May 25, 2016

Here, Not There: A Summer in Cincinnati

As freshman year at Xavier University has come to a close, people are asking me when I’m going to be able to make it back to the great land of Northern Virginia. While I might make it back for a quick weekend sometime soon, I’ll be here in the Queen City for the summer. So, I just wanted to throw out a quick post wrapping up the year at Xavier and setting the scene for what should be an exciting summer, both personally and for the Nationals.

Before I get into some Nats news, here’s what I’ve been up to over the last year. I did the sports report for Xavier News periodically…

Additionally, I did play-by-play for several home baseball games for Xavier, who by the way won the Big East regular season championship and begin play in the Big East tournament tomorrow.

This summer, I landed a spot doing play-by-play via internet stream for the Hamilton Joes, a collegiate summer baseball team in a league similar to the well-known Cape Cod league. I will be doing the home games, as well as frequently doing road games.

Now on to the Nats, where the powers that be at ESPN have them at third behind the North Siders and the Fenway-dwellers. Do these rankings really mean anything? Nope. But, one thing noted under the Nats’ wrap-up stands out; Scherzer, he of the 20K game, has the highest ERA on the team at 3.80. Bryce seems to have come back down to Earth after his torrid stretch to start the season, but is still producing at a high level. Daniel Murphy and Wilson Ramos are carrying a mighty stick, and the rest of the lineup is starting to fall into place.

The Nats’ starting pitchers have the 2nd lowest ERA, 4th lowest WHIP, and highest strikeout percentage throughout all of the major leagues, according to ESPN Stats and Info. Yeah, all of this is pretty basic information, but it’s promising to see them do so well, especially against a team like the Mets.

Washington comes to Cincinnati the weekend of June 3rd, and I’m hoping to go Friday and Sunday if possible. In addition to attending Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter in April, I saw the Reds play the Cubs two more times that weekend, including once with Steve.

I would be remiss if I did not throw this in here. The day after Arrieta’s no-hitter, I was at the game with my hall as a result of free tickets from our RA, and after the game there were fireworks of all sorts. I am enamored with home run derbies, as you can tell, and in between the end of the game and the fireworks show, the Long Haul Bombers (video from 2010) lit up the night sky, propelling neon-colored softballs well into the second deck at Great American Ball Park. What a weekend at GABP that was.

So, here’s to what’s ahead. And oh by the way, you’re always welcome to take a listen.