Nationals manager Dave Martinez waved a photo of his recurring nightmare — the obstruction noncall at first base at Minute Maid Park in Houston — at reporters Wednesday night after another one-run loss.
The nonlinear base running that gave the Astros a 5-4 win looked a lot like when Trea Turner tried the same thing for the Nationals in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series against these same Astros — only Turner was called for obstruction.
This time it was the Astros runner — Jake Meyers — heading for first base when he was hit by the fielder’s throw.
Switch the uniforms (and reverse the umpire’s call), and Wednesday looks like a replay of the play from 2019.
The other big difference? Martinez was not thrown out this time. He didn’t have a chance to get tossed, the call led to the game-winning run crossing the plate in the bottom of the ninth. Game over.
Martinez went after home plate umpire Jeremy Riggs after the game, and, after getting zero in the way of a reasonable explanation, made up for it in his postgame press conference.
“I’m over this play!” Martinez said, holding up a printed paper with the photo that was his evidence. “Seriously, they need to fix the rule. If this is what the umpires see, as he’s running down the line? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of it. Fix it! We lost the game, and (Riggs) had nothing to say about it, because he can’t make the right call. Brutal! Brutal!”
Martinez had every right to be angry, but that anger may have gone deeper than another ironic call going against the Nationals in Houston.
Martinez had just watched his team lose another one-run game — their 13th of the season.
Those razor-thin losses take a lot out of a team that, quite honestly, needs every win within its grasp as it fights to keep from falling into the abyss.
A 26-40 record is on the way to a fast fall downward, and with it, the attention fades from the brave, competitive, overachieving Nationals to the patchwork team general manager Mike Rizzo put together after being handcuffed by the owners, who would love for someone to take this franchise off their hands.
Rizzo did an admirable job with an $80 payroll — not like the Pirates’ young, competitive $72 million payroll, but one that relies significantly on spare parts and rejects.
The Nationals are not a team built to dig its way out of a double-digit under .500 deficit. It is not the team the front office wanted to put out there, it’s the team they had to put out there.
You might want to believe that being competitive — on their way to a fourth consecutive losing season — while the team’s top prospects work through the minor league system doesn’t matter.
Wednesday night’s Congressional Baseball Game drew 26,553 fans at Nationals Park — 5,000 more than the average attendance this season for the major league team this year. It matters.
Beal on the block
When Michael Winger was hired as Monumental’s president of basketball, he told the Washington Post that Bradley Beal was a “wonderful canvas to start with.”
Now, according to The Athletic, he may be willing to get rid of that canvas for a new art project.
Beal reportedly now could be traded if the team decides to rebuild.
Decide to rebuild? What are their options? Fold?
Beal is the second or third star on a competing team. He is not a foundation piece for a championship team. He needs to be dealt, even with the no-trade clause that owner Transparent Ted Leonsis signed off on. That’s what Winger is here for.
If he doesn’t trade Beal, then all the talk about complete autonomy is as worthless as a Wizards home ticket. They might as well have hired Debra Winger if Beal is still on the roster this coming season.
Blast from the past
Ringside Seat magazine posted video Wednesday from ESPN from the historic Max Baer-Primo Carnera heavyweight title fight from June 14, 1934. It’s worth a look. Baer knocked down Carnera 11 times in the fight, including six in the first two rounds, before the fight was stopped in the 11th round.
Carnera, the heavyweight champion, was 6-foot-6, 275 pounds — about five inches and 60 pounds more than Baer, so physically it seemed like a mismatch. But the two fighters had been in the ring the year before, appearing in the film “The Prizefighter and the Lady,” and the story goes that Baer had spent that time measuring Carnera for the beatdown.
If you have ever seen the great boxing film “Cinderella Man,” about heavyweight champion Jim Braddock, the fight Braddock watched from the dressing room entrance at Madison Square Garden was Baer-Carnera.
You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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