April 2009
Oh the Humanity!
Honestly, I just haven’t had the energy to post lately. It’s a combination of getting into the final month of studying for the CFA and the continuously horrible outings of the Nationals. As if the weekend when we lost three to Florida in three consecutive ninth inning blow-ups wasn’t enough, I watched last night’s game as we hammered the Phillies for 11 runs and it still wasn’t enough as the bullpen, again, came out throwing garbage to the heart of the Phillies’ order. They gave up two grand slams in one game, which would be unbelievable if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.
Last year, the team suffered deficiencies in almost every aspect of the game (hitting, slugging, scoring, defense, starting pitching, relief pitching). This season we have no trouble scoring runs…it’s the pitching and defense that remain elusive. Although to be fair, last night’s conflagration was all a lack of pitching, as the Nats ended the night without committing an error. I sat and watched the final two innings, deep down knowing that without Joe Beimel to set up the eighth, the bullpen was well-prepared to screw the pooch. And sure enough, in 15 minutes I witnessed one of the worst displays of relief pitching thus far as Mock and Hanrahan pitched around batters and ended up walking them or allowing them to advance by wild pitches. Nobody’s going to swing at a slider that hits the groub a foot in front of the plate…only in cricket.
In 15 minutes not only was the 4 run lead gone, but it had morphed into a 2 run deficit. We hit five home runs last night and that still wasn’t enough to prevent the bullpen from handing the game to the Phillies. As a fan, I know my knowledge of the team has a natural upper bound, so my prescrptions for what ails the Nationals is going to be ill-informed. But really, we’ve played at least 5 games this season that we should have won and that were lost by poor relief pitching. It’s really as simple as that. Defense has been a culprit as well, but when your pitcher gives up the only hit that could spell disaster for your team night after night, it’s evident there are big problems in the bullpen. Should Hanrahan be taken out of the closer’s role? Maybe. Although who do you put in there? Beimel is fantastic as a set up man, but he’s also on the DL for another week so let’s set him aside. Perhaps using a closer by committee would have to do for the next week, although Wells or Tavarez could fill in thanks to their veteran status.
Regardless, Hanrahan doesn’t have the mental toughness right now to be the closer and end a damn game. He does have it, but for some reason it’s gone right now. Put him as a middle relief guy for a while, anything to get him away from the ninth inning where he’s been so helpful to opposing batters.
For the love of God, I can’t watch us play6 or 7 good innings because that will lead to a loss, well, 14 times out of 18, apparently.
Reflecting on 0 and 7…
What a terrible week to start the 2009 season, for both the Nats and baseball at-large. An 0 and 7 record means nothing in light of the tragic deaths of Nick Adenhart, Harry Kalas and Mark Fidrych all in one week. That certainly gives some perspective on a young baseball season.
Nonetheless, as a Nats fan it’s impossible not to feel disheartened at the state of play these past seven days. I watched a few of the first games but couldn’t bear to carve out time from my schedule to watch the atrocious games late last week. Being 0 and 7 is embarassing, but no more so than losing 102 games all last season, so that doesn’t really matter. Just about every team goes through years they’d just as soon forget so am I really embarassed about being a Nats fan given their terrible start this year? No.
I’m frustrated that a team with such talent is playing so far under their abilities. Are the Nats going to win the NL East? No, not this season. But they can beat the Marlins and the Braves consistently. Everyone waits in line to talk about how those teams can hit, but any team can hit against the lackluster pitching put up by the Nats last week so let’s not annoint either team as the next Murderer’s Row quite yet. If I had to hear Bob Carpenter say, “Man, this team can hit, can’t they?!” one more time last week, I was going to swear off MASN for a month. You’re the announcer for the Nats…at least try to act like you don’t want to make out with the Marlins and Braves each time they get a hit against poor pitching. Geez.
I was happy to see that the Nats got some gumption and sent Milledge to Syracuse. As Boz says in his most recent column, showing up just before team stretches and late to team meetings and acting like the club owes you playing time is a bad precedent. Plus we have other outfielders (i.e. Dukes and Willingham) who want to play and are hitting. Get them out there! I still think Willingham will work out as a nice 4th outfielder (maybe a starter if Kearns can’t get the bat going and earn his way to a trade soon).
I’m not about to give up on them, of course. In fact, if I could go to every Nats home game (with good seats, of course), I would because it’s obvious the team wants to win…I don’t see any display, aside from episodes of nonchalance from Milledge, from players that they aren’t trying to win or working hard. That doesn’t excuse mistakes made, but when Adam Dunn hits a home run, a double and walks once and takes the blame for the 9-8 loss to the Phillies because of a missed ball, well, I think that should say something to the rest of the team.
Check out this article by Dave Sheinin from today’s WaPo regarding Opening Day and fans’ reaction to it. My general thought is that it’s going to suck to be a Nats fan for a while. Our team isn’t going to blow the doors off the NL for a while and the process is going to be slow. But I have confidence in the FO and in Manny and in the players that they will work to create a great team and franchise. It won’t happen tomorrow or even by September…but these are the seasons when the groundwork for later successes can be laid. A big part of that is being a fan, even if you can’t go to the ballpark. It’s fine to gripe and complain and voice opinions that are different…
I’m not saying mindless acceptance is the way to go here. I definitely think Stan Kasten should not go to Philly or New York and tell fans to come to DC because the tickets are easier to acquire than they are in other cities. Then we’d have the same problems as the Orioles, also known as Fenway South when the Red Sox come to town. Or the Yankees. There are more New York or Boston fans in the stands than O’s fans and that’s sad for Baltimore fans. Personally, I wear Nats gear when I go to any game, so I contribute in a miniscule way to that, but more people are willing to fly to see the Red Sox than drive to see the Orioles in Baltimore, that’s a problem and it’s something I don’t want to see happen at Nationals Park. Selling tickets is one thing. Setting out to sell tickets to opposing team fans is another.
Anyway, I digress. I’m not giving up on the Nats and think sending Milledge down to the minors to sit in time out is a good sign that Manny and the coaches aren’t going to sit around and wait for something magical to happen to rescue what can still be a very good season with lots of improvement. THey are going to take the bull by the horns and try to keep this team from falling into the 6-month funk that beset the Nats last year. And I for one intend on watching as many games as I can…but only if Bob Carpenter stops salivating over other teams’ batting orders.
Why I’m Thankful for the WaPo Nats Coverage
In today’s Wall Street Journal, I read an article (I put the link at the bottom of the post) about the thinning ranks of baseball beat writers. Specifically, the decline of reporters who are tasked solely with following the paper’s hometown team. It was an interesting article that highlights an interesting trend in baseball writing that you don’t really see with other sports. Baseball columnists have been around practically since the dawn of the game, for better and for worse. As a result, papers have carved out select niches for their baseball writers and have been, until recently, loathe to touch the third rail of sports journalism: cutting baseball coverage. This same trend can be seen in towns with crazes about other sports too, like Detroit with hockey. But baseball is the usual suspect. Almost every major daily newspaper has cut content in various sections, including Sports, but I don’t know of any major paper (in a major city) that has cut its baseball reporter’s coverage. Maybe that’s wrong so please feel free to correct me.
At any rate, the article is saying that the contraction in the newspaper business is finally cutting deep enough into papers’ budgets that baseball writers are starting to thin out in larger numbers. Small and medium sized papers have been the hardest hit for obvious reasons. And even major papers are looking for innovative ways to cover more baseball with fewer resources. The example given in the article is the content-sharing agreement between the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun. The Post covers everything Nationals while the Sun covers everything Orioles. This also extends to football as well. I like that arrangement because it allows each city to concentrate on covering its home team. And, with the web at your fingertips, you can easily keep up with the Nats while living in Baltimore (as I do) or vice versa.
In my opinion, this agreement actually benefits Nationals fans more than O’s fans because the WaPo, while struggling along with other newspapers, is known as one the premminent national and international newspapers, particularly for political reporting (thanks Woodward & Bernstein. In a strange way, Watergate may save WaPo sports coverage…weird). The result is that while times are tough, they aren’t as bad as times for the Sun here in Baltimore. I rarely read the Sun and instead get my B’more news from local news (awful), the Sun’s website (rare), or City Paper. The Sun’s website is pretty terrible and the sports coverage is not very good. They have columnists, but there’s just a dwindling ad revenue stream to fund it so it’s been getting worse every year. If I were an O’s fan, I would probably get more of my team news from MLB.com or the major sports sites instead.
At least with WaPo, I have Thomas Boswell, who I think is an incredible asset to have as a Nats and baseball writer. But then I also am lucky to have several reporters who write articles and blog posts on Nationals Journal and Baseball Insider (another WaPo sports blog) several times per day. Despite Chico-gate from a few weeks ago, Chico, Dave, Barry, Tracee and Amy are all doing a great job, in my opinion, and I consider it a luxury to have such a large staff writing about my favorite team. Boz isn’t going anywhere anytime and fans (like me) complain enough as it is when the Sports editors even imagine for a moment cutting space for the Nats at the expense of DC United (seriously, soccer? horrible) that I think the Nationals coverage is here to stay…hopefully!
The Sun’s O’s coverage…probably stays around on life support for now.
Anyway, check out the article using the link below…it’s worth the 10 minutes to read it.
Tuesdays With Moping
I got home from work yesterday in time to see the back third of the Nats’ Opening Day game against the Fish of Miami. I had sat down with a beer and some Tacos at Midnight flavored Doritos (best flavor, bar none, other than the original Nacho Cheese) when Adam Dunn hit a ball to Orlando and cut the Marlins’ lead to three runs. I was excited! This was a great sign! Three runs…we can do that! We can win. Oh wait, two errors, a walk and a grand slam later I’m back to reality.
It’s possible that the Nats would have lost yesterday’s game no matter what had happened in the bottom of the 6th, but certainly that half inning was calamitous. The errors were just terrible to watch from one of my favorite players, and I know it had to eat at him when Ramirez hit that grand slam. But am I paniced? Am I expecting the rest of this season to be one long bottom of the sixth? No, and I have a coupel reasons. First, there’s no way you can predict how a team will do by the outcome of their Opening Day game. Or, rather, you can’t predict a season by how a team plays in their first game, regardless of outcome. If the Nats had won yesterday by some miracle of modern sports, that would not have indicated the poor way in wich they would have played the vast majority of the game. Now, if they’re still playing like this at the All Star break…Second, I refuse to be one of those fans who goes through the season moping about as if they were some Russian serf who believes that they were born to be fans of a terrible team and that the czar creates electricity (that’s true, you know. Old Russian serfs believed the czar had created electricity and given it to them as a gift when homes and cities and villages were first being electrified at the turn of the century).
No, I won’t hang my head because the team I root for and have rooted for since it’s inception has (since its inception, really) been bad. Besides, one bad game does not a season doom. And really, I’m not looking for a pennant…I want progress and as long as I see that in the Nationals this year, I’m happy.
So anyway, I’m not giving up on the season quite yet, unlike some other fans who seem to delight in oscillating between mild support and outright lamentation for the future of baseball in Washington. However I fully realize this is not unique to Washington fans.
We’ll be OK. The Nats will win more than 59 games this year. This season will be better than last. We will make progress. It won’t be like being a Phillie or Met fan. Don’t mope…it’s not even the second game of the season yet! Only mope if nothing improves.
Monday Can of Corn: OPENING DAY 2009!
It’s finally here! After what has seemed like years of waiting through the cold, dark months of winter, baseball season is finally here. Opening Day for the Nationals is but a few hours away! It’s been raining here in Baltimore all day, but should be clearing up just in time for the O’s games against the Yankees today at 4:05 PM. I can see Camden Yards from my office high on the 23rd floor of our building and they’ve had the lights on all day, probably getting everything ready.
With the season just hours away, I thought this would be the ideal post for my 2009 season predictions. In addition to predicting the divisions, I’ll give a handful of Nats-specific predictions courtesy of Nationals Journal. If you want to see other fans’ predictions for the Nationals this season, head over the Nationals Journal. Here are my overall standings predictions:
NL EAST
1. New York Mets
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. Washington Nationals (yeah, that’s right…bold predictions)
4. Atlanta Braves
5. Florida/Miami Marlins
NL CENTRAL
1. Chicago Cubs
2. St. Louis Cardinals
3. Milwaukee Brewers
4. Cincinnati Reds
5. Houston Astros
6. Pittsburgh Pirates
NL WEST
1. L.A. Dodgers
2. Arizona Diamondbacks
3. San Francisco Giants
4.Colorado Rockies
5. San Diego Padres
AL EAST
1. Boston Red Sox
2. Tampa Rays (I know, catching lightning in a bottle twice)
3. New York Yankees
4. Baltimore Orioles
5. Toronto Blue Jays
AL CENTRAL
1. Cleveland Indians
2. Minnesota Twins
3. Chicago White Sox
4. Detroit Tigers
5. Kansas City Royals
AL WEST
1. Oakland A’s
2. Anaheim Angels
3. Texas Rangers
4. Seattle Mariners
NLCS
New York Mets beat L.A. Dodgers
ALCS
Minnesota Twins beat Cleveland Indians
WORLD SERIES
New York Mets beat Minnesota Twins
NATIONALS PREDICTIONS
1. 2009 win total – 76-86
2. Attendance at Nationals Park (81 dates; last year’s was 2.32 million) – 2.51 million
3. All-star representative(s) – Adam Dunn, Ryan Zimmerman
4. Adam Dunn’s home run total – 35
5. Date of Stephen Strasburg’s major league debut – 2010
6. Nick Johnson’s total games played – 125 (I know, this would be an upset)
7. Wins for John Lannan – 10
8. Percentage of season Dmitri Young spends in big leagues, not on DL – 15%
9. Josh Willingham’s total at bats – 300 (come on, he HAS to get played or traded)
10. Innings pitched for Daniel Cabrera – 192
11. Team ERA leader – Among starters: Olsen Among bullpen: Tavarez because he’s nuts.
12. Team batting average leader – For everyday players: Dukes (this is his year! maybe.)
13. Biggest surprise – Austin Kearns plays well…and gets traded along with Da Meat Hook and Willie Harris
14. Biggest disappointment – Nick Johnson gets hurt…more than once…again.
15. Current minor leaguer (not counting Zimmermann) who will make an impact – Jason Bergmann
There you have it. We’ll revisit these predictions later in the season and see who I’m doing. And then of course, we’ll compare these predictions to what actually transpires.
kungpow12
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