55th Plate Appearance

Little Zimmy just drove Washingtonians mad with a whack-tastickal dub against the left field fence. He and Cris Guzmnan are on second and third as Adam "motors" up to the plate.

Feeling out the situation, Adam watches the first two pitches, and swings mighty at the third. A miss.

de la Rosa starts throwing the nasty stuff, fast and breaking hard. Adam fouls off two, and two more seem to have crossed the plate, but home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman disagrees. Adam's mere presence seems to have shrunken the strike zone.

de la Rosa, visibly shaken, calls a hasty conference on the mound. Catcher Miguel Olivo obliges. So too does the nefarious second baseman Melvin Mora, who whispers something foul and brilliant into de la Rosa's ear.

It's the killing stroke. A slow-moving breaking ball waltzes its way to the plate. Adam, expecting more heat, crushes the fastball that didn't come.

54th Plate Appearance

Bottom of the second, and Clean Plate Club member Adam Dunn is the leadoff batter. Jorge de la Rosa, pride of the Rockies, has sillified the Nats thus far tonight, whif-whaffing Nyjer Morgan and Cristian Guzman and inducing from Little Zimmy a wee trickle to shortstop.

de la Rosa tries a dance a little tease, first going outside and then down low. Of course Adam ain't interested.

Adam can sense where this is going, so he takes a big swing at the next low pitch. Got to keep in form, even if you sense a walk coming.

Sure enough, Adam's oracular intuition proves right. It's a five pitch walk. Titan Todd welcomes his equal back to their shared home.