Twice, those cheers were jammed back in their throats. Twice a team that the Phils and their fans barely notice — the third-place almost-.500 Nats — ignored the irony that their own Nationals Park had become, in the Phils’ bragging words, “Citizens Bank Park South.”
Twice, including Sunday evening in a 5-4, 10th-inning win on a walk-off-hit-by-pitch by Jonny Gomes, the Nats forged the kind of cardiac comebacks and down-to-the-last-strike wins against a mighty foe that begin to build bonds of their own between a town and its young budding team.
Twice in three packed-house days, on Saturday at 12:25 a.m. and again on Sunday, at the end of two rain-delayed marathons in which the Nationals refused to lose and came from behind repeatedly, those Phillie fans had to close their mouths, fall silent, and ultimately go home losers.
“You gotta sit back down,” chuckling Nats Manager Davey Johnson said of all those invading fans who had to flop back in their seats en masse when Ian Desmond hit the most difficult kind of comeback homer that’s possible in baseball — down to your last strike, nobody on base. He smoked a liner over the left-field wall (off Antonio Bastardo, 1.48 ERA) to tie it at 4.
“Kind of reminded me a little of ’86 [in the World Series] when the Red Sox were up on the front step [to celebrate] and then they started creeping back.”
It’s tough to decide which of the Nats’ comebacks was more dramatic or improbable. But Washington has gone 2-1, 1-1 and 2-1 in its past three series with the Phils, including a current 5-2 run. In 13 meetings in 2011, they’ve been outscored by a mere four runs by the only team in Phils history with a winning percentage over .640.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Nats don’t expect to be loved by their town yet. Series like this are just building blocks. They’re aiming much higher. But if they succeed, there will be plenty who want to join the ride. For now, Nats fans still seem too gun-shy after 298 losses the previous three seasons to admit — in the presence of Phils fans — that they root for Washington.
During the Nats’ winning rally Sunday, even with the bases loaded and none out, only a few small groups stood and cheered openly. Out of perhaps 25,000 fans left in the park (a 71-minute delay for a thunderstorm thinned the crowd), it seemed maybe a hundred were Nats fans. Yet the instant the winning run was waved home, half the park stood and cheered. Who are they, these secret, ashamed or cerebral Nat fans?
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