Michael Morse charged down the third base line expecting a soft bunt. Instead the baseball whistled past his head and almost stopped his heart. Teammate Wilson Ramos gave an apologetic smile at the plate. In the dugout, Nationals manager Davey Johnson remembered why he hates the suicide squeeze.
But the critical sequence in Washington’s 5-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night at Nationals Park wasn’t over. Morse gathered himself at third base and donned his best poker face. Nats coach Bo Porter walked down the line and told Ramos to take one pitch and then do it again. This time the young slugger caught the sign and dropped a beauty of a bunt in front of home plate. The Cubs fielders never had a chance as Morse raced home with what proved to be the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning.
“After he scored Mike said ‘You’re good, you’re good’,” Ramos said. “But I almost killed him.”
That probably would have done permanent damage to Morse’s hopes to win the final spot on the National League All-Star team. But he made his case to take Major League Baseball’s Final Five vote with his bat, instead. Morse batted 2-for-4 with a double and scored that critical run as Washington won its third straight game and improved to 45-43 on the season. The Nats go for the sweep of Chicago on Thursday night when Livan Hernandez (5-8, 3.73 ERA) faces Matt Garza (4-7, 3.77 ERA).
Johnson claims he’d never asked a player to drop a suicide squeeze in his 15-year managerial career – not even a safety squeeze. Ramos almost ended any chance his manager would call another.
“I just missed the sign on the first one,” Ramos said.
But Johnson figured the last thing the Cubs would expect from a notorious bunt hater was another one. So with the infield in and a contact play out of the question, Johnson figured “Why not?” He afterwards tried to blame a run-in with an office shelf for the decision. “I must be brain dead,” Johnson cracked while showing reporters a nasty bruise on his forehead. He later added “sometimes you got to open the Cracker Jack box.”
Don’t let that comedy routine fool you, though. Johnson also knew that Cubs reliever Kerry Wood is struggling with his control. He threw a wild pitch and walked three batters in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss to Washington. That made a pitchout by the Cubs unlikely.
These are the type of games the Nats continue to win. They are now 13-3 in one-run games dating to June 1. Since May 31 they are 23-12 overall. It hasn’t helped them all that much in the standings. Washington remains in fourth place in the National League East and is seven games behind wild-card leader Atlanta. But at the very least the Nats demonstrated some resolve after last weekend’s disappointing series sweep in Anaheim.
“Might as well get [these one-run games] out of the way now,” Morse said. “It shows the character of this ballclub. We’re not giving up. We’re finding ways to win, which is what good ballclubs do.”
Washington also received a big night from Ryan Zimmerman, who has struggled at the plate since his return from an abdominal injury. He batted 3-for-4 with two doubles and a go-ahead two-run home run in the fifth inning. Danny Espinosa hit a two-run homer in the first inning. Both times the Cubs tied the game with two-run homers of their own off Washington starter Tom Gorzelanny (six innings, four earned runs, seven hits, six strikeouts). Carlos Pena went deep in the second inning and Aramis Ramirez did the same in the sixth to tie the game at 4. Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez and closer Drew Storen each pitched a scoreless inning in relief to hold the lead for the Nats.
