You’d never think a team could leave 17 runners on base and win.
Yet that’s what happened to the Nationals, as they beat the Cardinals 3-2 on a one-out bases-loaded walk-off sacrifice fly by Denard Span with a five-man infield and Seth Maness pitching.
Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo.
Aaron Miles' Fastball 
Pretty poorly played defense on both teams for the whole series too. Especially for the Nationals, but at least one of yesterday’s misplays were especially costly for the Redbirds. Carpenter and Descalso’s errors (which, for some explicable reason was ruled a hit… were we all watching the same play?) really hurt. **Especially Descalso’s in the 7th**, as it was a tailor made double play ball, hard hit and pretty much right at a middle infielder. If Daniel and Jhonny turn that for Martinez, the Nats aren’t even in the position to have Span earn the SF two innings later. (And he earned it, btw. It was a *great* at bat.)
But you know, truthfully? The score sheet will show that Maness walked McLouth, but he really didn’t. The first two pitches were clear strikes on Pitch FX and the third could have easily been one too. Hell, the only one that was a ball in the whole AB was ball four and it was *barely* one. Maness did his job. He struck out Desmond, generated two ground balls that just found holes, had a great at bat with McLouth that had a lousy outcome (Thanks to Blue…), and had another great at bat with Span that he almost won, but somehow Denard fouled off that *great* changeup in the middle of the AB. In the end, I hope Matheny and Lilly are as smart as I believe them to be, because *Seth did his job* yesterday, regardless of how it shook out.