Paranormal Witness: Nationals 9 - Phillies

I have now recapped 9 games this season. The Phillies have lost all 9. The First loss was 9-2, this most recent loss was 9-2. At some point shouldn't there have been a win? Even just dumb luck would have me recapping a win at some point. There have been close ones (a pair of 4-3 losses, a pair of 5-4 losses and a 6-5 loss). I spent some time earlier this afternoon watching some ghost stories and listening to Black Sabbath in preparation for the horror I was certain to be recapping later in the evening. Honestly, it's me recapping and John Lannan starting, this game was doomed before it started.

Lannan lived up to expectations by Walking everyone. When not walking everyone he was busy giving them meatballs to hit. Lannan's pitching style and velocity requires that he have pinpoint control to have any success. He did not have pinpoint or any other point type control. Lannan is nothing if not "exciting" to watch. As he walked 2and allowed a single to load the bases in the First, but escaped allowing any runs, by getting Laroche to Strike Out.  The Second was equally "exciting" as Ramos Singled, advanced to Second on a wild pitch and scored on Rendon's Homer off the railing in Right Center. After a few groundouts, Ryan Zimmerman launched his own Homer.

In the Third an Ian Desmond Doubled, LaRoche Doubled and scored him. Then after a Ramos Single that made it 1st and 3rd with 2 out, Rendon Grounded out to the front of Home Plate. What did the Phillies do all this time? K, Line out, Fly out, Ground out, fly out, line out, HBP, Line into DP, K. Honestly, it's fairly bad luck. Quite a few well hit balls went right to fielders or just foul.

The Phillies got off the schneid in the 4th thanks to doubles by Young (hey, I no longer need to specify which one. Cool.) and Utley. The 3 outs that inning? Fly out, fly out, fly out, all to the Outfield (some better hit than others). Things then briefly got dull, with both sides going down in order. Even the 5th looked like Lannan would escape unscathed. Going Line out, walk, fly out. Two outs, man on First. Get one more out and DeFratus (warming up to start the inning) can come in to pitch the 6th. Then Laroche singled, Ramos doubled, Lannan intentionally walked Rendon and unintentionally walked Haren. The only thing that kept Lannan in at this point was the Lefty matchup with Span. Who then hit a long Single to Ruf scoring 2. The only thing that got Lannan out of the inning was a baserunning blunder by Span, who must have assumed a throw Home and got trapped in no man's land and was run down.

Other than Asche driving in Utley on a groundout, the game then got pretty dull. DeFratus' inning was pretty uneventful and Jimenez was quite effective in the 7th. Valdes though can always be counted on for more "excitement" than I usually care to watch. His 8th went Double, line out, line out (both to shallow to advance Hairston from Second), then Harper squeezed a single into Right, scoring Hairston for the final run of the game.

I'm all in on the tank, I think everyone knows that by now, but recapping losses is getting pretty damned old. The most lopsided fangraph of any of my recaps below.

<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=625037&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2013-08-09&team=Nationals&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2013-08-09&team=Nationals&dh=0&season=2013">FanGraphs</a></span>