Baseball is a funny game. Check that. Balderdash is a funny game… actually that’s not really that funny either. OK. Guess Who? is a funny game. There can be no disagreement about that.

Anyway the point is Odalis Perez had been defying expectations since his second start.  They weren’t great performances by any means, but like a 2005 vintage of Esteban Loaiza, he kept the team in the game while he was out there.  Over those 6 starts he kept the hits down (30 in 35 innings), the walks reasonable (13 - opponents has a .224 BA and a .307 OBP), and the strikeouts high (30).    For all that trouble Odalis had gotten a nice 2.78 ERA in games and a bit fat SQUA-DOOSH in the win column.    Last night Odalis had his worst game in a while, putting 13 men on base and giving up two bombs.  4 runs in 6 1/3 innings and it could have been a lot worse.  And of course, for this mediocre outing, Odalis picks up the W.  Good for him. 

The Nats offense didn’t quite “explode” the 10 runs were helped along by only 4 XBH (all doubles) and 7 walks.  But the Nats luck at the plate is starting to even out. 

April: .229 / .311 / .337 

May: .263 / .336 / .408

They aren’t really doing a better job of getting on base - that’s just the BA evening out after some bad luck in April.  They are hitting for more power though.  A quick look at the splits see no one in particular doing fantastic, Boone and Mackowiak being the hottest but seeing limited duty.  It’s just an overall shift back to average.  In April the Nats had 9, count ‘em 9 guys, hit .233 or below (with 20 ABs or more) .   Zimmerman, Kearns, Johnson Belliard, Wily Mo, Willie Harris, Estrada, LoDuca and Mackowiak.   In May they Nats only have 4 batting below that mark, Milledge, LoDuca, Belliard, and Dukes and only Milledge has seen “starter” time out  of this group.   This water is finding its level. 

Is it me or the Nats surprisingly realistic?  From Odalis about yesterday’s game

 ”It wasn’t the best way to get it,” Perez said. “I have been pitching so many good games. This is the first time that I’ve seen my offense helping me. But I’m happy I received the win. It was a battle.”

And LoDuca

Asked if he thought he would be traded if the Nationals were out of the race, Lo Duca said: “I don’t know. I doubt anybody would want to trade for somebody with 50 at-bats and has been hurt all year. I really couldn’t answer that. Depending how I come back and where we’re at from that point, I don’t see it.

While the Mets are bothered by cheering (well not the Mets as a team, just Figueroa who should be a Met for…oh about 1 or 2 more days)  

Tonight Lannan versus Maine.  Despite the impressive numbers Lannan isn’t a lights out pitcher.  He gets hit and puts men on base and doesn’t strike out all that many…for the most part.  The key is keeping those events strung out over the course of his outing and not giving up the big blast.  Lannan had his best game of the year against the Mets at Shea, 3 hits, 0 walks 11Ks (why I said for the most part.  In his other games he averages about 3 ks for 6 innings of work).   The Mets as a team though are slugging a lot better recently.  (.454 in May).  Let’s see if he can do it again.  

There’s a question I’ve asked myself about the Nats and their pitching staff “strategies” over the past 3 years. Would I rather see the team do wrong (in my opinion of course) and succeed, or would I rather see them fail and thus learn from their mistakes? Whatever part of me favors the latter is getting what he wants recently.

Three years of piecing together a starting staff with cast-offs and has-beens, has forced the Nats bullpen to pitch a TON of innings. (2nd in the NL in 2006 in IP by relievers, 1st in 2007, currently 5th in 2008). Keep doing this year after a year and it isn’t a question of if it’ll catch up with the bullpen but when. We seem to have the answer. May 11th. The day they trotted out Luis Ayala, who missed the entire previous season  (Ed - note I meant all of 2006 (and part of last season).  Sorry.  It was late)   due to being overworked, for his league leading 23rd appearence, and found out SURPRISE! his stuff isn’t that good when he’s being beaten down like a horse in an animated feature before he’s set free by a precocious youth to roam free in the grasslands. Run Free Ayala! Run Free!

The team has tried to find innings in the bullpen by turning Matt Chico into a reliever. OK, I don’t agree with that but that happens. What doesn’t happen though is immediately breaking him in pitching 2+ innings in back to back games. Can he at least get a feel of pitching from the bullpen? Oh wait, he can’t because the guy brought in to replace him Mike O’Connor pitched so horribly and they needed someone to come in and eat innings. Chico essentially gave the Nats another short start but did it from the middle innings. Mike O’Connor, who did not listen to Eminem and missed his chance to blow in his one shot, has been immediately dropped for bullpen help. Of course who will start in his place next time? Maybe Balester or Bergmann. Or maybe Chico (provided he doesn’t see action in 3 of the next 4 games). Or hell, maybe Jose Rijo.

[It’s strange but all in all this Chico stuff could have made sense. Say you don’t like the way Chico is pitching so you’re giving O’Connor a spot start in his place while the Saint and Chico try to work out some kinks. After that you’re likely to bring in a reliever, and you’ll see if Chico is ready after that. If so great, if not you’ll spot start again. See, a mess sure, but one that feels like a semblance of a plan, not like panicky passengers fleeing a sinking ship.]

We haven’t even talked about the non-existent offense yet.

Yeah the team lost, but more importantly the team’s lost.

If you haven’t heard the cheers, Paul LoDuca went down to injury yesterday.  4-6 weeks.  At the same time though, supposed back-up catcher Johnny Estrada went on the DL as well.   Uh oh.   Even I, with shrew-like shovel hands rather than human fingers, knows that 2-2=0.  Fate has forced the Nats to do what most fans wanted, and that’s play Jesus Flores at catcher.  But wait!  There’s a fly in the ointment, a monkey in the wrench, and his name is Wil Nieves.  

Wil is batting .343 / .410 / .457  currently.  The team has a 5-3 record with him starting behind the plate. While Flores is still designated the “catcher of the future”, could Wil be the “catcher of now”?   Short answer - no.   Long answer - Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The problem is, despite what you see, Wil can’t hit.  His last three minor league season read like a retelling of Endy Chavez’s career

2005 - 102 games, .289 /.313 /.395

2006 - 88 games,  .259 / .298 /.346

2007 - 27 games, .256 / .306 / .344

That’s in AAA folks.  He’s had a couple of ok years if you look far back enough but some of those can be attributed to being in the PCL a league that made Terrmel Sledge look like Babe Ruth.    In the majors he hasn’t broken the mythical .500 OPS barrier yet, though in admittedly only about 150 total at bats across 4 years. No patience, “eh” power.

Maybe this is just a fluke year, a Brady Anderson type 50HR season?  I can’t rule that out.   We need to check if things are clicking for him or if he is getting lucky.  There are a couple of stats we can use to objectively see if Wil is batting well or just catching some breaks, Line Drive Percentage and Batting Average for Balls in Play.  Intuitively you know that hitting line drives, as opposed to ground balls or fly balls, means you are making good contact so you want that number to be high.   You also can tell (because you are all terribly bright) that it doesn’t matter alot if Albert Pujols or Willie Harris puts a ball in play , it’s going to have roughly the same chance of being fielded and turned into an out. Notice I say “roughly” because there is a lot of room in there since Albert is more likely to hit the ball harder, but is should generally be the same.  You are looking for those dramatically below or way above the league average because these are likely to be players getting some bounces or hitting the ball right at people.

Again: LD% high, BABIP about league average or below = good hitter

Nieves:

LD%  7.4% (league average  20%)

BABIP: .423 (league average .295)  

Uh oh.  If you look a little further you see Wil is hitting a ton of groundballs.  So in reality he’s just finding the holes.  Hitting them where they ain’t.  But that’s a lot more to do with luck than skill.   This guy is due for a rough spell.

[For the curious - no Nat is exceptionally lucky with BABIP.  Among the Healthy Nats, Nick (.229), Austin Kearns (.238) and Belliard (.239) should improve somewhat]

For the Nats Nieves in a platoon or worse as the preferred starter isn’t a smart choice, it should be Flores or bust.  Flores hasn’t been making a strong case in AAA, but what are you going to do? The alternative is not a viable one.

LoDuca out 4-6 weeks.

The slap-hitting (.260 SLG percentage), impatient (.298 OBP, but to be fair….ah screw it I don’t want to be fair), noodle-armed (as Barry notes 0-10 throwing out baserunners, though Odalis did pick off a man on opening night with LoDuca at the plate hence the “1″ under CS in the record books.  LoDuca loving record books!), anger management needing, rapidly aging, alleged steriod-using catcher will…I lost my traing of thought.

Oh well, finally some good news for the Nats.  

Odalis Perez pitches another decent game. Ryan Zimmerman hits two home runs. Yet the Nats lose again. You’ve got to admire their persistence. They’ll find a way.

Of course the Nats losing, that’s not news, but we’ve got some of that, too.

O’Connor to the rotation…Chico to the bullpen?..O’Connor to the bullpen?!

The Nats have decided to take a break on the Chico, but rather than sending him down to Columbus which, you know, would have made some sense, they’ve decided to move him to the bullpen. If they are serious about this move you’ve taken someone who last year was a 24 yr old, just below average pitcher and made him into a long reliever about a month into the following season. To add to the madness the one thing you could say about Chico is that he could eat some innings. His 167 last year was the highest for any Nat in ‘07.

Some ways this makes sense:

(1) They think the Saint is the only one to fix him, so he’d be better off here than Columbus. Possible, but then why insinuate this could be a long term thing?

(2) They have zero faith in Chico and frankly don’t want him to waste the space of a better young pitcher coming up. Again possible, but why then O’Connor? Haven’t you felt that you’ve seen what you needed from him? Why not someone new Mock, Balester, Clippard?

Some ask for Bergmann. Me, I got to wonder what Schroder has to do to get another shot. Lefty/Righty is overrated. Right now having reliable arms in the bullpen is more important. And of course just to add another hmmmm to the situation, Acta decides he needs to go to the bullpen tonight, and he pulls in who? O’Connor. Huh?

[Did Manny go to the bullpen too quickly? Perez wasn’t struggling and heading into the bottom of the Astros order. Why go then to the bullpen. And again - why to O’Connor.]

LoDuca injures his hand pulling the team up by it’s bootstraps

No not really but considering how little he’s played (even when in the lineup) this veteran redass better be a damn Patton in the clubhouse. I won’t doubt the injury. LoDuca likes to play and will play when possible, even at detriment to the team (isn’t that always?). MRI tomorrow (hopefully finding a season ending injury). You’re very mean parenthesis guy.

Manny messes up

I’ll say this again. Why pull Perez after 5? 84 pitches is not alot. He was heading into the fearsome bottom of the Astros lineup where the corpse of Brad Ausmus has been propped up since 2003. The pitcher spot was quite possibly coming up next inning. Then he compounds the move by going to O’Connor. Forget the whole “Wait, isn’t he a starter now” thing. He’s at least the long relief and with the pitcher spot likely to come up soon, why would you waste him on a 1 inning outing? Of course the inevitable happened. The spot did come up the next inning. O’Connor was pinch hit for. And then Acta had to hang with Hanrahan longer than he would normally because of the potential of extra-innings.

[It’s one of baseball’s logic puzzles. You need to hang with Hanrahan too long because the game might go into extra innings, but by hanging with Hanrahan too long the game won’t go into extra innings. Robot heads explode at this thought]

UPDATE - So Odalis was very sick pre-game.  “Mistake #1″ then is understandable.  He probably just asked Odalis to give him 5.  But the O’Connor choice was still baffling for me.  6th, 7th, and 8th hitters coming up - all righties.  Nats having 6-8 coming up next inning. Maybe he thinks the same of the Nats offense that we do and figured the chances Kearns, LoDuca and/or Pena reaching base at about 10%.

Wonder why Rivera and Ayala blew it yesterday?  It’s because the Nats have used them to maintain their stranglehold on the league lead in appearences.  #1 and #2 last year, the Nats aren’t taking any chances, as Rivera and Ayala are #1 and #2 this year.

Ayala projects to 103 games this year, Rivera 93.   This is bad for soooo many reasons.   Rivera last year popped in 85 times.  To overwork him two years in a row is just asking for trouble.  Ayala is in his first year back from a significant arm injury. 

But what can Manny do?  The Nats questionable roster moves kept him one bullpen arm short and forced him to use LOOGY Ray King as a real reliever with predicatble results.  Hanrahan and Colome are iffy, best used in games that aren’t close. O’Connor is meant to be a long man. Rauch is “saved” for 9th inning appearences.

This is with the starters being ok.  What happens if Perez or Redding falter?  If Lannan doesn’t regain his form.  If Chico is Chico?

Bullpen help is easily found, but only because there’s tons of it out there good AND bad.  To sort through it could take the better part of a season.  A loooong season.

If you haven’t seen (and if you haven’t seen you’re probably my mom, because who else would go to OMG first?) Chris Needham of Capitol Punishment has hung up his computer typing fingers.  Grisly, but sadly true.

All bloggers care about how many people are reading thier blog on some level.  Some care alot, some care a little, but they all care on some level or else they’d be writing in a locked journal they keep hidden under their My Little Pony bank, not on the internet. I think this was especially true among the Nats bloggers since the community really sprung up overnight when the Expos were rumored to be moving to DC.  (Trust me, I was writing about the Expos a few months before the rumors started.  The Expos blogging community was basically JP Allard and…nope that’s it.)  Everyone was in on the ground floor or close to it.

There was some jockeying between all these new blogs, everyone looking out to see if they had become THE blog.   Not that most cared if they didn’t reach that level, but who doesn’t want to be loved besides Oscar the Grouch?   We posted and found our niches.  Some people gave up posting and others came in. Eventually everything shaked out and it became clear that in the past year or so Capitol Punishment had become THE blog for Washington Nationals opinion/news/vitriol.  More readers, an active comment community, chances to write in other venues, it was the little blog that could.  Worse for us other blogs, Chris managed to do this by totally cheating and using both quantity and quality to climb to the top of this little heap. No gimmicks, graphics, or access.  Just good prolific writing.  How can you compete with that?

[Is it sad that the end of a blog interests me more than whatever the Nats did last night? I go back and forth on this.]

There’s no real take-home message here, other than it’s always disappointing to see something you enjoy end and Chris’ blog should have been enjoyable for any Nats fan. Go over an wish Chris that the wind will always be at his back, and that he should never forget the class of ’03 and stuff. 

Sweet.  I was getting tired of that old hackneyed talking point.   Time for a new hackneyed talking point!

Anyway Boz has a column about identifying the core players for the Nats today.  I’ll summarize for you

“2010: Zimmerman and the Question Marks.  Maybe they should sign some free agents. ”

I could rip apart the article for some obvious flaws, say like “Soriano was a core player in 2006? When did the team ever consider keeping Soriano, ya moron?” but the gist of it is correct.  If the Nats want a winner sooner rather than later (and 2010 has always kind of been the sticking point), they may not be able to do it through the farm alone.

It’s not a surprise, but it’s the last sticking point for the ownership.   Will they, when the time comes, spend the cash to compete?  Or is the goal always going to be to compete with as small a budget as possible?

You might say “But the farm looks so good!  Why can’t we just wait until that pans out?” but you can’t count on that.  You just can’t.  The transition to the majors is the hardest one to make and project.  At every level you are facing mostly people of a similar skill set.  Those not good enough didn’t make it, those better moved on. The majors are top heavy.  There is no other place for players to move onto.  No “Super Majors” for Albert Pujols and Johan Santana and Alex Rodriguez. It’s much more a guessing game who’s going to pan out or not.  You hope, but you can’t depend.

It’s an interesting column for Boswell, who usually is blindly supportive but you’ve got to remember he’s not a sunny-eyed optimist because that’s his nature, he’s that way because he wants to do everything he can to make baseball work in DC.  He realizes that they can’t just keep trotting out 75 win teams and build a solid fanbase.  Do the Lerner’s?   Probably.   The bigger question is if they can keep making money doing it this way, Do they care?  We’ll find out in the next two offseasons.

What about him?

Listen, my distaste for the little guy runs pretty deep.  Deeper than a few key hits and a nice couple of months can change.  It’s not a logical dislike.  He didn’t hit me with a line drive, or lose me a big bet, or knock up my sister and force her child to then fight a guerilla war for Fruit of the Loom against Hanes. (that would have probably swung me back toward liking him.  Boo Hanes!).  I just don’t like him.   I can’t quantify it.  (or is that “qualify”?) It’s just a feeling - a feeling backed by a near -historically bad 2005, a non existant 2006 and 3/4 of 2007 to the tune of 12 million dollars .  Sorry if you come here expecting me to praise the guy, but I ain’t a “what have you done for me lately” kind of guy.  

[Hell, I’d honestly still put votes in for Tim Redding, Odalis Perez, and even Nick Johnson as best Nationals right now.  Biased?  Sure.  Nick Johnson?  You bet.  He’s well outperforming Cristian in getting on base despite hitting about .200, and he’s not that far off in power (going into Saturday he was actually 30 points ahead in SLG).  Add that to flawless defense (which Cristian hasn’t displayed) and you have an argument.  It’s not a slam-dunk argument by any means, but certainly not the slam-dunk the other way most people would think. 

Oh but what about during this winning streak?   Outperforming Cristian again in OBP (by .100 pts! .288 to .381) and only 1 less XBH.]

Anyway the Nats won 3 out of 4, that they needed to and frankly they should have (you should look to win series versus teams that aren’t significantly better than you when playing at home).  So that’s good.  This homestand - @ HOU - v FLA stretch was one that I thought might be nice for the Nats when I saw the schedule.  So far it has been.   Let’s see if they can keep it up.  At the end of May through Mid-June comes a couple of long and odd road trips (SD & ARI then home the the common PIT to SEA to MIN juant) that might be more difficult.  Time to rack up the wins now until then.

Manny sits Zimmerman to keep him fresh for later in the year?   I kind of question whether a game or two here and there can really make a difference - but dammit if they aren’t the ones playing 162 games, so I’ll start by giving them the benefit of the doubt.   Then I’ll check the stats.

Zimmerman ‘07 stats (162 games):

Mar/Apr: .236 / .288 / .327

May:  .257  / .331 / .495

June: .241 / .261 / .444

July: .311 / .372 / .456

August: .299 / .359 / .607

Sept/Oct: .255 / .406 / .338

It does seem like something was off that last month.  The slugging percentage drops well below what we’d seen the past few moths.  Looking even further

August 1-15: SLG .621

August 16-31: .593

September 1-15: .480

September 16-30: .339

That’s a pretty definitive trend.   Will a day off now make a difference?  Who knows?  However Ryan thinks it makes a difference and that’s probably just as important.

“I knew I wouldn’t want to” play 162 again, he said. “It’s tough. It takes a toll on your body. . . . Two days of relaxing and doing nothing, you can’t really tell anybody how much that does for you in the course of a long season. It’s better for me. It’s better for the team. It’s better for everybody.” 

Nats win and are now primed to take, like I said, 3 of 4 from Pittsburgh and get back to the 7X-win pace they are destined for.

I know what you’re thinking though - and I’m taking a moment to tell you to stop thinking it/

“If the Nats offense…”

no stop it….

“only gets a little better and the pitching…”

are you not listening to me?

“stays the same.  This team could…”

I should just shut up, right?

“make a run at….what are you saying?”

Oh good.  You listened.    Anyway the Nats offense can get a little better.  It’s not blowing anyone out of the water, it’s not blowing them onto a wave, it’s not blowing them anywhere.  But the pitching stay the same?  You do realize the staff ERA during this little 6-2 jag is 3.12 right?  That’s almost a run better than the best ERA in all the National League last year.  It’s going to get worse, sometime rather soon.  If the offense picks up then great.  The team may hold it’s ground.  But don’t look at what we’ve seen on the mound and think the Nats are reaching their potential.  They are overshooting it.   A lot. 

“You’re no fun, are you”

No, I’m not.

Liquor me up and call me Bowden!  Cordero is injured!   What was their first clue - the two weeks of low 80’s fastballs?  Yes, yes in fact that was their first clue and they pretty much ignored that bloody knife in the hands of the murderer waiting for the baseball version of a confession, Cordero shouting “OW OW OW!” on the mound.  Well, you got your man Nats!  Cordero had to stop mid-batter in the 9th and he’s out.  The Nats however are on a roll.  Win.  4-1 in their last 5, 5-2 in their last 7.

It’s not the hitting doing it, although they have been not dreadful the past 7 games .246 / .325 / .351… wait… that is still pretty bad. Forget what I said.  Yuk!  P-tooie!

The pitching though is much better.   A 3.43 ERA the past 7 games.   29 BB to 47 Ks.  A reasonable 3 HRs given up.  The starters espeically have been coming through.  Only one bad game (I’m looking in your direction Matthew Lesko Chico) and when a team is kept in it, good things can happen.  That was basically the philosophy of the 2005 First Half Nats.

Now with a pitching match-up that actually favors the Nats not only on paper, but in brief thoughts about the game, with Shawn Hill matching up against I believe Dan Jurgens (Oh no!  Superman!).  Win this and that’s a nice little streak to take into a 4-game Pirate series that you have to look at with the goal of taking 3 of 4.   Then the Nats are 14-18 and pretty much exactly where they should be.

[If this happens please please please PLEASE do not start saying “since April 24th the Nats are…” as proof of the Nats talent level.  Please.  They are what they are INCLUDING the first 15% of the year.  You can’t ignore that.  You can’t.  Please]

No, not this one.  This one.

Seriously though there must have been a disconnect between Bowden and Acta on this one.   King can get out lefties - that’s it.  Lefties are hitting .253 / .253 / .353 vs Ray King this year and other than a very odd 2005 that’s the best they’ve done since 1999.   Acta though used Ray King all the time facing righties 16 times and lefties 17.  It was a recpipe for disaster that turned out delicious!

You could say Acta didn’t have choice - early in the season he needed every inning his bullpen could give - but it was a bad decision.  Just because you have a cake to cut and no knives around - only a chainsaw - you don’t go ahead and use the chainsaw.  Even if it is the only way to say “HEY, JIMBO YOU MORON - I DON’T HAVE THE FLEXIBILITY TO CARRY A LOOGY WHEN YOU GIVE ME 3 PITCHERS AND A BULLPEN BUDDY TO WORK WITH EVERY NIGHT!!” and get Jimbo to react, I still think you don’t do it - hurts the team . Bowden I’m sure didn’t appreciate the misuse,  killing King’s tradeability (oh you thought he was in Columbus for actual rehab?) but what are you going to do?  Might as well see if you could get something for him now (spoiler: they couldn’t)

Someone will pick him up.  Someone with a deep bullpen withouth a lefty specialist could use Ray King.  That wasted 20 games of the Nats time though that probably could have been avoided.

Does the air smell a little sweeter? The birds sing a little louder, the sun shine a little brighter? If so tell me where you are because over here it’s wet and damp. Oh but the Nationals won 2 out of 3 from the Cubbies (and 3 of 4 overall) so that’s kind of OK.

I’m pretty busy so just some things to comment on

• No Wil Nieves is not this good. This 30yr old is not going to be the Nats answer at catcher. Not in 2008 and certainly not beyond. What he is is that odd player that helps carry the team when the stars are struggling. Which is fine for me, what about you?
• Anyone else worried about Nick Johnson now? I mean not too worried. This is a guy with such a great eye he can bat .216 and STILL lead the team in OBP. (of course that’s not that great an accomplishment - only Lastings Milledge is over .340 for our regulars) but doesn’t he seem to be swinging and missing more? It’s actually not too much off his usual numbers, but still makes me a bit wary. Still he is producing something (4th in the majors in walks) unlike this guy…
• Austin Kearns .187 / .308 / .275. He’s got a good eye - but not good enough to make him useful if he can’t bat even say .230 or so. More bothersome - 4 XBH in over 90 at bats. WIly Mo is injured. Nick and Ryan are having trouble getting hits but when they do the power is still ok. What’s his excuse?
• You know I’ve been behind Matt Chico since Spring Training. I’ve said he deserves first shot at proving he’s a major league starter. Well eh got that first shot and frankly…it’s time. Maybe one more start (against the cure-all Pittsburgh Pirates) maybe not.
• Attendance: 105 K roughly - for the weekend series vs the Cubbies. That’s great.
• Lannan? Haven’t Nats fans gotten excited over like 20 different pitchers before? Nice performance but I’ll hold off projecting him as the #2 starter in the 2011 NLCS for now, sorry.
• I’m more impressed by Odalis Perez. You see the wonders that can happen when pitchers listen to Randy and throw their stuff in the strike zone. It’s come to the point where I believe that if you fail here - you really don’t have any business pitching in the majors.

It wouldn’t be fair to harp on the attendance issues early and not mention the crowd last night.  Now, do I want to be fair to the Nats? Eh.  But I made a death-bed promise to a dying great aunt twice removed to always give both sides of the argument in regards to baseball attendance issues, and dammit if I’m going to let ol’ Martha down.

32,780

Naysayers will say it was the Mets and/or the weather, and surely both had something to do about it. Last year’s first home game against the Mets was roughly the same time of month (April 27th) and roughly the same crappy team playing (7-15 entering that game) and it drew only 21, 662.  And that was a Friday - followed up by a 29, 292 on Saturday.  The Nats didn’t get within 5K of this attendance for a weekday game until a Cubs series around July 4th.  That’s a good number.  

One thing to think about is that it might be a Johan Santana thing, but we only have to wait about 8 hrs to see if that’s the case.

Yeah, last night that didn’t happen. A couple of crappy light hits and the game is over.  The Nats need not only good play - but good luck too. They haven’t gotten much of either.

Losers walk, Winners talk.   Still somehow MVN’s Mets site “Take the 7 train” did a couple of Q&A’s with me.  To make things right again, I did one with them.  Here’s Jessica Bader’s answers to a couple of Mets questions that I had on my head.   Read it - if only to read the rare completely reasonable fan speak.

The Mets collapsed historically last year (sorry).  The national media seems to have put that behind it but as a WFAN listener I know that’s not the case with all fans.  Is it still hanging over your heads and if so, isn’t this season really just a long trudge until August to see what happens when the Mets get there?

I think that if the collapse is still hanging over some fans’ heads (and the people who call in to WFAN tend to be the more fatalistic segment of the fanbase even without a historic collapse as a motivating factor), it’s because certain segments of the local media continue to smack us in the face with it. Last time I checked, the previous season’s record is not a factor in this year’s standings, and I would like to think that the players who were here for the collapse are approaching this season with the motivation to make sure it doesn’t happen again rather than the fear that it will. The season is going to be a long trudge any way you look at it - the Mets have chosen to construct a team that is heavily reliant on players with considerable talent but significant injury concerns, and the ability to keep those guys on the field will determine how far this team goes.  

Nats fans are hating having the lying, cheating, slap-hitting Paul LoDuca around, do Mets fans feel the same way or is he permanently in their hearts for being an Italian from Brooklyn who palys the game hard, if not well?

Lo Duca garners mixed reactions from the fanbase. There are those who look back happily on his good 2006 season and the qualities you’ve mentioned, and think of him as the sort of fiery leader the team is missing. Then there are those who remember his subpar defense, his poorly-timed temper tantrums, the way he argued his way back into the lineup before he had fully recovered from an injury (and provided a week of uselessness at the plate before re-aggravating the injury) when backup catcher Ramon Castro was hitting well, and his tendency to run his mouth about his teammates. I think it’s fairly obvious which camp I belong to, and quite frankly I’ll be embarrassed if/when he gets a warmer reception at Shea than certain other former or current Mets, especially given his extensive presence in the Mitchell Report.

Trading Lastings Milledge for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider seems ridiculous to me.  Most Nats bloggers were big supporters of Church and think he has a couple good years in him, but Lastings was matching him at the plate age 22.  Would you do it again?
 
I hated the trade when it happened, and while Church represents an upgrade over Shawn Green and both he and Schneider are off to hot starts, my feelings haven’t changed. The Mets traded their most ML-ready positional prospect for reasons other than his on-field ability, and they did so at a time when those other reasons had pushed his trade value below his actual value. The thought process behind the trade bothers me as much as the trade itself, if that makes any sense.

What does Johan Santana have to do to not be considered a bust for the Mets?  Can he win only 16 games?  Can he win 20+ but have the Mets miss the playoffs?  Would it all be forgiven if he finally got the Mets that no-hitter?

The fact that this question can even be asked is a sad commentary on the way sports fans react when their high (often irrationally so) expectations are not met (no pun intended). I was at Santana’s first home start, and I was appalled by the way a certain portion of those in attendance behaved after one of the best pitchers in baseball, the sort of pitcher most fans dream of their team having, had a rough start against a team that devours left-handed pitching. I think that for many to consider Johan’s first year as a Met to be a success, he’ll probably have to win his final start of the year, and that start will have to take place in October; given that this scenario involves a lot of things over which he has no control going a certain way, it may not be fair to expect/demand that, but since when does fair have anything to do with it? (And any pitcher who does that which no Met pitcher has done before will get a lifetime pass from many fans, myse lf included.)

I’ve been to Shea and while it’s sad to see an old park go, it’s time.  What will you miss most about Shea and do you think CitiField can live up to expectations, especially with the Bronx Colisseum going up at the same time?
 
I think that what I’ll miss most about Shea is the ability to decide on any random summer morning that I feel like going to that night’s game because I can buy a decent ticket when I get to the ballpark an hour before gametime. I’ll always have the memories of the games I’ve attended there and the people I’ve attended them with, but somehow I doubt that I’ll have the opportunity to be so spontaneous in my decisions to take myself out to the ballgame in a park with 15,000 fewer seats. I think Citi Field can live up to expectations - it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful place to see a game and an upgrade over Shea in many ways, and it may have an easier time of winning over fans’ hearts than the new Yankee Stadium will because of the disparity in sentiment over the ballparks being replaced.

The Nats won in a performance eerily similar to the one I mentioned yesterday where Bergmann outdueled Smoltz.  (poor John Smoltz, always getting outdueled by Nats).  Bergmann’s performance was more dominating than Lannan’s (8 IP, 2H, 10K) but Lannan held the Braves scoreless.  It was a big-time pitching performance the Nats needed, and let’s not forget the horrible pitching performance they got from the other side.  Thanks to Jorge Campillo, because who here would have bet on the Nats going into the bottom of the 9th up by only one run? 

[The “pessimist is me” would like you guys to take a step back and think of another corollary between Bergmann and Lannan.  Specifically - where is Bergmann now?  Uh huh.  Not in the majors pitching the Nats to victory.  For all of you who have lept onto the Lannan express, just try not to get ahead of yourselves there. Could he become a solid rotation guy?  Sure.  But don’t act like it’s set in stone.

In favor of Lannan, he’s only ever been a starter, unlike Bergmann]

You can’t take too much from the win other than Lannan’s performance, the offense being in part carried by the Wills,  Nieves and Harris.  It was nice to see Felipe get a couple of base hits. And he’s earned his way back into a starting spot at second base (a little bit because of a handful of OK games, a lot because of Belliard sucking).  Lopez is no Nick Johnson, but as the article notes, he does take a fair amount of pitches.   Second on the team in 2006 (4.17), First last year (4.01), Currently 4th (3.89).  

[You ever think about how bad the Nats up the Middle defense is when the team is operating with the line-up it would like to have?  LoDuca, Guzman, Lopez, and Milledge?  Sure Guzman isn’t horrible like the other three seem to be, but he’s not the defensive whiz some like to make him out to be.  He’s capable with a nasty tendency to commit a bad error every once in a while.  Anyway that’s not the point.  The point is that’s a pretty damn bad up the middle defense, where usually teams focus on defense.  Hey, but at least the Nats have the corners covered! (well except LF)]

Now the Nats move onto the all-important second game, trying to build momentum.  Of course they are tasked to do it against, Johan Santana.  Tim Redding though is the man you would want on the Nats side for this game, so good luck, sirs.

In Other News

How is bringing back Wily Mo and Chad early going for the Nats?   Appears that the Nats have broken both Chad’s arm and Wily Mo’s spirit!   The Ol’ Tuscaloosa Two-Step!  Good job Jimbo!

At this point, what is there to say? The Nats are tripping over their own feet and they need a run of good luck to get them out of this malaise.   Seriously, they can’t simply get back to playing how they ”should” be playing and bust out of this slump. This is a below .500 team to begin with.  Simply performing is not enough.  They need to catch some breaks.  A couple 1-run wins, a couple horrible showings by the other teams pitchers, a couples shutout by Nats guys, a couple players getting super-hot at the same time.  These things happen, for every team, in every season.  The Nats need it to happen real soon. 

Last year the timing of that run “saved” the Nats season.  After starting infamously 9-25, the Nats went 11-4.  Got workable starts, including a gem by Bergmann outdueling Smoltz in a 2-1 win.   Won 5 one-run games.  They didn’t hit all that great but managed to slug 14 HRs in those 15 games, after hitting only 15 in the previous 34.  Suddenly the Nats were 20-29, and pretty much back where they should be, before the season could get out of hand, before the team became a laughingstock. 

Last night:

The offense got on base a ton but could never deliver the knockout blow.  In part because they kept running themselves out of innings, trying to hard to make something happen on the base-paths since nothing is happening at the plate, but in part because the Nats have been no good at hitting with RISP this year.  Second to last in the majors in battting average with RISP (.222), dead last in SLG (.322).   The Nats are a slap hitting team right now.  That means to get a big inning - you know 4+ runs or more, they need to work in 4 or 5 hits to go along with a walk or two.   That’s tough for a good hitting team.  

Thing is they know that, they tried to correct for it and they only made things worse.   Wily Mo is a giant hole in the line-up right now.  .100 / .129/ .100 .   This was a team that had no margain for error.  Bringing back Wily Mo early was an error.  Game Over.  0 runs scored.

What can the team do?   I don’t know.  Willie Harris might manage to get on base a little more but he’s not going to rally help the lineup.  Felipe in the OF? Maybe, but are you going to trust Felipe to keep hitting?  You’d have to DL Wily Mo because he isn’t going to take kindly to being benched so a SS/2b can play LF.  God I can’t believe I’m saying this - but bring up Alex Escobar.  What do you have to lose right now.  You don’t need a Willie Harris on the bench.  Defense and speed isn’t going to turn the corner for the Nats.

It’s a grasping at straws move to be sure, but that’s what the Nats have to do now.  Grasp until something (probably unrelated) clicks. Fiddle around with the lineup in places where you don’t care.  Switch around some bench players for some minor league spot starters.  Sometimes it’s just as important to look like you are doing something than to actually make a change.  And doing these things keeps you from making moves you don’t want to make just yet, like sitting Kearns and Zimmerman, or messing with the middle of the line-up.

17 baserunners and 3 runs…[clap, clap, clap]…great job.  Eh whatever. 

Even if this is something totally unexpected.

Armando does it again.  Just in case you were wondering. A little wild but squa-doosh on the board.

Record:

2007: 6-13

2008: 5-14  

About a week ago I was commenting about how the Nats were finding themselves on the losing end of games not because of their offense, which was producing average numbers at the time, but because of their starting pitching.  Like clockwork, the Nats’ offense went into the tank and their starting pitching had some very good outings.

Past 7 days

Nats offense:    .191 BA / .288 OBP / .278 SLG  3 HRs, 16 runs scored

That’s hot. (if by “hot” you mean “very, very, very bad”. )   OK, so the past week of shame can clearly be layed at the feet of the Nats bats.  Let’s check out some more numbers and see if there’s any chance we can still absolve the offense of the overall suck-itude.  Let’s look at the comparison to last year which 10 days ago, showed an offense that had improved and a pitching staff that had not.

Offense (through 19 games)

2007:  .241 / .324 / .343, 10 HR, 62 runs

2008:  .219 / .300 / .334, 11HR, 67 runs

Pitching

2007:  4.99 ERA, 117K, 95BB, 107 R

2008: 4.73 ERA, 138K, 78 BB, 100R

Any advanatage the offense had in comparison to last year is gone.  They are scoring a few more runs, the pitching staff is saving a few more.  Congratulations, the Nats are now in the 6th circle of hell, as opposed to the 7th. 

Another things I noted (I think in a comment) was the Nats actually had a decent isolated OBP and SLG numbers.   That means that on a whole the Nats hitting woes were mainly due to an abnormally low batting average - something the team should be able to come back from.  Is that still the case?

isoOBP: 0.081 (5th in the NL). This number is pretty good.

isoSLG: 0.115 (14th in the NL).  This number sucks brisket.

The Nats are still doing a decent job of getting on base outside of, you know, hitting their way on, but the power has continued to drop.  (If you’d like you can imagine Scotty from Star Trek screaming “I need more powerrrr, captain!”.)

Will it get better?  What does the BABIP say?  Are the Nats suffering from some bad luck, seeing all their batted balls go right to the other team for easy outs instead of solid singles? 

BABIP .252!

OK that’s some bad luck. It seems to suggest the Nats are getting unlucky to some degree with balls hit in play.  Add that to the fact they don’t hit balls over the fence, out of play, this ends up being big trouble.

The Nats should show some better offense, our own intuition and the numbers both suggest that.  How soon will that be?  Tought to say.  We expect to see improvement at3B once Ryan starts heating up with the tempature.  But the other positions giving nothing….Catcher could very well be a lost cause in 2008 if they really don’t have any intentions of bringing up Flores (and even then…).   Belliard might be done at 2nd base.  Kearns might hit for a higher average but the Nats need power and that’s not his strong suit. 

Left Field is the most worrisome to me.  You can’t blame the Nats for what happened in their OF.  A week or two before the season started they lost their starter and their back-up to injury.  You don’t plan for that.  Sure it showed how weak the 5th OF was on the bench, but dammit that was the 5th OF.  Willie Harris was here to run and catch, not hit. The problem is they panicked and brought back Wily Mo too early.  His lack of rehab could put him in an extended slump or worse aggravate the injury.  And then what?  Do they panic again and bring Elijah Dukes in? 

The Nats will have a better offense, but unless Belliard and LoStrada wake up, it could be a while away.  Enough time must pass for Wily Mo and/or Dukes to get healthy and back in the swing.  Enough time for Zimmerman to get hot.  Nats fans could be looking at another 9-25 start.