Nationals Fail to Cover All Bases
Rollins's Sprint Sets Up Philly Win: Phillies 8, Nationals 7

By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008

P Before the bunt went down, Nick Johnson thought through the play. The runner to Johnson's right was Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins, as shrewd a speedster as there is in the game. Tie score, 10th inning, Johnson's Washington Nationals threatening to sweep Rollins's Phillies.

"I thought I'd peek over there," Johnson said. "I knew he might go."

And off Rollins went. Of all the plays the Nationals could mull over as they boarded a flight following their first loss of the season -- an 8-7, 10-inning setback to the Phillies on Thursday afternoon -- there was nothing they could do to combat Rollins's combination of athletic ability and absolute awareness. Not only did he take second on Shane Victorino's sacrifice bunt, but he motored to third. Three walks later -- two intentional to load the bases, the last on four errant pitches by Washington reliever Jesús Colome to Jayson Werth -- the Phillies had a much-needed win, and the Nationals had to wonder how they got themselves in position where Rollins's play mattered so much.

"We had them on the ropes, and we let them off," said reliever Ray King, part of a bullpen that surrendered three runs in four innings and allowed the two runners it inherited to score. "We should have swept those guys today."

So put away, for now, fanciful ideas about a storybook start for the Nationals, who had impressed by winning their first three games, including the first two here against the Phillies, the defending National League East champs. This game was quite winnable, and Washington didn't win it for all kinds of reasons.

The Nationals scored five times in the first inning, and might have run away with it. But in the second, they loaded the bases with nobody out yet got nothing but Austin Kearns's chopper back to Philadelphia left-hander Jamie Moyer, a ball that started a 1-2-3 double play, and Aaron Boone's strikeout. They got a run in the fourth to make it 6-1, but could have had more had shortstop Cristian Guzmán (3 for 6, two doubles) not been caught dancing off second by Moyer.

"We had plenty of other opportunities to add on," said third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, who went 0 for 6, including grounding into an inning-ending force play with the bases loaded in the eighth.

Start with those missed chances, but add in a few other things. Right-hander Jason Bergmann looked brilliant through five innings, allowing only Chris Coste's solo home run. In the sixth, though, "I left a couple balls up," Bergmann said, and the Phillies hit them.

How's this for torture? Single, single, single, single, Bergmann replaced by Saúl Rivera. Wild pitch, single, single, single, Rivera replaced by King. Hit batter, single. That's nine straight Phillies reaching base against three pitchers, a six-run rally that made it 7-6 Philadelphia. Death by paper cut.

"Nobody was able to stop the bleeding," Nationals Manager Manny Acta said.

The Nationals tied it on Guzmán's two-out, RBI single in the eighth to make it 7-7. But not only did Zimmerman strand the bases full there, the Nationals loaded them up again in the ninth, only to have pinch hitter Willie Harris -- the last healthy body on the bench, given that first baseman Dmitri Young has a tight back -- bounce out to first, ending another threat.

So it came to the 10th, with Rollins leading off against Colome, the hard-throwing right-hander. Rollins, the reigning NL MVP, was 0 for 4 on the day and made his second error of the series, but he lashed a single to right.

That's when it got interesting. Victorino's job was, clearly, to bunt Rollins to second, allowing the lethal combination of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard to win the game from there. Victorino got the bunt down. Zimmerman charged from third, Johnson from first, and catcher Jesús Flores jumped out from behind the plate. With second baseman Ronnie Belliard rotating to first, the Nationals had the play covered -- except at third.

Zimmerman picked up the ball. Victorino was out. Rollins never stopped running, and covering third was -- nobody.

"It's kind of a gray area," Zimmerman said. "I've got to be up there, because if he bunts it hard, we've got a chance at second. And then 'Flo' has to go after it, because that's what he's supposed to do. I called it, and even if [Flores] would've started taking off [to cover third], there's no way he would've got there."

Guzmán, who had covered second, trailed Rollins toward third. Johnson sprinted all the way across the diamond and took a throw from Belliard. But there was no play. Rollins was safe.

"I told him I don't know if I've seen that more than five times," said Geoff Jenkins, the Phillies' veteran right fielder. "You have to have the speed, first. You have to have instincts. And you have to have guts. If you get thrown out at third there, you're the goat."

That left Acta with little choice but to walk Utley, setting up a double play. He then walked Howard as well, choosing to face the less-accomplished Werth -- even if a walk meant a loss. "Those are the two guys that we can't allow to beat us in that situation," Acta said.

In a way, they did anyway. Colome, whose fastball reached 97 mph on the Citizens Bank Park radar gun, couldn't find the plate against Werth.

"It looked like he was just raring back," pitching coach Randy St. Claire said. "He wasn't pitching. He was just throwing the ball as hard as he could."

As it turned out, he threw four hard balls. Werth walked, Rollins was forced home, and the Nationals were hustled right out of a chance for a sweep.