{"id":666307,"date":"2026-04-06T11:57:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/666307\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:57:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:57:53","slug":"nationals-fan-born-on-day-of-teams-first-game-takes-ceremonial-first-sip-on-21st-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/666307\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals fan born on day of team&#8217;s first game takes ceremonial &#8216;first sip&#8217; on 21st birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday marked the 21st anniversary of the first game in Washington Nationals history.<\/p>\n<p>It also marked lifelong Nationals fan Sorcha Lewis\u2019 21st birthday, as she was born the day the franchise played its first game on April 4, 2005, since the Montreal Expos\u2019 relocation.<\/p>\n<p>The Nationals celebrated this moment by inviting Lewis to take a ceremonial \u201cfirst sip,\u201d rather than throw a ceremonial first pitch, on the mound before <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/04\/sports\/dodgers-rout-nationals-but-lose-mookie-betts-to-back-injury\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">their 10-5 loss to the Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis, wearing a white Nationals jersey and ballcap, raised a red Budweiser bottle in her right hand as a cheers gesture before a celebratory 10-second chug.<\/p>\n<p>The Nationals Park video board showed photos of a younger Lewis at games, including one where she\u2019s holding cotton candy.<\/p>\n<p>Lewis\u2019 time as a fan has been a roller coaster. <\/p>\n<p>The team did not make the playoffs over its first seven seasons in D.C., winning just 59 games during the 2008 and \u201909 seasons.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.80078125;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38998291\" width=\"472\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/nationals.jpg\" alt=\"Nationals fan Sorcha Lewis celebrates her 21st birthday with a ceremonial &quot;first sip&quot; of beer on the mound on April 4, 2026.\" class=\"wp-image-38998291\"  \/>Nationals fan Sorcha Lewis celebrates her 21st birthday with a ceremonial \u201cfirst sip\u201d of beer on the mound on April 4, 2026. X\/NationalsPark<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.03095238;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38998292\" width=\"608\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/nationals2.jpg\" alt=\"Sorcha Lewis as a young fan at a Nationals game.\" class=\"wp-image-38998292\"  \/>Sorcha Lewis as a young fan at a Nationals game. X\/NationalsPark<\/p>\n<p>Their fortunes started to change in 2012 under manager Davey Johnson, the man who led the Mets to their 1986 World Series title. <\/p>\n<p>He steered the Nationals to their first NL East crown that year while winning 98 games, the most they\u2019ve won in a season since the relocation. <\/p>\n<p>They lost to the Cardinals in the NLDS.<\/p>\n<p>Washington went on to win NL East titles in 2014, \u201916 and \u201917, but each time the club was eliminated in the NLDS.<\/p>\n<p>They finally broke through in 2019, winning the first World Series in franchise history \u2014 including the history of the Expos, who began play as an expansion team in 1969. <\/p>\n<p>Lewis was 14 at the time of the championship.<\/p>\n<p>The Nationals have not made the playoffs since, winning no more than 71 games in a year over the last six seasons.<\/p>\n<p>They began this season 3-1 but had lost four straight entering Sunday\u2019s series finale against the Dodgers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday marked the 21st anniversary of the first game in Washington Nationals history. It also marked lifelong Nationals&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,4,185,1578,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-666307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-sports-fans","12":"tag-washington-nationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116357649234235487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}