NATS RISE TO GLORY game forty

(rabid celebration of another "moment")

Yesterday, the Yankees came to DC. As any ol' asshole anywhere on earth probably knows, they are the most famous and successful baseball team there is. The Nats are hoping to get to their first ever World Series. Their First Ever. That's a big psychic disparity. However, due to recent run of hot-stepping, both Nats and Yankees came into this game with equal records of 22-17, for first of quick 2-game test series (perhaps preview of things to come?)
Game started well, as bottom of 1st both Ian Desmond and Bryce Harper went deep on solo blasts, putting the homeboys up 2-0. (Harper's 15th of the year, if you were like "holy fuck how many HRs has that dude hit already?"). But then Gio Gonzalez got a little too Gio-ey there in the middle of the boxscore, and ALL OF A SUDDEN the Nats were down 6-2. "Classic Nats defeat, ride out the rest of the game, play again tomorrow" crossed my mind as I paid attention through a robot device. This ragtag bullpen took over though, and a stokey lil offense got 3 back on the bottom of the 5th, and then Wilson Ramos (perhaps I have failed to mention how much I love Wilson Ramos... this seems shameful on my part, and I will attend to this briefly) tied it up with his own solo blast in 6th.

Let us be clear - pitchers are their own instruments, who do what they do. But Wilson Ramos has developed into the competent as fuck yet chill type catcher who is able to successfully navigate these moody instruments, and make solid shit happen regularly. (Don't forget how shitty Strasborg has been, and yet he's 3-4.) Let us never forget when Ramos was a young hot possibility for the future and he was abducted briefly in his home nation-state of Venezuela, but was released and talked of how his abductors laughed at his pain, "but whatever, I am alive so let's see what the fuck happens now, why don't we?" (That is a paraphrase.)

The last trimester of this game was nothing - no runs, so the game hung tied at 6 moving into BONUS INNINGS! Bonus innings suck, because they feel twice as slow, twice as molasses-y, and when the other team does shit, it makes you feel hopeless as a home team. At least when at home you can just end it, and be done, and those are wonderful moments (which sometimes become "moments"). Nats bullpen held the Yankees at bay, and bottom of the 10th. Yunel Escobar got on-base, setting up The Ultimate Harper PERHAPS BLASTING THIS ONE INTO GRAND FINALE, but it was not to be, as he was outed. Up comes Ryan Zimmerman, who is none too shabby a ball player, and as I've mentioned before about as close to being a Matt Williams as a 2015 player could probably be, and well, though he faced a late inning specialist from the Yankees who according to a news tidbit I just read had only allowed 3 hits in 70 batters faced, Zimm jacked a fastball beyond this particular game's ability to continue itself, and came around the bases with a glorious jumping stomp of the home plate, and the Nats were better than the most famous and successful team in baseball history. They beat them tonight, they also went one up on them in standings, and even more importantly - due to the Mets losing - were tied for first in the NL East for the first time this season. Another "moment" with both immediate and larger psychic implications. I would be lying if I said I wasn't starting to become intoxicated by this team of Nationals. I would also be lying if I didn't admit I hate the fucking Yankees and wish not only ill upon their current team but I wish we could somehow burn all heritage of their greatness from our collective memories and wipe them from existence so that they are instead like the Houston Astros or maybe worse. But I am a vengeful and angry-souled man.

Nats are 23-17.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game thirty-one

So, finally back to .500, now the Nationals on Saturday were allowed the strange notion of going into a game, thinking, "Hey, we could actually go above .500." This has only happened two other games this season thus far, and one of those was opening day. Doug Fister (lol) gave a solid start, and midway through this nice Saturday in DC, Nats were up 6-1, looking like they could maybe idle their way into the above-.500 column for the first time in 2015.
But then fuck, nothing is ever easy with these guys. The fuckin' wheels came off Fister and the defense, partially in the 7th, more so in the 8th, and by the time the Nats got off the field to bat in the bottom of the 8th, 6-1 had become 6-6, and this had all the hallmarks of yet another classic Nationals collapse, of which they have earned a reputation both in the individual games as well as the larger sense. Shit looked fucked. All this talent (allegedly) brought together, under the guise of winning at least a World Series, perhaps more. But what of the year they shut Strasborg down? But what of the crumble of severe nature against the Cardinals two years ago? Is this team shook, at a deep psychic level, and unable to achieve? No runs in 8th, or top of 9th, game still hung in that 6-6 balance, so easy to assume, "Fuck, here we go into extra innings, where things will get ugly in some bizarre snakebitten way."
Except there is a man on, with one out, and up to the plate steps The Ultimate Harper - a young man, perhaps a God in a Farmboy's Body, who embodies that potential more than anything else in a Nationals uniform. He could be this generation's Barry Bonds (minus the controversy hopefully) or he could just be another power hitter amongst a thousand. A fanbase drunk off alcohol and sunshine but also sobered by the harsh reality of Washington sports fandom, specific to this team but also the overall glut of quality successes for an American city this size, hung in the balance, wondering would they happily go home and get drunker and fuck and make babies to name Bryce, or would it be another failure in a long line of failures and they'd go home and do Mother's Day shit tomorrow and then go back to work on Monday and life would just go on, no glory no dopamine sports release just on and on with boring mundane life, but not forever, because we all fuckin' die in the end.
Then BAMM - Bryce jacks one that was gone the moment wood struck ball, and not only was the game's tie untied, but all that heavy emotional weight hovering over the stadium with all those individuals, feeling these psychic pressures and perhaps being forced to face their own post-industrial somewhat meaningless mortality - it dissipated in the moment. Single HR ball to end game, inject dopamine into thousands of brains, lift collective spirits, and (momentarily) avoid the sometimes depressing nature of suffering life the way humans have it. That is the Ultimate Harper's power.
Not only this, but for the first time this season of much hyped promise, the Nats were above .500. They were a winning team. The stumbles and struggles and strangely sore elbows and whatever elses - none of it stopped them from still being a winning team. This walk-off HR was another "moment", and in these "moments", momentum is gained. Not physical momentum you can measure with scientific devices in laboratory settings, but that unexplainable yet undeniable metaphysical momentum. This is a team that is gaining momentum, hopefully enough to sustain their movement deep into October.
Nats were 16-15.

NATS RISE TO GLORY game fourteen

A stupidly long baseball season is full of all sorts of moments, and some of those moments are brighter than others, which accumulate into a mental checklist of "moments". Those "moments" are in turn sorted through when a team actually makes a true and living Rise to Glory, for essential Moments. Thus in all the mundane minutes, you acquire:

moments < "moments" < Moments = Glory.

Last night's game against the Cardinals ended with what I will arbitrarily and with the self-important confidence of an internet person declare the Nationals first "moment" of this season. It was about what you'd expect from a Nationals/Cardinals game - plodding, crafty, threats never being realized. Don't forget this is the Cardinals franchise that not only defeated the Nats in the playoffs two years ago but punked them psychically and broke their spirit, which honestly they've never overcome yet in playoffs. It is a psychic albatross they will still have to cleanse themselves of. But it's a tie game going into extra innings, one of those 1-1 games that to a non-fan you'd go, "One to one? Fuck that." But if you like to sit around drinking cough syrup for leisure and listening to games on internet radio, it was classic baseballing. Top of the tenth, no runs (naturally). Bottom of tenth, two outs, and on comes Yunel Escobar, Cuban emigre to the U.S. to play the baseball, not long after Cuban/U.S. relations thawed for the first time in like half a century. First pitch, Escobar jacks over the fence for walk-off HR victory. The team of course is waiting to mob him at home plate as he rounds, as Cardinals pitcher sheepishly wanders off field, and instead of traditional leaping stomp of home for bearhugs from professional friends all around, Escobar slides headfirst into home, immediately mobbed by smiling faces raining Gatorade splashes in every direction. It was a "moment". It was a very small early season slice of psychic confidence against the team that punked them previously in long-term life. It was the Nationals first time reaching .500 this season. It was hopefully the first "moment" building towards even better Moments.
Nats are 7-7.