So I took a break this evening from the Nats game to watch my favorite show, Jeopardy! It's the "Tournament of Champions" right now, so I'm extra-glued to the quiz show this week. The answer to Final Jeopardy (category: Historic Names) happened to be the Greek general Pyrrhus.

Which brings me to tonight's game.  At this point, I would take a Pyrrhic Victory that wiped out even more of our players (tongue-in-cheek...I mean, there's not a lot of 'em left) for a chance to knock off the Phils. 

Well, except Hanrahan...he had an amazing showing in his new Closer outfit.

Guess I'm just frustrated, that's all.

 

Take me out to the ballgame/

Take me out with the crowd/

Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack/

I don't care if I never get back/

'Cause it's root, root, root for the Nationals/

If they don't win it's the same/

For it's One! Two! Three strikes, we're out/

At the old ballgame.

 

Um, here's hoping for a better second half of 2008.

So, another frustrating close loss by our boys, and, despite our widely-recognized lack of star pitching or hitting, it's not like we didn't have a relatively good game offensively with 7 hits and 2 HRs from Zimmy.?Ǭ† Nor was the pitching especially bad compared to our usual outings and hurlers (not to mention Perez being sick during his 5 innings on the mound).

But the key take-away for us last night was: it's the little things that win?Ǭ†-- and lose -- ball games.?Ǭ† Covering bases on your toes and in anticipation of bag thieves or, like, putting in that smidge more of hustle on sucking up the ground balls.?Ǭ† We're not taking care of these itty-bitty details and thus we see a two-homer effort goes to waste.?Ǭ† Not to mention almost beating a .500+ team currently sittin' pretty at third in the NL Central, one game away from the competitive Cubbies.?Ǭ† I?Ǭ† just know we can really compete and have another great string of games if we clean up our act and keep our composure.

You know, like last week.