Planetary Nats Blog

David Letterman does a bit periodically where he brings on some bombasitc act – usually accompanied by The Hula Hoop Girl and The Grinder Girl – and after thirty seconds of watching this act, Dave and Paul discuss whether what we just watched was “anything.”

Last night’s game was a lot like that bit. The Nats won 6-4, against a team that is uncannily like themselves. Odalis Perez pitched into the seventh inning, giving up three runs. Sanches was a little shaky coming out of the bullpen, but Ayala and Rauch did what they are supposed to do, with a hold and a save, respectively.

Oh yeah, that catcher guy, Jesus Flores - He hit a grand slam.

I watched the Padres feed on MLB.TV, so I didn’t see or hear this directly, but a reader of “Nationals Journal” pointed out that Paul Lo Duca was substituting in the MASN booth, and said:

Posted by: mrm0to | May 28, 2008 11:03 PM

So the Nats won. They got good starting pitching. The bullpen allowed a few inherited runners to score, but it also got a hold and a save. Our formerly AAA catcher got a single and a grand slam, and is hitting over .300.

Is this anything?

I know what we think it looks like – going on some incredible tear, winning seven of eleven or something like that, then playing a game or two above .500 for an extended period. Which, strangely, is exactly what the Nats have done since they returned home from their mid-April roadtrip (the sticklers among you can count the getaway-day road win against the Braves on April 22 – I did…).

So, if the Nats aren’t in a slump anymore, why do our collective heads hurt?  A lot of us are snippy and short – we have trouble taking positives from a Nats loss, and not much satisfaction from a win. You’d think we were all trying to wean ourselves from caffeine at the same time.

I think I have some answers. At least, answers why this isn’t as much fun as we think it should be… not answers about how to fix the Nats. Try these on for size:

• We expect more. The 2007 Nats played .500 ball from mid-May on. The expectation last year was very low (whispers of 120 losses emanated from papers and blogs), and the Nats exceeded those expectations by, um, thirty-something games. I think all of us expected at least a continuation of .500 ball this year, and maybe something a bit more than that. When the Nats won their first three, our higher expectations were crystalized, and when the Nats lost 15 of the next 17, we became the Gumpy Gus that we are now. Tom Boswell points out that the Nats are actually two games over .500 since the slide. Still not very satisfying, is it?
• They don’t look healthy. I don’t mean injured (though that is certainly an issue, and a topic of a future blog posting). By that I mean, the Nats Juggernaught is not firing on all cylinders. There’s nothing new to add to the continuing discussion about Nats hitting, though there are some signs of hope. Zim’s average is out of the panic zone, Elijah Dukes seems to be showing some discipline, if not contact, and The Weapon got his first homer over the weekend. On the plus side, there are a few Nats that are tearing it up… but the guys that are hitting – Guzman, Flores and Boone – all have good, personal reasons to excel, whether it is the walk year of their contract, a disdain for minor league travel arrangements, or to prove that they’re not washed up. The guys that should be producing, simply because they are professionals who are paid to play at the elite level of the sport, are mostly not doing that, or doing so only tepidly. The starting pitching is certainly a bright spot, though as good as Redding was on Sunday, just imagine how much better it would have been with just one-third more inning from him? The Nats remind me of when I go to work with a cold. Things, get done, but it isn’t my best effort.
• I don’t get the move – and by that, I mean, personnel management. The Nats are again struggling with (perhaps) an inordinate number of injuries. I’ve come to expect that from the Nats, though I wish it were different. But the resulting roster moves aren’t always the obvious choice (like bringing a pitcher up to replace a pitcher, outfielder for outfielder, etc). The result has left the bench a bit short at times, but I think it is best that we leave the managing to the manager. The reason it is a problem for the fans is that the fans struggle to make sense of the decision-making process that goes into the move, and so there’s some cognitive dissonance about why things happen the way they do. It doesn’t instill confidence in the fans – not that the fans matter when it comes to personnel – and so they get restless. And when they’re already hung over from “Irrational Exuberance,” to borrow a term from Alan Greenspan, they get snippy.

The “Glass Half Full Department” reports that if our hitting just reverts to the mean, and we keep the starting pitching at its current level, there’s still plenty of upside – and all of it without a trade or firing.

The ”Glass Half Empty Department” reports that there are reasons that our hitters aren’t hitting, and that reverting to the mean works for starting pitchers, too. [By the way, the "Glass Half Empty Department" recently got a grant for marketing and promotion. It seems they have spent it well.]

I think a lot of us hoped that the end of the Nats slump would be like a rainbow after a heavy shower. Instead it is turning out to be more of a dense fog, lifing very slowly. It might take an extended spell of good weather before we reailize it isn’t raining anymore.

I watched the game last night. It was bad. Really bad. Terrible. I begged, “Make it stop!” It was so bad that when I was chatting in the PlanetNJ chatroom when Elijah Dukes came up in the 8th inning and someone asked what people thought of Dukes - at that moment Dukes hit into a double play – I answered, “I am liking Dukes pretty well right now, he’s not prolonging my agony.”

But it was just one game.

The thing is, nothing is really any different than it was before last night’s game. The Nats are still not hitting. Starting pitching is still a strength, despite Chico’s performance last night. We might point some fingers at Colome, except that he hadn’t pitched since Friday night in Baltimore. When was the last time a Nats reliever went six games between appearances? Did I mention that the Nats are still not hitting?

[506, a reader/participant from "Nationals Journal" points out that our position players actually hit pretty well last night:

Lopez, 2 for 5, 2 doubles, 1 K
Zimmerman, 2 for 4, 1 RBI
Young, 1 for 3, 1 RBI, 1 BB
Milledge, 2 for 4, 1 K
Flores, 3 for 4, double]

I might have predicted that the Nats would lose last night. In fact, I did predict it. I just didn’t tell anyone. Matt Chico isn’t Shawn Hill, and that’s probably good, if for no other reason that Shawn Hill has a bum arm. But, he’s also not the same quality pitcher as Shawn Hill, and to me, Hill missing a start meant a loss. I hoped for a different outcome, but it was not to be. The bottom line is that last night’s loss was about pitching… and for the most part, our starting pitching has not been a problem this season.

Over the past several weeks, there has been considerable rumbling among ‘The Constituency’ for the firing of both Lenny Harris and Jim Bowden. I would point out that last night’s game does not make the argument for either of their firings more compelling. I have been critical of Lenny Harris in that position, but my reasons have more to do with the fact that I think it is inappropriate for the Nationals to provide on-the-job-training for a MLB-level hitting coach more than with Harris’ performance… And his performacne is not something that I am in the position to evaluate. The external indications are not good, but the magic of that position occurs in the clubhouse, and I am not privy to the goings-on there.

As for Bowden, many will point to his comments yesterday as indication that he’s not the man for the job. I don’t think you can take much of what Bowden says to the press to be very meaningful. The personnel operations of an MLB team are inherently secretive, and I think it is safe to say that anything that Bowden might say is vetted and filtered through the “appropriate for public consumption” filter. Bowden isn’t going to divulge anything of substance to the public that either does or does not indicate his fitness for the job.

These are tough times, but mainly because we have higher expectations. I would point out that while Chico’s performance last night was abysmal, the overall quality of his pitching this season is no worse than we came to expect last year… and this year we have five starters that are performing better than he is. That’s progress.

Just relax!

Jason Bergmann is a Stud.

I fantasized to myself, in about the fifth inning, that he’d allow a baserunner just before Hamels came to the plate, just so that the Phils would pinch-hit for the pitcher. Bergmann would erase the runner, and the pinch-hitter, be into the bullpen, and then cruise to victory.

There are two things wrong with that fantasy. The first is, a team should never put themselves into a situation (if they can avoid it) where they have to get into the opponent’s bullpen just to get a run. The second is, that scenario was just the one that beat the Nats last night.

Don’t get me wrong… in terms of entertainment value and excitement, the game was definitely one of the better ones to watch this season, and Bergmann appears to be ALL THE WAY back (which is good, because who knows about Shawn Hill). But I didn’t shut down my MLB.TV yesterday evening with a sense of ‘warm and fuzzies’.

It is hard to know from watching last night if the Nats’ impotence was their bats or Cole Hamels. But even if you throw out last night’s performance, one is hard-pressed to see signs of life in the Nats’ hitting game. I find that a bit disturbing, mostly because the hitting issues appear to be systemic in nature, rather than just slumps. There are a few bright spots, both in terms of games where they hit well as a team, and individuals who seem to be hitting consistently. But for the most part, the team is starved for offense, and Guzman, Flores and Dmitri can’t carry the team (especially since they aren’t batting adjacent to each other).

The Nats are very fortunate that their starting pitching is doing so well. Chico Harlan was effusive in his praise for the Nats’ rotation in this morning’s gamer, and I am inclined to agree – the Nats’ starters have been more than most expected. The hitting is a problem… and it’s more than a slump.