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Cordero, Nats Let Another Get Away
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With that came Cordero's only impressive sequence of the night. He got Braves slugger Andruw Jones to flail at a ball low and away, then froze him with an inside fastball for strike three. With two outs, as poorly as Cordero had pitched, he might have worked out of it.
"You have a lot more confidence," Cordero said. "But you still have to face Francoeur. You still have to get one more out. Anything can happen on that last one."
It can, and it did. Francoeur was Atlanta's rookie sensation from a year ago, the face of the Braves' youth movement, the kid on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He struggled to start this season, but entered Saturday night on an 11-game hitting streak to raise his average from .208 to .245.
Cordero missed with his first pitch, and then, wary of throwing another fastball, tossed a slider that got much too much of the plate. Francoeur didn't miss it, sending it on a line to left, getting the crowd of 37,040 into a frenzy and bringing his teammates onto the field, circling home plate to greet him. He had never hit a grand slam in the majors, never ended a game with a home run. Against the Nationals these days, dreams have a way of coming true.
"It's unbelievable how we haven't been able to close out these games," LeCroy said.
It is, in fact, just that. Saturday night was just Cordero's fifth save opportunity, but he flatly dismissed any thought that lack of work had anything to do with the disaster.
"Pitching's pitching," Cordero said. "Pitching's getting three outs. That's all it is. And I couldn't do it tonight."
After Thursday's loss in Cincinnati, one in which the Nationals scrapped back and were in position to win the series, Robinson openly worried about the lasting effects of such a defeat. Now, they have two such calamities from which to recover. They are 13 games under .500 and teetering on the edge of having no confidence whatsoever -- in each other, in themselves, in the prospects for the season.
"What you can't do, and what I hope we don't start doing, is looking to lose, expecting to lose," Robinson said. "You do that, it's going to be a long year."
