The Battle
All night, MASN’s been putting Lannan’s family onscreen. And what a night they must be having. Lannan’s performance has been incredible, and the last battle between him, Wright at bat and Reyes on first was one of those reasons baseball is a great American tradition. Reyes tried to steal second an uncountable number of times through two batters, the first of which he might’ve succeeded but for an odd call when the bat hit the catcher’s glove as he tried to throw to second. What was amazing was that you could see Reyes and Lannan watching each other, trying to find the “tell,” and Wright doing all he could to act as the foil and get Reyes to second.
All three players deserve props. Reyes might’ve had the drop on Lannan multiple times, but just as many times, Lannan was just a likely to end the inning with an out at second. They all knew it, and the tension was great.
Twitter Updates for 2008-04-16
- Just struck out with the bases loaded #
- Perez just hit a guy to load the bases. No on happy including ump. #
- Fly out. And we’re out. #
- Bad double off a guzman error #
- Ayala now pitching. #
- 4-0 mets #
- Caps just 6-3 in what can only be described as embarrasing. #
- Now 6-0 mets #
- Just tuned in. 1-1. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Twitter Updates for 2008-04-15
- Whoa, Tigers won last night! #
- Estrada just got hit by a pitch. Walked itoff but looked like he wanted to cry the entire time. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
State the Sphere will be somewhat regular, hazy look around the Nationals’ blog-o-sphere.
There’s not a lot of happy out there right now.
“But wait,” you say, “the Nats just broke their 9-game losing streak!” Yes, and therein lies the rub. It’s not that we’re unhappy about breaking that streak, but…
Capitol Punishment starts off with,
This is rock bottom right? Like last year, it has to get better.
Ouch. CP continues by explaining that, while it’s a sweet win, a more in-depth look at the stats reveals some dark horizons. Namely, Zimmerman, Kearns and Bergman. Check out the post for some some pretty intense stats.
In about the same vein, Federal Baseball asks a great question I haven’t seen or heard anywhere else:
Why make Chad Cordero come back in a tight situation, when he hasn’t been throwing above the mid-80’s in 2 rehab starts? The MASN radar had him at about 85mph on his fastballs? Cordero didn’t look happy leaving the game or on the bench afterward.
It’s a great question…but I think Acta was just testing him. Although we couldn’t tell because of those sunglasses, I’m willing to be Acta never took his eyes off Cordero while he was on the mound. And, remember, Cordero was pulled after only 2/3 of an inning.
Oleanders and Morning Glories seems to struggle through two rather scheziphrenic paragraphs before going down the glass-half-full path:
The long National(s) nightmare is over. Yes, it took an injury to Glavine, and a very shaky Jeff Bennett tossing out walks like they were Kit Kats on Halloween, but the Nats will take it.
[You could say the Nats were patient enough to take advantage of Bennett’s wildness. You could say that. You could also say walking Guzman, Milledge, and Zimmerman back to back to back was more the pitcher being bad than the Nats being good…]
I’d like to say that Wily Mo and Chad Cordero came back over the weekend and said “Get on our backs, boys. We’re carrying you to victory” I’d like to say that.
O&M also tackles the question of rushing the Corderos of the world back, but really takes issue with Guzman:
I’m not ready to praise Guzman just yet, the devil does come as the most alluring of batting averages, but can we please drop him down in the lineup? What he really has going for him right now is the slugging and for him to follow the struggling Belliard, the pitcher, and even worse Paul LoDuca, is wasting those doubles and triples (that honestly we might never see again)
You know what I have to say to that? Here’s why we’re excited to see Guzman playing well right now…we’re not going to see it again for the rest of the season.
The prevailing attitude seems to have really gotten to Just a Nats Fan, who takes on the challenges of photography in the new stadium, and ends with:
However, the frustrations have just mounted to the point my blood was bubbling yesterday and I wanted to explode or burst into tears — so I did a combination of both.
This despite a win!
The Curly W dives into the quagmire that is the Nat’s pitching situation:
It’s spring and the pitcher’s aren’t ready. The weather makes the pitchers stiff. The pitchers stink! Whatever the case may be, the Nats’ pitchers must go 5 innings and that’s it.
Agreed. Did anyone else lose count yesterday as Acta powered through what seemed like the entire bullpen?
And, finally, Nationals Farm Authority provides the backhanded optimism moment of the week by completely forgoing the rest of this season and looking forward to the draft:
I’m going to start looking at what the 2008 draft holds for the Nationals who pick at #9 in the first round, #56 in the second round, #87 in the third round, and #121 (+30) in the rounds four and out.
W’uh-oh.
Oh, before I forget, the Manny Acta-lovefest quote of the week, from the Washington Post (thanks to The Curly W for this…I read the story yesterday, then couldn’t find it today, and W had it right there…):
“He (Manny) does, though, pull the levers that run the team. And yesterday, in a situation in which his fragile club badly needed to win, he pushed each button on the control panel at the correct time. He got only five innings from his starter, right-hander Tim Redding. But on the first day closer Chad Cordero was active for a game, Acta pieced together the final 12 outs by using five relievers — coaxing his team through the ninth, when the Braves loaded the bases and threatened to deliver a devastating loss.”
Ah, yes. Gotta throw love at Manny.
Anyway…here’s the thing folks. Everyone (but the Post) is right–this season’s gonna suck. Acta’s real trick won’t be guiding the Nats to impossible wins, but guiding them through a couple of seasons of low productivity, saving those stars like Cordero while leveraging the experience of veterans such as Guzman and Peña. The other part of this is keeping an even emotional keel in the clubhouse…you can’t let morale get too low, folks lose hope and want to leave. I suspect Acta’ll keep a very emotional keel on himself, but we’ll see what happens now that we’re through the first couple seasons of excitement over the mere presence of baseball, and the reality of the expectation of productivity.
Hey folks…wanted to let you know of a slight change in the way I’m going to be handling mobile posting. See over there on the right, where it says “What I’m doing…”? Well, I’m using the (otherwise near-useless) Twitter service to post quick updates during the games. I’ll be using the main content area (where you’re reading this) for posting more substantial content, like my feelings on John Smoltz and my reaction to Guzman’s ridiculous at bat earlier today.
I noticed the content area is becoming slightly cluttered with my snark, and wanted those of you who have already come to know and love my tough-but-fair, slightly critical moments of witty genius to be able to continue reading.
Oh, and what if you’re out watching the game, unable to reach a computer and without iPhone in hand? Sign up to follow me on Twitter…I’m under HalfAssedFan on Twitter.
For those of you who don’t want to take advantage the Twitter service, well I’ve taken care of you, too. Each day there will be a blog post generated with all of my snarky tweets consolidated into one place. You can even have it delivered to your inbox by signing up for email updates on the right!
Thanks everyone. Enjoy!
Guiness and Red Bull
Guiness with espresso. It’s like the erudite vodka and red bull.
DC Washington
Anybody got a bio on this guy? A quick google didnt turn anything up. Pop it in the comments if you got it.
What happened?
Guzman just:
1. Almost showed bunt but didnt. Not see why or what.
2. Phoned in his strike three swing.