Submitted by Jeff on Sun, 03/23/2008 - 7:37am.
- John Lannan isn't expected to make the starting rotation this season, but he is making a case to be the first one called up when a slot opens. Lannan pitched six innings of one-run ball against the Braves Saturday, giving up three hits and two walks. The Nats got four runs, including the first RBI this spring by Rob Mackowiak, and beat the Braves 4-1.
- The Nats officially named Odalis Perez their Opening Night starter on Saturday, a move that was expected given Perez's performance in camp this spring. "He won more games than any one of our starters last year in the big leagues, he's the only one on our staff who has won 15 games before and he has pitched well in spring training," manager Manny Acta said. "He earned it." It will be the first season-opening start for Perez.
- Ray King made the 25-man roster as the team's only left-hander in the bullpen. King came into camp having lost over 20 pounds in the offseason; "instead of going to In-N-Out Burger, King ate salmon instead." More importantly, King hasn't allowed a run in six innings this spring.
- Before Saturday's game the Nats sent Mike O'Connor down and returned Matt Whitney to Cleveland. Whitney was a Rule 5 draftee; the team tried to work out a deal with Cleveland that would have allowed the Nats to send him to the minors but couldn't reach an agreement.
- Manny Acta's tenure as manager as been marked by a "cautious" running game with one message at its core, according to coach Tim Tolman: "Don't give away outs." The Nats attempted half as many steals in 2007 as they did in 2006, with a higher success rate. "If he has a baseball bible," Barry Svrluga writes of Acta, "it just might be 'Mind Game,' the book on the 2004 Boston Red Sox produced by the staff of Baseball Prospectus, a group of some of the leading statistical analysts in the game."
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