1. Charly woke me up at around 4:30 or 5, hungry, thirsty, and needing to go outside. When she was done, I carried her back in and seized the opportunity to have the bed to myself. Once Charly's done her morning business, she's happy to lie down on the rug in the living room. I slept until after 8:00, a rarity.
2. I had about half a container of the delicious chili Christy made. While at Yoke's, I decided to bake cornbread muffins and, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I bought a small box of Jiffy mix. Before the World Series got underway, I had a great meal of chili and cornbread muffins and now I'm going to look into a copycat recipe and see if I can make cornbread that tastes similar to what comes out of the box.
3. This evening, I just didn't feel like listening to Fox's pregame show, so when I tuned into Game 5 of the World Series as the game was starting, I didn't know that the Nationals' Max Scherzer was suffering from neck and back spasms and stiffness and would not be pitching tonight.
My spirits sunk. I'm wondering if the collective spirit of the Nationals had also sunk. Until this weekend, they were riding a crest of enthusiasm and confidence: they defeated the Dodgers in their first playoff round, swept the Cardinals in the NLCS, and defeated the Astros in the first two games of this series, in Houston. But, thud, the Nationals lost Games 3 and 4 at home. Now, it's the Astros who look rested and confident are acting like their old joyous selves.
So, tonight, the Astros pitched Gerrit Cole, the most dominant pitcher in all of baseball over the last five to six months. With Scherzer on the shelf, the Nationals turned to Joe Ross a member of their staff who has pitched infrequently in the playoffs and had a mediocre 2019 season.
It looked like a terribly lopsided match up strongly favoring the Astros.
And it was.
Listening to the broadcast, I could tell both Joe Buck and John Smoltz were trying to persuade us viewers that Joe Ross was hanging in there, putting forth a game effort under the circumstances, and, they said, keeping the Nationals in the ball game.
Well, the fact of the matter is that in the second inning, Yordan Alvarez clubbed a two run homer over 400 feet to center field in the second inning and, in the fourth, albeit after getting a terrible call all on potential strike three call from the home plate umpire, Joe Ross hung a slider that must have looked like a volleyball to Carlos Correa and, with a runner on base, he powdered it nearly 400 feet into the left field stands for another two-run round tripper.
Gerrit Cole pitched masterfully ("he's a virtuoso" said one of the tv guys) for seven innings, giving up only one run when Juan Soto went yard to center field and the Astro relievers, Joe Smith and Ryan Pressly efficiently mopped up the Nats in the 8th and 9th innings and the Astros cruised to a 7-1 victory.
Sigh.
Now, in order to win the World Series, the Nationals have to win two games in Houston.
Their chances Tuesday hinge on how well they can score runs against the overpowering and wily Justin Verlander and how well the Nats' reliably stingy righty Stephen Strasburg can hold the powerful, fast, versatile, and emotionally pumped up Astros' offense in check.
I'll be playing trivia with Kathy, Linda, and Mary on Tuesday evening at the Rock City Grill in south Spokane, but will do my best to keep an eye on the World Series while doing my best to help out my teammates at the trivia table.
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