Good morning, Nats fans. It's Friday (Friday, gotta get down on Friday) morning, and your Washington Nationals should be in fine fettle after completing a four-game sweep of the (more than usually) hapless Chicago Cubs, braving two bench-clearing incidents in Thursday night's series finale.
After the game, Nats manager Davey Johnson gave us even more reason to love him.
From the Post:
"If they get mad at my guys in the fifth inning swinging 3-0 or running," Johnson said, "they better get used to it."
We joked on Twitter during the second bench-clearing incident that Hallmark should manufacture "Sorry your team sucks" cards for just these sorts of situations. Is there any doubt that Johnson would be gleefully licking the stamps on one right now if they existed?
Oh, and there's more from Johnson.
"Here we are in the fifth inning, we're in a pennant race, we're going to swing 3-0, we're going to do everything ... We ain't stopping trying to score runs. Certainly, a five-run lead at that time is nothing. I think it was the bench coach's frustration in us handing it to them for a couple days. If they want to quit competing and forfeit, then fine. But we're going to keep competing."
Then there's this.
My aim . . . was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them, to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us.
That actually wasn't a quote by Davey, that was by William Tecumseh Sherman. But with the Nats trying to hold off a challenge from Atlanta, it makes sense in light of the general tenor of this race.
The magic number is 18, and the sea is almost in sight.