That’s right – a playoff spot.  CLINCHED.

And the best part is they’re not done yet.  They know that too.  I’m so proud of ALL of them who were interviewed on the postgame show tonight who said that this was merely the first step.  The t-shirts and hats may say “Playoffs”, but they aren’t going to stop until those shirts say “NL East Champions”.

But for now, let’s enjoy it.  Look forward to postseason baseball.

Those of you who follow the First Ladies on Twitter may have noticed a change recently, but for those who only use RSS or visit the blog, we’ve got a surprise for you – we’re moving! Point your bookmarks and RSS feeds over towards our new site – firstladiesofbaseball.com  We have all the same content, just in a sleeker package.

Thanks to our friend Joel (who we actually met at a Nats tweet-up) for designing the new site, and helping us fix the bugs. 

And there’s nothing like watching the offense work together when things are going well.  We got to witness Bryce Harper hustle out his first MLB triple, and then watch as Ryan Zimmerman sacrificed to bring him home and give the Nats the early lead (spoiler alert: they never lost it).  It’s good to see the Face of the Franchise working with the Young Gun to make big things happen.

We got to see home runs.  LOTS of home runs.  There was Ian Desmond leading off the third with a solo shot.  And then in the sixth, we got to watch Adam LaRoche and Xavier Nady hit back-to-back bombs.

Later in the game, with the bases loaded, LaRoche would hit a 3-RBI double to earn his 1000th major league hit.  Great stuff.

And while the Pirates kept up and were within 1 run for most of the game, everyone on the team played their part to close things out for a curly-W.

On a personal note – the fact that it was Military Appreciation night was special for me.  In addition to my brother, my younger sister joined us for the game.  She’s been in the Navy for 5 years now, and loved being able to come see her hometown Nats for free (and having an excuse to wear the camo Nats cap)!  Spending a perfect night for baseball with my siblings is about as nice a thing as anyone could ask for.

Full photo set from this game can be found here.
And thanks to my bro for playing Jimmy Olsen to my Lois Lane. 

This past weekend was about Natitude.  What is Natitude?  Well, let’s do a photo essay as a demonstration of what it is based on who has it.  Before the game started, warming up in right field, Jayson Werth was confronted with a crowd of Phillies fans who had bought tickets near him with the sole intent of taunting him during the game.  What was his response?  A tip of the cap.  That’s Natitude.  Follow that up with a three-run bomb in the bottom of the fifth.  Extra Natitude. 

Who else?  Let’s go with the player of the player of the game – Gio Gonzalez.  Not only did he pitch seven solid innings, he had a double in the fifth and scored on Jayson Werth’s home run.  The best part is seeing Gio smile at his offensive success.  Good stuff.

Natitude also means an offensive bonanza.  Not only did we get the Werth homer, but we got one from Desmond…

And another from Chad Tracy.  The long ball executed multiple times against a hated division rival is SERIOUS Natitude.  So much so that it meant that it got the Nats a 7-1 win.  Well done!

And it wasn’t just the players.  This game was on Cinco de Mayo.  In Section 135, this fan in the custom sombrero (a party-store spray-paint job) showed some serious Natitude in leading the crowd with their cheers.

Full face paint means you’re full of Natitude.

And even the kids have the spirit.  And just because the official Natitude Weekend is over, that doesn’t mean we can’t keep packing the park as fans and showing our support for this team.  We’ll see you back at the park next week!

Full album here.

On Friday, Drew and I headed down to Natitude Park to watch the baseball game. Yup, Natitude Park. Every reference inside the stadium, from the scoreboard to the directional signs, had been changed for the weekend. Totally cheesy? Absolutely. Useful? Well, as of right now, the Nats are up 2-0 in the series.

Although I definitely saw Phillies fans, there certainly weren’t as many of them as there have been in years past. They also weren’t able to dominate the stands. We had a rowdy group sitting in our section, and although they tried, they couldn’t get any cheers to catch on. There were just too many Nats fans!

But how was the baseball you ask?

Well, it turned out to be a perfect night. There were scattered showers around DC all day, but they stayed away for all 11(!) inning of play. Oh, and the moon was out too.

Things were heated from the start – the first three Phillies batters were quickly dispatched, and the Nats took a turn at bat. Bryce Harper was walked, and the Phillies manager came out to argue the call. With no umpire at third to check the call at the plate, Charlie Manuel was quickly tossed (there were only three umps for the whole game – one called in sick).

After that, the umps did a decent job until they robbed us of a run in the 8th! (My untrained eyes clearly saw Ankiel safe at home).

In addition to pitching, we saw Strasburg hit a double in the 3rd. He made it all the way to third with the bases loaded before Werth struck out to end the inning. The Nats got lots of players on base, but had trouble actually get them home. Hence, it took 11 inning to get the job done.

I sincerely hope that the Nats continue to do well and can get people to come to games. It’s a different ballpark with the stands full. The high school girls behind us were especially amusing, going from “Look, it’s Harper! He’s so dreamy!” to explaining things like bunts and balks to a friend who tagged along.

Go Nats!

More pictures here.

See that post HERE!

And now we leave the first month, and we start to have some real data to work with instead of merely making guesses based on limited opportunities.  But because I’m not REALLY a baseball math person, I called up someone who is – Drew, husband of First Lady Ashley, who also writes a stats blog called Crunching Through My Day.  We’re going to try something new this month, and depending on how things go…this could be a semi-regular thing.  Let us know what you think, and we’ll see what happens.

The next month is going to be the Nats first real challenge.  Everyone said that their opening schedule was one where they had a chance to dominate, and clearly they did since they sit tied for first at the top of the NL leaderboard.  What we’re going to do is go series-by-series and using Maggie’s guts and Drew’s computer programs, try to predict how things will look by the end of the month.  We’ll address the first four teams the Nats will face in today’s post on FLoB, and the back half’s opponents tomorrow on Crunching Through My Day.

Arizona Diamondbacks – 5/1-3

Maggie:
Currently, the DBacks sit in the middle of the NL West with a record of #-#.  After this series, the next time they’ll see the Nats is the middle of August, once things get interesting.  Last year the Nats were 2-5 against the D-backs who finished 1st in the NL West with a record of 94-68.  With that history and the back end of our rotation facing Arizona, Maggie predicts: 1-2.

Drew:
The Dbacks are an enigma to me since I hear so little about them.  Looking at the #s this will be an interesting series for the Nats. Arizona’s pitching looks awful, allowing 1.09 HR/9 and a 4.01 FIP. 290 BABIP. The Pirates aren’t that bad.  However, their offense seems better than most.  This should be a real series with the Nats pitching strength pitted against their offense and their poor pitching against our abysmal offense.  After the series with the Dodgers, I’m going to say that our offense won’t get it done here.  One upping Maggie and saying a sweep.

Philadelphia Phillies – 5/4-6, 21-23

Pittsburgh Pirates – 5/8-10, 16-17Maggie:
The Pirates are a team that I always feel bad for.  They haven’t had a winning season since 1992, and they’ve been dumped on for so long in a way that the Nationals only had to endure for a few seasons.  They’ll face off for a three game series in Pittsburgh, followed by a 2 game series a week later in DC.  Maggie says 2-1 for the first series, and 1-1 for the second, leaving a prediction of 3-2 for the month.

Drew:
I agree with you Maggie. Despite the fact that Sid Bream sliding into home is still the most exciting baseball moment of my life (Braves win! Braves win!), I feel bad for the Pirates.  Even for a bad team, they’re underperforming.  The Pirates pitching is ok but their offense atrocious, falling near the bottom in BABP, H, HR, and K%. Pair that against the Nationals pitching and  I’m calling for a sweep in the first series and a split in the second.   Assuming the Nats actually hit, that is.

Cincinnati Reds – 5/11-13

Maggie:
The Nats played the Reds as their first home stand of the year and took 3 of 4.  If the Nats stay on top of their game, I bet we’ll see another win…even if they are playing this series in Ohio.  Maggie predicts: 2-1.

Drew:
While the Nats took 3 of 4 from the Reds at home, they got lucky.  Going into the 8^th  inning of each game, the Nats’ win probability was 94.8, 21.6,  94.2, and 50.0.   Games 1, 2, and 4 went into extra innings and the Nats lost the last one. The Nats could have easily lost the first two of those games and we’d be looking at a very different season right now.  While the Reds haven’t been outstanding, they’ve got a core that’s as good as the Nats. I’m afraid the ball is going to bounce their way in the series. I’m going to be a downer here and say the baseball gods will smile on the Reds with a sweep.

We’ll finish up the rest of our thoughts tomorrow on Crunching Through My Day.  Be sure to check back for the thrilling finale (haha) where we reveal how we think the Nats will finish out the month.

There is always something in the news about baseball, and the First Ladies usually don’t mention it here. However, we can’t let this week go by without saying farewell to Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez. Pudge retired yesterday after 20 years playing professional baseball.

Even though we only had him in Washington for two years (and didn’t have enough chances to watch him play due to injuries), he was one of our favorite players. Even approaching the end of his career, he could still grab the ball and rocket it to 2nd to score an out.

So, good luck in all of your future endeavors Pudge – we’ll miss you!

So Edwin Jackson started out well – he had a strikeout to start the game.  But then he allowed 6 runs on base, and 5 of those runners scored.  Ouch.  Luckily, after that he pitched another 4 innings of 1-2-3 out baseball to make things less painful for the Nats fans in attendance.

Helping EJax out was the offense.  Adam LaRoche had some great base running in the second inning (assisted by a wild pitch, and a big hit by Wilson Ramos), and then Ryan Zimmerman came through in a big way in the third with his first HR of the season.  This brought the score to Astros 5, Nationals 4, and it seemed like a comeback was in the works!

Unfortunately, this is when things got confusing.  At the top of the 6th, before his spot in the hitting rotation had even come up, Jackson was taken out of the game in favor of Tom Gorzelanny.  This proved to be a big mistake, because Gorzelanny allowed 5 runs in the 6th inning, and another in the 7th, bringing the score to 11-4 Astros (the score which would prove to be the final).  Does anyone out there have any idea what happened?

It was National High Five Day at the park, which was pretty cool, because I’m a fan of high-fives.  Not so cool was the complaining by a guy sitting behind me.  He went on for about 15 minutes about how there are no real Nationals fans because no one is actually from the Washington area, and that it was pathetic that the stadium was empty.  Two things: there are plenty of people who are Washington-area natives (myself included), and if you consider that there was a Caps playoff game that night (a weeknight), and some people may be holding off on attending games until they figure out if this Nats team is for real.

So – you’re all Nats fans – what do you think?  Is this complainer right?  How many Washington DC-area natives do you know that are fans of the local baseball team?  Do you think attendance will pick up later in the season?

Full album here.

I have a very busy spring ahead of me, and this last Saturday wasn’t much different.  I had three items on my agenda: visiting the zoo in the morning, baseball game in the afternoon (main goal: Strasburg bobblehead), and birthday party in the evening.  Since my afternoon and evening agendas overlapped quite a bit, I had to split my time.  This meant arriving early for the game in order to guarantee getting a bobblehead, and leaving about halfway through to make my next event.  But the time I had at the ballgame allowed me to get in some quality portions of the game, and to appreciate what’s happening with the Nationals this season.

Before the game even started I was hanging out with some Nats fans (including @tracytran, who sold me my ticket), talking about the team, and what we thought of the way things were going so far, and our hopes for the future.  In the middle of that discussion, we were approached by the Nat Pack who asked if we wanted to participate in a trivia game on NatsHD.  Tracy and I agreed, and played “Ross or Ryan” (Detweiler or Mattheus) with Clint.  Apart from the first question (who wears #48?), most of the answers were not things that either of us readily knew because Ryan Mattheus and Ross Detweiler aren’t given the Tiger Beat treatment the way that Zimmerman and Strasburg are.  Through sheer luck (50/50!), I ended up winning the game, and was given a prize pack which included a knit cap, a frosty mug and an Ian Desmond bobblehead.  Since I already had a Desmond bobblehead, I gave mine to Tracy so he could complete his collection.

On to the game – we sat up in section 222, which has a nice view along the first base line, but not so far in the outfield that it’s hard to see.  We were a little worried after the top of the second when the Reds scored their first run, but with some timely walks, a hit by Flores and great base-running by Jayson Werth, things were tied up 1-1 at the end of that inning.  In the third inning, LaRoche smacked a double and batted in two runs that would be enough for the Nats to win.

The third inning is also when I think the crowd started to notice that Jackson was pitching really well.  With the exception of the 8th, he would continue to take down the Reds hitters in order, 1-2-3.  It was really an impressive outing, and I’m sad that I didn’t get to see all of it.  And while I’m praising Jackson’s performance, I think now is the time to mention my ESP.  During the third or fourth inning, I turned to Tracy and said, “Since Gio had his first hit ever at the home opener, I think Edwin should get a hit in this game to balance things out.”  I had promised myself I would stay through the president’s race, and so was actually walking towards the metro when I heard the cheers for Jackson as he made his first hit of the year!

And that’s it.  I watched the end of the game in awe from the bar where the birthday party was being held.  I actually drew the attention of the entire table to what was happening when I noticed that Jackson was still pitching in the 8th.  I’m pleased to report that after his amazing complete game, everyone at the table was talking about the Nats and the fantastic start to the season they were off to.  And because I have no pictures from the bar, here are a few more pics from the game.

Full album can be found here.

N.B. – I held off on writing this post until I had time, which meant I had the opportunity to go to Jackson’s second outing at Nats Park on Thursday which wasn’t quite as good.  I’ll address that game in a post tomorrow.