Game 31 - 2007 Topps Heritage Then and Now #TN7 Richie Ashburn & Ichiro

Nationals 7, Phillies 3
Game 31 - Friday Night, May 4th in Washington
Record - 17-14, 3rd place, 2 games behind the Mets

One Sentence Summary:  The Nationals jumped on Nick Pivetta early, going up 7-0 after two innings, and the Phillies couldn't recover.

What It Means:  The Phillies have lost 4 of their last 6, which is horrible timing considering they've reached a stretch of their schedule where they're playing teams within their division.

What Happened:  Pivetta was chased after the first inning and Drew Hutchison provided effective long-man relief with five innings of work.  Bryce Harper hit two home runs for the Nationals.  Carlos Santana (3) and Maikel Franco (5) hit back-to-back home runs in the sixth.

2007 Topps Update #UH279

Featured Cards:  With the recent announcement that Ichiro Suzuki would be stepping away from baseball, I wanted to revisit the legend's Phillies-related baseball cards.  Ichiro is one of only a few non-Phillies players to appear on a Chachi card as the vast majority of the Chachi checklist features players with some Phillies connection.  I made a card of Ichiro's sole pitching performance, which we watched at Citizens Bank Park during the final game of the 2015 season.

There are two Phillies-related Ichiro cards in my baseball card collection.  The first, featured at the top of this post, is a Then and Now insert from the 2007 Topps Heritage set pairing Phillies legend Richie Ashburn with Ichiro.  The second, featured at right, is a bizarre pairing of Ichiro and Chase Utley within the 2007 Topps Update set and given the stretch of a "Classic Combo" title.  We didn't get to see Ichiro play that often, given he spent the majority of his career in Japan and Seattle, but whenever we did get to see him play I made sure to pay attention.