DC-centric opening day griping from the Washington Post’s Dave Shenin :

Have so many people from so many sides — home, visitor, neutral — ever made so many mistakes on the same play?

Where do you even begin? With the third base coach who green-lighted his runner into making the first out of the inning at home plate in a one-run game?

With the on-deck hitter who failed to clear the bat out of the base path, forcing his teammate to alter his slide three-quarters of the way down the third base line?

With the catcher who dropped the ball at the end of an otherwise textbook example of team defense?

No. We begin with the umpire, because that is where it ended. All that mattered in the end on Monday was that Tim Tschida called Alfonso Soriano out at home in the top of the eighth inning of the Washington Nationals’ 3-2 loss to the New York Mets on a cold, crisp Opening Day.

Tschida’s was the biggest mistake of all, because it determined how all the other mistakes would be viewed.

It was the biggest mistake, because Soriano was safe.