Well, that was... interesting. The Nationals played their first game at home against the Marlins, and after a promising first inning, they promptly proceeded to get stuck in a rain delay.
The game took almost five hours on the dot from first pitch to the final out (including the delay) and did not have a happy ending.
The Nationals have had some weird Opening Days (2010 takes the cake), but this one was pretty unusual.
Here's the beat from Half Street.
Want one of those giant flags you see at Nationals Park? $6,000, please.
The Nationals have long featured a ginormous American flag on Opening Day. Turns out, they run pretty expensive.
Stephen Strasburg has a new pitch, but nobody can figure out what it is
Slider? Cutter? Slurve? Who knows, but whatever it was, it worked against Atlanta on Wednesday night.
Harper hits homer number 99, just misses 100
After a moonshot earlier in the game, Harper was just a few feet away from taking his total into triple digits. Buy those outfield seats while you still can.
25 millionth fan will receive prizes galore
A jacket, a jersey, some tickets, delivering the lineup card, and oh, also, Opening Day tickets for the next 25 years. Incidentally, if you want to know who the Nats 25 millionth fan was, there's this handy article. Incidentally, he was named after a Mets pitcher. Even so, he'll come to Opening Day every year for the next 25 years.
Ranking all of the Nationals home openers
Not including yesterday's, of course.
Tomorrow's Game: Marlins vs Nationals, 4:05 PM (MASN, WJFK)
Probable Pitchers: Tom Koehler vs Joe Ross