We'lll being pining for 2005 for awhile. The 2005 hangover was pretty bad though. The wheels just came off that team, granted they overachieved. Hard to believe we have sucked for so long now.
It was exactly six years ago today in fact - 3rd July 2005 - that the '05 Overachievers began to lose the plot. That day, the Nats beat the Cubs at Wrigley Field 5-4 in 12 innings (Eischen the winner) to go a club-record 19 games over .500 at 50-31. This would complete a sweep of the Cubs in their Friendly Confines and run the ongoing winning streak to 6; from 29th May through that day they went an unbelievable 26-6.
They would come home the following day for a four-match set with the Mets, whereof they would lose 3 of 4 (including their first-ever Fourth of JUly match); next they would drop two of three at Philly to stagger into the All-Star break on a 2-5 skid.
The resumption of play after the ASG would bring no revival:
- dropped 3 of 4 at Milwaukee (initiating Miller Park's still-ongoing status as a Nats torture chamber);
- dropped 2 of 3 at home to the Rockies;
- dropped 3 of 4 to the Astros (including a 14-1 shellacking with Clemens pitching)'
- swept in three at Atlanta (all one-run losses);
- dropped 2 of 3 at Florida.
The bleeding finally stopped temporarily 2nd-4th August when they took two of three at RFK from the Dodgers, but by then they would be 58-50 - 8-19 since 3rd July - and still falling fast...right after the Dodgers win they would be swept at home by the Padres and would win only one more series (Colorado away) in August...and the rest is history, capped by dropping their last six home matches.
But it was 2005, and we were just so gee-whiz-golly glad to have baseball back for the first time in 34 years (and the players were feeding off the atmosphere too - I remember Brad Wilkerson admitting of being awed by the way the fans literally made the stadium rock, a phenomenon unknown in the preceding Montreal seasons)...hopefully the succeeeding seasons of suckitude will give a better perspective, and the team can learn from the mistakes of those years (and this year).
