Game 59: Nationals 6 Pirates 5

See, now if we had won this game, it would've been a good win. Instead, we can file it away as another shitty loss. I mean, Zach Duke did his "I'll give up five runs and look like a crappy pitcher" thing and we were behind 5-1, but Adam LaRoche gained a measure of revenge on the world for being called out on a bogus interference call earlier in the game and launched a three-run homer to tie things up. And that set the stage for Salomon Torres.

But you know what? It's really hard to blame Torres for this loss. I mean, infield singles aren't really ever the pitcher's fault unless they directly cause them. And on his walk of Austin Kearns, the home plate umpire literally flinched on a perfect 2-1 pitch that was right down the heart of the plate. Instead of a 2-2 count, it was a 3-1 count and Kearns walked. I mean yeah, the wild pitch is his fault, the walk is partially his fault, but it's really hard to hang this loss on him like some of the other ones this year. They say that a team's record in one run games comes down to mostly luck, which is why lots of teams hover around .500. That ninth inning sure felt like bad luck to me.

Oh, and Nady left this one early with what is hopefully a not-so-serious hamstring injury. Talk about bad luck. I was just starting to think he was getting a clue against right-handed pitching.