The Washington Nationals had a rough weekend as they ended up on the wrong end of a three-game sweep to the New York Yankees after completing two consecutive sweeps of their own against the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays last week.
Yet, the weekend wasn't a total loss. More than 124,000 fans filled Nationals Park Friday through Sunday (124,135 to be exact) and most of them were donning red caps and Curly W's.
Unfortunately, that means about 80,000 people witnessed the implosion of Washington reliever Brad Lidge. The same optimistic sentiment can't be made about him.
Friday, Lidge allowed three earned runs on just one hit and walked two batters in 1/3 of an inning. Saturday, he was the losing pitcher in a 5-3, 14-inning loss, giving up two runs on three hits in 2/3 of an inning. Simple math will allow you to figure out that Lidge allowed four hits, five runs and three walks in one combined inning. That's not good. And it probably left most Nats fans looking something like this:
(If you ask me, that is not very Merry Tyler Moore).
Anyways, Nationals fans have been clamoring for Lidge to get the boot, and on Sunday, their wishes came true as Lidge was designated for assignment.
Sports
What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that Lidge is no longer on the 40-man roster and could be sent to the minors, traded or released (though it seems that the middle option is not a likely one).
Lidge leaves D.C. with a 0-1 record, 9.64 ERA and two blown saves in just 9.1 innings of work in 11 total appearances.
So goodbye, Brad. Thanks for the memories. Like...um....oh, there was...no...well...
Adam Vingan is co-founder and editor of Kings Of Leonsis, a Caps-centric blog. Follow him on Twitter @AdamVingan and e-mail your story ideas to adamvingan (at) gmail.com.
