When you've hit as many game-ending home runs as Ryan Zimmerman, a simple shaving cream pie to the face or Gatorade shower doesn't cut it anymore. You have to go above and beyond that. You have to give him BOTH... and give him both in full force.
That's exactly what Zimmerman's teammates did early Saturday morning after the seven-year veteran connected for his eighth career game-winning homer ?�a grand slam off Ryan Madson, giving his Washington Nationals a dramatic 8-4 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies.
For a fleeting moment it felt Zimmerman would settle for the anti-climatic-yet-elusive walk-off walk, but instead he aggressively turned on Madson's 3-2 pitch, lining it sharply into the left field seats just inside the foul pole.
Watch Zimmerman's game-winning granny
"Just trying to get it out of the infield," Zimmerman said. "It's one of those at-bats where I don't know really how it happened, but I guess it happened."
"It's the ultimate thing, because when you come around third, your teammates are waiting there."
Waiting, they were... and already plotting.
After Zimmerman the crossed plate, he was able to get to his MASN TV interview unscathed. However, in the process of answering his first question, Danny Espinosa slapped on the pie. Before Zimmerman could get a taste, Michael Morse and Jayson Werth completely doused him with the Gatorade, leading to the great photo taken above.
And here's another angle:
And here's a step-by-step screen cap sequence of the ambush, courtesy of Nats Enquirer. And there's also Zapruder-like video from MASN TV:
"Oh ... so good," Zimmerman said.
It was a perfect combination celebration befitting of a guy who's been there and done that several times before, and also symbolic of a crazy baseball game played on a wet field that ended more than five hours after it started.
An interesting side note on that: The game actually started on time, but just five minutes in the umpires called for the tarp after thunder, lightning and heavy rains moved into the area. A delay of 2 hours, 22 minutes followed, wiping away Roy Oswalt's start before he could even throw a pitch.
Kyle Kendrick took the reins and actually pitched six strong innings, positioning Philadelphia for a victory before Madson blew his second save of the season in the ninth.
Zimmerman's slam capped the decisive inning, in which Madson (pictured in shame) allowed six runs and five hits.
On the other side, Washington starter Livan Hernandez did return after the delay, but pitched only four mostly ineffective innings.
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