)]August 28, 2026 [LINK / comment]
After blowing the lead and getting beat by the Marlins in Miami on Friday one week ago, the Washington Nationals ended up getting swept by the host team. The Nats scored 2 runs in all 3 games, while the Marlins improved in each successive game. Starting pitcher Jake Irvin took the loss on Saturday, and rookie Jackson Kent did so on Sunday. Neither was really to blame, however, it was just the lack of run-scoring support by the erstwhile offensive juggernauts of the 2026 season.
Then the Nats returned home to face the Colorado Rockies, and Nationals Park looked banged up from the rock music concerts that had been held there during the team's 9-game road trip. Cade Cavalli was on the mound, and with the Nats' bats being silent in the first four innings, he found himself in the unusual position of being behind 2-0. But in the bottom of the 5th inning, the Nats staged a 5-run rally, adding multiple runs in the next 3 innings as well, and won the game handily, 13-3. Daylen Lile was the offensive spark plug, batting in 5 runs, with a home run to boot. But that reassuring victory carried no momentum with it, as the Nats lost 3-1 on Tuesday and then 13-1 on Wednesday. Andres Chaparro homered to give the Nats a 1-0 lead in the 2nd inning, but the Marlins hit two 2-run homers in the 4th inning, and piled on 9 more runs in the latter innings. To spare his bullpen further agony, manager Blake Butera put infielder Jorbit Vivas on the mound to finish the 8th inning, which was rather ugly, and then the 9th inning. That game had to be one of the real low points of the Nationals' disappointing 2026 season, with a perilous consequence: the 5th-place New York Mets pulled to within just one game of the Nationals in the NL East race! (The Mets were 60-72 after the Tuesday games, and the Nats were 62-72.) But somehow the Nats gathered their wits for the final game of of the series on Thursday afternoon. Starting pitcher Jake Irvin walked the bases loaded in the 1st inning, but got out of it intact. Then the Nats took a quick 2-0 lead on 3 singles and a timely sac fly by Brady House. Daylen Lile and Keibert Ruiz homered in later innings, and the Nationals won it, 7-1, thus splitting the series 2 games apiece. Those were the first games that the Nats had won with somebody other than Cade Cavalli as starting pitcher since Sunday, August 9!
This evening the Nationals welcomed (?) the Miami Marlins to Washington, The Marlins had beaten the Nationals in their last 7 matchups, almost as if they had a secret key to render the Washington players defenseless. But this time the Nats pulled off some "magic tricks" of their own, starting with a wild pitch thrown by Eury Perez in the 3rd inning that allowed 2 Nats baserunners to score. Catcher Joe Mack's throwing error accounted for the second run. That instantly broke the tension in the Nats dugout. Daylen Lile walked, and then Brady House crushed a home run way up beyond the Red Porch seats in left-center field, giving the Nats a 5-1 lead. WOW!! That ball was estimated to have gone 474 feet, one of the longest home runs this year, and one of the longest ones in Nationals Park history!!! In the bottom of the 7th inning, catcher Harry Ford hit a solo homer, and then the Nats piled on 3 more runs, leading to a very satisfying 9-2 victory over the Marlins. Starting pitcher Jackson Kent got his first major league victory, finishing seven innings with 106 total pitches. The promising signs he displayed in his previous three starts were borne out, and he may become part of the Nats' rotation next year! Meanwhile, the Mets lost again, providing the Nats with a bit of breathing room in the race to avoid the proverbial cellar. If the Nats can pull themselves together, they can at least end this big letdown of a season reasonably close to the .500 mark, and maybe even pull ahead of the Marlins to take 3rd place honors. Call me a dreamer...
[Tonight's game was the last of ten Nationals games to be broadcast by Gray Media local TV stations this year. That innovative approach brought Major League Baseball to a wider audience, and is to be warmly applauded. Likewise for the NBC (and Peacock) coverage of MLB games this year, mostly on Sundays. Hopefully both such TV broadcasting arrangements will be repeated next year. (If there IS a next year for baseball, that is... The possibility of a players' strike or a lockout by the owners seems to be growing all the time. )]
This past Sunday, the annual "Little League Classic" game was played at Bowman Field in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. (It's located in the north-central part of the Keystone State.) I was surprised to learn that, since the first such event in 2017, it was the ninth Major League Baseball game to be played there! So I updated the Bowman Field page accordingly. Technically, it is now called "Journey Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field," after a few years of "Muncy Bank Ballpark at Historic Bowman Field" being the formal name. Anyway, the Atlanta Braves beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-2. It was a possible preview of a postseason matchup, with the NL East leading team beating the NL Central leaders.
In another preview of a possible postseason matchup, Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves threw a 9-inning shutout against the L.A. Dodgers in Truist Park last night. In the bottom of the 1st inning, the Braves' Drake Baldwin swung at the first pitch he saw, and he put that ball way up into the right field seats. It was the only run scored in that entire game! Yoshinobu Yamamoto (ERA 2.56) pitched extremely well for 6 1/3 innings, but took the loss nonetheless. A classic pitchers' duel!
Both the Anomalous stadiums page as well as the Stadiums by class page have been updated to account for the awkward transitional status of Sutter Health Park, the demolition of RFK Stadium, the conversion of ex-Turner Field and ex-Globe Life Park to serve as football venues, and a few other recent changes.
Over the weekend, I plan to finish the stadium page updates for Florida, and that will complete the MLB phase of my page update endeavors! (Eventually, I'll do likewise for the many temporary or anomalous stadiums as well. )
The other day I was watching the movie Selena on the Pluto streaming service, and was intrigued by the scenes where the title character (played by a young Jennifer Lopez) was (supposedly) performing a concert in the Astrodome! But it sure didn't look like the Astrodome to me, as the grandstands appeared to be arranged in perpendicular fashion to each other, whereas it should have been a continuous circle. After checking the IMDb website, I learned that those scenes were actually filmed a 125 or so miles to the west of Houston -- in the Alamodome of San Antonio!
Over the past week, both the Kansas City Royals and the Tampa Bay Rays announced stadium deals with local government authorities, and I'll have a lot more to say about that soon.