“I was just trying to go down and away with the fastball right there, left it up,” Washington Nationals’ closer Brad Hand said of the first-pitch sinker he threw to Andrew McCutchen with two on in the bottom of the ninth last night.
McCutchen, of course, hit the pitch out to right for game-winning, walk-off, three-run home run.
It was the Nationals’ fifth straight loss, and it was the second straight walk-off loss with their closer on the mound.
“I haven’t looked at it,” Hand said of his final pitch of the game, “but it looked like almost middle.