What goes better with baseball than barbecue?

By luck of the calendar — and the timing of a Nationals road trip — Thursday’s Congressional Baseball Game coincides with the Senate’s tradition of a bipartisan summer barbecue.

Republican senators rotate playing host at their Thursday conference lunch, but Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson has opened his to Democrats, bringing barbecue from his home state to the Kennedy Caucus Room.

This is the ninth edition of Isakson’s Senate barbecue.

Senators sampled a menu from Sam’s BBQ-1 in Marietta, Georgia, with a separate gathering for invited staff, police officers and reporters in his personal office two floors below in the Russell Senate Office Building.   The team from Sams, Isakson’s office said, spent the night in Northern Virginia smoking 400 or so pounds of pulled pork, beef brisket and St. Louis pork ribs, which were then trucked in to the Russell Building.

They also offered baked beans, coleslaw, rolls and macaroni and cheese Slices of Georgia pecan pie from Kenny’s Great Pies finished off the meal for dessert.

The meal served as a cap to a bipartisan day in the Senate, after lawmakers voted 98-2 in favor of a package increased sanctions on both Iran and Russia.