With the Washington Nationals' 10-game winning streak over, Nats' skipper Matt Williams was asked after last night's 10-3 loss to the visiting San Francisco Giants what he took away from the run of ten straight wins, with walk-offs in five of the last six?
"Just that they battle and they play hard," the first-year manager told reporters in Nationals Park. "I'm proud of them for that and we'll see if we can start another one tomorrow."
After a long-ish three-hour, twenty-four minute drubbing at the hands of the Giants on Friday night, Williams did take a moment to reflect on the uniqueness of what his team accomplished over the course of the run that began with a 7-1 win over the New York Mets on August 12th.
The Nationals improved from 63-53 to 73-54 at the end of the streak.
"Those don't come around very often," the former major leaguer-turned-manager said. "It's pretty rare to see ten in a row, but we've got to get back to work tomorrow and see if we can start another one."
#Nats lineup vs. #SFGiants: Span CF, Rendon 3B, Werth RF, LaRoche 1B, Desmond SS, Harper LF, Ramos C, Cabrera 2B, Zimmermann P
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 23, 2014
Williams wasn't reading too much into last night's loss, which he referred to as "kind of a clunker all around."
"It's one of those games," he explained, "you play so many of them that, we've talked about during the ten games not getting too high or too low. It's the same tonight. We've got another one to play tomorrow. It's a quick turnaround. We've got a four o'clock and then a one o'clock game after that, so guys have to get home and get some rest and it's been a hectic week, so we'll hope to start another one at four o'clock tomorrow and see what he can do."
Williams is sending the rubber stamp lineup back out there today to take on the Giants in the second game of the three-game weekend set in D.C. Jordan Zimmermann's on the mound vs Tim Lincecum.
• Here are both lineups for the Saturday matinee: