Sunday: MINNESOTA 6 Washington 3 ESPN Boxscore
Saturday: WASHINGTON 3 Minnesota 1 ESPN Boxscore
Friday: WASHINGTON 8 Minnesota 5 ESPN Boxscore
It was a pretty good weekend for the Nationals. They took the first two games against the Twins (nee Senators) to win the series.
As good a weekend as it was for the Nats, it was an even better weekend for former Twins.
Yesterday, a Dimitri Young home run was overturned, something I haven’t seen since Memorial Day 2005. The apparent 2 run lead was gone and the Twins started scoring runs. Mike Bascik fell to 1-3.
Twins Avoid Sweep Against Nats – The Post
Foul call does in Nationals – The Wash. Times
The Nats did better on Saturday behind the pitching of former Twins farmhand Levale Speigner. The Rule 5 draftee had his finest start, holding Minnesota to two hits over six innings before yielding to the bullpen. I’m really happy for Speigner, he needed that game. The pitcher he beat — Johan Santana. The Nats know how to beat the best; why not the mediocre and bad?
Speigner, Nats Have A Surprise – The Post
Speigner outduels Santana – The Wash. Times
Friday night the Nats won 8-5 behind Jason Simontacchi’s solid outing.
Washington Stops Its Former Team – The Post
Nationals offense prospers in dome – The Wash. Times
Other notes:
Young and Cristian Guzman are white hot grease fires of pure offense (The Wash. Times) these days, getting a hit every other time they are at bat. It is a good thing they are hitting so well lately, because Felipe Lopez is mired in a 2-37 slump (The Post) from the leadoff position.
While he went 0-5 in the DH role (The Wash. Times) yesterday, Ryan Zimmerman has a lot of RBIs of late. I believe I saw a graphic on MASN that indicated he led the league in RBIs over a recent time frame.
Speaking of MASN, Bob Carpenter wasn’t around this weekend and Don Sutton won’t be this week. Johnny Holiday filled in on the play-by-play and I expect Ray Knight to do color.
The Nats have today off, then head up to Balmer for a three game series with the Orioles. I’ll kick off Hate Angelo$ Week later today or tomorrow. Don’t even think about buying a ticket up there (more later).
Speaking of villany, let’s not forget why Calvin Griffith moved the original Nationals/Senators:
“I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ballgames, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. We came here because you’ve got good, hardworking white people here.”
That sounds a lot different than what he wrote in 1958 (as mentioned in a Post obit), doesn’t?
“I have lived in Washington, D.C. for about 35 years. I attended school here and established many roots here. The city has been good to my family and me. This is my home. I intend that it shall remain my home for the rest of my life. As long as I have any say in the matter, and I expect that I shall for a long, long time, the Washington Senators will stay here, too. Next year. The year after. Forever.”
The Twins went on to win the 1965 AL pennant. If they had been the Senators then, I think I would have had a ballclub when I was growing up, though maybe we were better off without him.