Washington Nationals: Victims of Cowboy Joe West’s Indecision
By Ron Juckett
A series of bad decisions Sunday turned the Washington Nationals loss into a mockery. Thank Mother Nature and Umpire Joe West.
The Washington Nationals not only battled the Atlanta Braves Sunday, but the elements and Joe West.
On a weekend that made fans uneasy for the playoffs ahead, the Nats dropped two of three on their last trip ever to Turner Field.
With the New York Mets taking all three games from the Minnesota Twins up at Citi Field, the Nationals magic number to clinch the National League East sits at six.
It is one thing to lose to a team still fighting as they play out the string. Nats fans saw enough of Ender Inciarte and Adonis Garcia for a lifetime at the top of the Braves lineup. What turned Sunday into a farce was not the Braves team, but the grounds crew and West.
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Rain delays happen. The forecast before the start was bad. Heavy rain fell in the morning in Downtown Atlanta and skies were heavy and foggy throughout most of the game. The game had playoff implications as the Nats are not only trying to win the division, but keep a better record than the Los Angeles Dodgers for home field in their upcoming NL Divisional Series.
There was a window to get the game in, but only if it went quick. With added rosters, you knew that would never happen.
Trailing 3-1 in the top of the sixth when the first rain delay struck, the Washington Nationals had the tying run at the plate with Bryce Harper. That delay took an hour and seven minutes. Honestly, the game should never have restarted.
Not because the Nationals were doomed, but anyone with a working knowledge of how radar looks could see there was no chance this game would ever finish. As a music festival elsewhere downtown evacuated, the Braves, Nats, and the umpires waited.
When they restarted shortly before 4:30, the opportunity between storms was short. They played in a driving rain, making the seventh-inning stretch “God Bless America” opera singer stand with a microphone in his hand as Dusty Baker challenged an out call. As the man stood getting soaked in his tuxedo, the silliness of the day became apparent.
Anyone realized not named Joe West that this time was it. Beat writers Tweeted radar pictures with giant red blobs heading towards Turner Field. Yet in the second delay, we waited and waited. The sun came back out, and the field prepped. Instead of making the most of that short window to at least give Washington a chance to bat in the eighth, the field sat empty.
Shortly after seven, as cats and dogs fell from the sky, the game was called. Almost six hours after the first pitch.
The weather itself was not infuriating. The process of deciding when to call it a day was. As important as it is to cram as much baseball into a window as possible, not making it clear to both sides what was going on was stupid. When the rain struck again, the game should have been called.
Why everyone waited around for two more hours as the field became unplayable is only known to West. A crew chief, he should know better.