1997 Circa #230 Ricky Bottalico

Nationals 7, Phillies 5
Game 104 - Saturday Night, July 31st in Washington

Game summary posts were written throughout the past week while I was away on vacation, and without my baseball cards. (Or a scanner for that matter.)

Phillies' postgame analyst Ricky Bottalico was angry. Brad Lidge had just blown his 4th save of the year, serving up a 92 mile per hour meatball to Ryan Zimmerman, resulting in a 3-run home run and a Nationals' walk-off win. The loss wasted an opportunity to gain a game on the Braves, who had lost earlier in the day. I was angry right along with Bottalico, but I thought it a little odd that someone who had blown his share of saves back in the day (21 as a Phillie) would be so harsh on the current Phillies' closer.

In any event, the latest Lidge melt-down erased what could have been a feel-good come from behind victory. Joe Blanton started the game and recorded the first two outs before allowing 3 Nationals runs in the 1st. The Phils scratched back with a run in the 4th and another in the 6th on Carlos Ruiz' solo home run. They tied it up in the 7th on Raul Ibañez' 2-run home run (his 10th), and they took the lead in the 9th on a clutch 2-out single from Ruiz. And then Lidge came in and Bottalico got angry. (Maybe I would have been angrier if I wasn't on vacation at the time. Vacation Jim tends to shrug these types of things off.)

Other Game Stuff: This was the first game all year in which Ryan Howard's name was not in the starting line-up. Howard is in the midst of an 0 for 14 slump, with 8 strikeouts, and the manager deemed this as good a night as any for a breather for the Big Piece. Todd Zolecki tweeted this stat during the game: Joe Blanton's ERA in the 1st inning this season: 7.94. 2nd through 5th innings: 3.36. 6th inning and later: 12.00. Domonic Brown made an amazingly gutsy catch in the 6th inning, running at full speed, leaping and catching a line drive off the bat of Ian Desmond at full extension.