good nights at the ballpark

This weekend the Nats were home against the Cardinals, and with several Cardinals friends in town I went to two games. Somehow they are over .500 at home (their road winning percentage is a dismal .333), and the two games I attended were great.

Thursday was Allen's birthday so a bunch of us went and sat at tables in the restaurant in left-center. The weather was merciful - it was neither humid nor overly hot - and the Nats played fairly well. They were up two going into the top of the ninth and managed to give up four, but came back in the bottom of the ninth with a two run home run to send it into extra innings. In the bottom of the 13th they got an infield hit for the win, and even Lelaine thought it was pretty exciting.

Then last night another Allen- and Heather-organized group went to the game. We had nice seats in row R about two sections down from first base. As they often do, the Nats found themselves down early, but this time they battled back and ended up winning 15-4, which included a couple controversial calls taking runs off the board for the home team for interference, the Nats first base coach getting thrown out of the game, a Nats pitcher getting tossed from the dugout, and a three run home run from Adam Dunn. And I did a lot of shouting at Pujols, given his appearance at the Glen Beck-Sarah Palin moron convention on the mall earlier in the day to "restore honor" (where did it go?).

While the team is struggling overall - they were swept by the Cubs the series before and they are 9.5 games behind the second-to-last place team in the division - we had two nice nights at the ballpark...for me at least, not so much for Doug, Allen, and Heather.