Howard Fendrick of the AP waxes a little too poetic:
"When the weather was warm and the stands were packed, everything seemed to go the Washington Nationals' way.
Opponents' deep drives turned into outs in spacious RFK Stadium, late rallies were commonplace, the bullpen was almost untouchable, and one-run wins piled up. On July 3, 81 games removed from Montreal, the capital's new club was 50-31 -- on pace for 100 wins! -- and owned a 5 1/2 -game lead in the NL East.
At 4:19 p.m. Sunday, under a cloud-filled sky, an announced crowd of 29,967 watched silently as a harmless groundout left the potential winning run on first base in the bottom of the ninth. That ended Washington's 6-5 loss to the, who hit four homers, two by Mike Piazza.
And just like that, all in one fell swoop, the Nationals were eliminated from playoff contention, dropped to last in the NL East and fell to .500 (78-78) for the first time in nearly four months."
Well, it wasn't really one fell swoop, it was 2 1/2 months of bad play. Multiple fell swoops.
But I'll be sure to forward your article to the Pulitzer Prize folks. Or maybe the Bulwer-Lytton folks.
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