, where their first assignment Monday night was to keep the suddenly surging Cardinals from doing unto them what they'd have preferred doing unto others.
Paul DeJong, the Cardinals' shortstop, had something to say about that when he led off the bottom of the ninth.
Bad enough that Nats reliever Koda Glover fell behind to DeJong 3-1 opening the bottom of the ninth. It was worse when DeJong hit the next pitch over the left field fence to end it 7-6, Cardinals.
How nice it must feel to the Cardinals that they're back in the races. Possibly to stay. That's now a 17-9 Cardinal streak since manager Mike Matheny was walked off the plank and bench coach Mike Shildt was handed the bridge.
The Cardinals are pretty good at walking things off this year, and doing it the long way while they're at it. They had nine walkoff wins, six by the bomb squad, before DeJong launched to make it ten for the National League lead. Busch Stadium went just as nuts as DeJong rounded the bases as the Friendly Confines did when Bote went salami Sunday night.
This time the Nats didn't let a virtuoso pitching start go to waste. This time, they forged a 4-2 lead after six and a half despite starter Tommy Milone's four and a third innings of ten-hit ball but only two earned Cardinal runs coming on a first-inning RBI single and a fourth-inning sacrifice fly.
But they did waste Ryan Zimmerman's second-inning RBI double, Bryce Harper's magnificent leadoff at-bat in the fourth that ended on the tenth pitch with a drive over the right center field wall, and rookie superman Juan Soto's first-pitch two-run bomb in the seventh.
Jedd Gyorko going long solo and Matt Carpenter---adding to a 31-game on-base streak---going long for three in the bottom of the eighth can do that for you. So could DeJong himself starting the top of the eighth-ending double play which kept the Nats from padding that 4-2 lead while they still had it.
And what were the thanks Daniel Murphy and Matt Wieters got for re-tying the game at six on the dollar of Cardinals closer Bud Norris? Glover feeding DeJong a fastball so fat that if he didn't drive it Shildt might have fined him heavily for looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
Said Glover after it ended: "He definitely got my ass." Bright boy.
DeJong isn't exactly new to the walkoff. He hit a pair of game-ending bombs and a game-ending double when he was in double-A ball. "Those don't count," he said. "This is the only one that counts."
"I don't know what else to do," mourned Nats manager Dave Martinez after DeJong banked the Cardinals' win.
He seemed to speak specifically of Sammy Solis throwing Carpenter the unsinkable sinker that got sunk off the left center field seats, after the skipper himself didn't think about ordering Solis to walk Carpenter with first base open after a wild pitch. But it applied to his entire bullpen, who got sunk for five earned runs to the Cardinal bullpen's pair, after the Nats pried four out of Cardinal starter Miles Mikolas.
Once upon a time the Nats thought they had the bullpen settled with Sean Doolittle, Madson, and Kelvim Herrera taking the late-game loads. Doolittle's foot and, subsequently, the inconsistent Herrera's shoulder, put them both on the disabled list. Then Madson complained of back pains shooting down his leg while he pitched Sunday.
And scrap heap signing Greg Holland---with Herrera and the Rockies' Wade Davis, the former H-D-H bullpen for back-to-back Royals World Series teams---is still pitching like the scrap heap the Cardinals finally unloaded this year.
Martinez might ask general manager Mike Rizzo how to help keep bigger late inning men off the disabled list, and how to keep himself from purging first and asking questions later. (Brandon Kintzler, now a Cub; Shawn Kelley, now an Athletic.) All things considered, alas, questions like those might bring Martinez answers he doesn't want to hear.
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