Pujols pounds rookie pitcher: Nats lose to Cardinals 6-2, fall to 5-17

Newsflash: Jordan Zimmermann is human. Film at 11:00.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Nats rookie pitcher Jordan Zimmermann lost his first major league game. It wasn't really his fault, he wasn't making mistakes, but the veteran St. Louis Cardinals, led by The Best Player in Baseball (Albert Pujols) weren't going to be stymied by a rookie pitcher. He allowed 5 runs on 8 hits in 5 2/3 innings and 101 pitches, and didn't walk anybody.

There was a little excitement on the Nationals side, as Ryan Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 20 games, Willie "Home Run" Harris hit a 2-run homer, and Jesus "Trip" Flores hit his second triple in as many nights.

I had tickets for this game, but I didn't go. I usually have to work early on Saturdays, so Friday night games are always suspect, especially if there is a chance for a rain delay (thunderstorms were called for up until several hours ago) or a long game with extra innings.

Weird thing - on MASN HD, for a long time, the Spanish language sound feed bled into the Carpenter-Dibble feed, and it was a little surreal. If I understood Spanish, it probably would have really been distracting for me. When the Cardinals hit a home run, it sounded just like it does when watching a soccer game on a spanish language channel: "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME RUN!" instead of "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!" That made me chuckle.
Perhaps MASN was just celebrating Hispanic Heritage Day a little bit early?

Another night, another loss, but at least tonight the Nats didn't beat themselves and they had their chances. Sad when this is the only consolation that we can take.