You have to love RHP Dikember Sanchez facing a bit of adversity giving up the 1-0 lead but buckling down and not surrendering the game. Buckles down some more in a huge spot with Manfred's Man on 2B and casually sends the first two batters down swinging. Then gets the easy ground out to 2B to end it. Never looked frazzled. Never left his form or fundamentals. Just dialed it back in and really stepped up. That was a really good showing. Really happy for Blayberg Diaz to experience that moment. It's been a rough go at the dish of late for him that was a big time professional poke up the middle.
YES SIR! That's a 3-1 Dub in Xtras folks. Muddies have a chance to split the series tomorrow. Run differential in this series is now 30-29.
AND, I think we all know if manager Nick Stanley had handled that Corniel start just a tad more aggressively before his fateful fifth inning the Muddies are actually leading this series 3-2. Is what it is at this point. Great Win tonight in Game 2.
K's the next swinging as well on a gorgeous inside slider to a very dangerous power lefty bat. That was a fantastic pitch. Two down. Manfred's man is twiddling his thumbs at 2B.
Sanchez leads off his 8th (Xtras here in a scheduled 7-inning affair) with a K swinging and missing on consecutive breaking pitches. Heck of a way to start it.
Two down. Diaz to the dish. AND, he rips a 1-1 comebacker through the middle and into the OF grass and we are up 3-1. HUGE moment for Diaz there. Heck of a knock on an off-speed in the low part of the zone. Pro hit right there! Runners on 1st and 2nd. Two down. Mercado grounds into a force out at 2B. On to the bottom of the 8th.
He fouls back a nice change-up on the outer black. Lays off a high heater. He swings and misses on a belt high heater. Whewwwww. That was a hittable pitch. One down. Big K there.
Full count. AND, he takes a heater just outside the upper corner. Bases juiced. Nobody out. Yoshwar Garcia to the dish and he takes a massive swing and miss hack on a first pitch heater up and in.
Mudcats are responding with runners on the corner in the top of the 8th and nobody out. Walling will try to take advantage. Come on men let's pull this out!
First series they split 3-3.
Second series Nats took it 4-2.
Coming into tonight's tilt, Nats were leading the series 3-1.
It's really not as lopsided as you think:
First series we outscored the Nats 21-18
Second series we were outscored 18-11
So far in this series we were only being outscored 29-26 and are currently tied 1-1.
I'd casually offer: it would be a dynamic and competitive series but I do think we'd probably give them the slight edge.
Well that was a very enjoyable and mostly crisp first pre-season game. Extremely impressed with the O-Line performance as a whole. They just did not give up much of any pressures. That has certainly not been the case in quite some time.
First pre-season game. Very few penalties. Other than a couple near 12-Men on penalties, I am pretty dang impressed with the fluidity and exchanges happening between all the variations of who is on the field. Clean kicking game. Big difference early in 2024.
Good grief, if I had a nickel for every time I saw Lowry face down eating dirt I'd have a good crisp $5 bill. Unreal how little he showed after his contract year. Unbelievable staying power.
Yeah, I saw that. Don't love that at all. Man, we are down Cooper, Hopper, Morgan, and Lloyd. That's a lot of high end draft capital benched with injuries. Don't like it one bit.
I would think so. I'm already figuring they may trim WR depth to the PS or trade from it. I don't think you can expose him - he has too many innate talents with that arm and field vision. That was an absolute dime to Hicks on that fade. Gorgeous touch pass.
WE've been hearing all camp: the screen game is a quagmire. Case and point that failed screen on 3rd and 4. That was ugly. It was absolutely there for the taking too. Just not blocked up or synched at all.
Man, you have to love this defense as a whole stopping the Browns during every key 4th down attempt or 3rd down attempt. Incredible performance. Lots of unsung guys making key plays when they need them. Mosby there with the tip at the line.
Regardless of how this ends, we have to be extremely pleased with this performance through three quarters. 23-3 on the road. Essentially a game played by second stringers with a dab of mixed in starters for a few series post Love departure. Both back-up QB's playing very well. Back-up O-Line surprisingly really standing firm for the most part. Now that we are at the very end of the roster depth we are seeing a drive. But, for all intents and purposes, this is the Browns first sustained drive into the red zone.