JEWISH BASEBALL NEWS — With two out, a man on second and the score tied 7-7 in the bottom of the 5th inning Wednesday, the Washington Nationals weren’t thrilled about rookie reliever Jesse English coming up to bat.
True, earlier in the game English had acquitted himself quite well at the plate with a successful sacrifice bunt. But that was English’s first and only Major League at-bat. The Nats decided to go with a better bet: Jason Marquis.
As pitchers go, Marquis isn’t bad a bad hitter. In 505 career at-bats through 2009, he’d amassed 5 home runs, 48 RBIs and a .202 batting average — along with an abysmal strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 123 to 13. Twenty-six of his at-bats came as a pinch hitter, during which he hit .231.
On Wednesday, Marquis got a chance to hike that average when the Nats called on him to pinch-hit for English. Marquis didn’t get a hit — he lined out to the shortstop to end the inning — but he did force Philadelphia Phillies reliever Nelson Figueroa to throw six pitches.
The Phillies won, by the way, 14-7. Figueroa, the Phillies’ reliever, hit a double and went 2 -for-2.
— Scott Barancik
