NEW YORK -- Friday night was a freebie for the Mets. Few things in baseball are a better bet than Johan Santana against the pitiful Nats, and so it was that a four-game losing streak went quietly by the wayside, giving the Mets a night to breathe and forget about that ugly three-game sweep in St. Louis.
But Saturday it all starts up again, with Mike Pelfrey set to go in the afternoon heat. Pelfrey is one of the Mets' starters other than Santana, which means he represents one-fourth of the biggest problem the Mets have had this young season.
Mets starters other than Santana are 3-5 with a 7.32 ERA this year, infecting the team's start so severely that the people running it have already started discussing a shakeup. Per Adam Rubin in the New York Daily News:
Earlier today, Fanhouse blogger Josh Alper (Dugout username: AmburgerAlper) brought the web log of Washington Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman to our attention. Long story short he writes like a happy third grader and as someone who works almost exclusively in hearsay and slander I think it's great. Imagine if David Wright's blog was about how fantastic his lunch was.
And hey, we never talk about the Nats without talking about SteakGrowsOnDmitri, so I thought it was about time to give big ups to the motherland of Caucasia and represent the white folk of our nation's capital. No, not all of those white folk.
It is said about good teams that they find ways to win when their go to guys have an off night. The Nationals are becoming the exact opposite. They're starting to find ways to lose when their achilles heel is a strong point.
Their starting pitching was not the problem in their 8-0 loss to the Braves on Tuesday night. Rookie Matt Chico had given up only a home run to Andruw Jones through the first four innings. He should have been out of the fifth as well. But Ronnie Belliard dropped a pop-up much like the one caught in this picture, and the Braves scored three unearned runs with two outs to knock Chico out of the game. With the Nats bats asleep, the rest of the game was pretty much academic.
It's becoming increasingly evident that this is going to be an ugly, ugly season for the Washington Nationals. Here's a nugget for you: The Nationals, after eight games, have not yet sent a batter to the plate with the team in the lead. With a statistic like that, it's amazing the Nationals have a win.
Meanwhile for the Braves, Tim Hudson looks gosh darn good. His sinker was darting nicely, and he threw a back-up slider that fooled Brian McCann to the point he almost didn't catch the ball (you know you're going well when you fool your catcher with a pitch he called). Jeff Francoeur drove in five runs including the two that knocked Chico out of the game. As for Andruw Jones, he puts himself in the conversation as to who will top Hank Aaron'sBarry Bonds' Alex Rodriguez's home run record. Jones is now at 343 career before the age of 30, which was more than Aaron's 342 at the same point. Of course at the rate Alex is hitting them this season, Andruw is going to have to consider a free agent deal at Coors Field to have a shot at catching him.
The Fanhouse's look at the day's most intriguing matchups
Boston Red Sox (3-3) vs. Seattle Mariners (2-1)-2:05PM Est.
It's Opening Day at Fenway Park as Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox take on the Seattle Mariners. For Seattle, Jeff Weaver makes his debut in a Mariners jersey. Of course, I don't think Mariners fans care who starts for their team. They're just happy they're finally going to see their team play a game after losing an entire weekend in Cleveland. The only question is whether or not Mike Hargrove will be able to convince the umpires to call the game should Seattle be losing in the fifth inning.
Cleveland Indians (2-1) vs. Los Angeles Angels (5-2)-7:05PM Est.
For the first time in nearly ten years there will be an American League game played in Milwaukee. Much like the Mariners, Cleveland has been sitting around on their butts while eleventy thousand feet of snow fell all around them. Will Grady Sizemore be able to keep the torrid pace he started the season at after taking nearly a week off? Against Ervin Santana it won't be easy, as Santana and C.C. Sabathia make up one of the day's most interesting pitching matchups.
Atlanta Braves (5-1) vs. Washington Nationals (1-6)-7:35PM Est.
The Braves received some bad news on Monday when they learned they were going to have to live without Mike Hampton this season. The good news is, things seem to be working just fine without him anyway. As if taking two of three from the Mets to gain an early lead in the NL East wasn't enough, now they get to feast on the Nationals! Sometimes life just isn't fair.
The Big Unit had a successful rehab start pitching in Single A for the Visalia Oaks in front of what was called a near capacity crowd (what's a matter Unit, can't sell the park out?). Johnson allowed two runs over six innings, while striking out four and walking none. He said the best part of the day was that he got some real work in, including having to play some defense, hold runners, and keep runners in scoring position from coming across the plate. The Unit also answered questions about his status:
"I'm still a good 9-12 innings behind where I'd want to be right now. Most pitchers break camp with 20-25 innings. I have 11 innings now. The radar gun won't light up like it used to be, but my location is great. I haven't walked a batter. I'm pretty happy with how things are going."
According to the Diamondbacks official site, Johnson was at a reported 70% in his start, and since he didn't have any back problems, he's on schedule to return to the majors "perhaps April 18th." Randy will most likely pitch in Triple A on Friday before joining the big club. Luckily for Arizona, they got to beef up their record with a four game series against the Nationals over the weekend, meaning the Unit was hardly missed.
The Diamondbacks came into the season as many people's sleeper team to not only win the division, but to possibly make a run at the World Series. Those sentiments were hastily squelched after Arizona dropped two of three to the NL West bottom-feeding Rockies to open up the year. But man oh man, there's nothing to rekindle your optimism like seeing seeing a four game series on your schedule with the Nationals this year -- a team projected to be "historically bad."
The Diamondbacks have taken the first three of their four games series with the Nats, outscoring their Triple A NL East opponent by an 18-5 margin. And yes, it's way cheesy when someone uses the line "their hitters made ___ look like Cy Young," but seriously, the Nats Punch and Judy lineup made EDGAR GONZALEZ (who's he?) and MICAH OWINGS (come again?) look like aces, and defending Cy Young winner Brandon Webb (pictured) look like, well, Brandon Webb. Matter of fact, the Nats have trailed at least 4-0 in all of their games this year, the first club since 1900 to do so -- which is certainly something to be proud of.
For Diamondback fans, don't get too excited yet -- even if you complete the sweep today. ALL teams should head into a series with the Nats looking to win two of three, or three of four at the least, and anything worse should be considered an embarrassment. As for Nats fans, it's going to be a long season. Just hope Bowden gets some good prospects in return when he starts dismantling the team. Remember, there's always 2010.
Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell could probably step right into the Nationals rotation and have the strongest arm of the whole bunch. On Saturday night, Campbell settled for throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of the Nationals' game against Arizona.
Washington Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell threw out last night's ceremonial first pitch. When Campbell was introduced, he drew louder cheers than the Nationals. Campbell's pitch was out of the strike zone -- high and inside -- to outfielder Chris Snelling. As he walked through the stands, the young quarterback was mobbed by autograph seekers. Campbell was wearing a Nationals' home jersey with his No. 17.
Campbell had better keep that jersey and consider learning a change-up (especially if the 'Skins decide to draft JaMarcus Russell as has been speculated on). Besides, with the Nationals starting pitching spitting the bit in the first inning yet again (on Saturday, it was John Patterson's turn to give the opposition three runs before his team ever grabbed a bat), they could offer Campbell a whole lot of dough to be a two sport athlete.
Oh by the way, the Nationals dropped to 1-5 after their 7-1 loss on Saturday.
Four earned runs in six innings doesn't sound like a spectacular game for a starting pitcher But for the Nationals, it's a start worthy of a pre-game ceremony the next day. Jerome Williams, the fifth starter for the Nats, pitched the first 1-2-3 inning of the season for a National pitcher. Considering that we're talking about the fifth game of the season, that's a sad state of affairs.
But Williams wasn't done there. In fact, he retired the first ten Arizona Diamondback hitters. That alone constitutes a stellar outing ... an outing worthy of Walter Johnson, perhaps ... in Washington DC. Unfortunately, the Nationals still lost 7-1 to the Diamondbacks.
Figures the one game that the starting pitcher would give them a chance to win, the hitting and defense would let them down. Ryan Zimmerman came up with the bases loaded against Micah Owings making his first major league start, and Zimmerman struck out on three pitches. Zimmerman had a tough night in the field too, making an error which brought in the second Diamondbacks run immediately after Austin Kearns butchered a fly ball which brought in the first run. Kearns was also caught in a rundown between third and home on a grounder to third while down 5-0.
"I thought I'd steal a run," Kearns said, "and ended up looking like an idiot."
Hey, down 5-0, you gotta do what you gotta do, right?
If the Nationals keep squandering the few chances that their starting pitching will give them, it's going to be a long season. Well, it'll still be a long season, but longer than usual.
Or does he just have realistic expectations? Bowden explains the mindset regarding the trade deadline in his Washington Examiner column:
Although the trade deadline is four months away, we must start preparing now. We target clubs we think will contend and we commence scouting their top prospects in April and will continue through the deadline. We focus on starting pitching prospects as well as all of their top young players. We are blessed with a deep staff and because of that we have professional scouts whose only responsibility is covering the minor and major leagues. We have added several top pitching evaluators, including former major league pitchers Bill Singer and Bart Johnson. When you are rebuilding, you must consider all trade proposals. You're always looking for the deal where you trade one established player for three young players.
The Nationals farm system could have used some grade A prospects in exchange for Alfonso Soriano last season. Don't totally blame Bowden, as the offers he was getting for Soriano wasn't what he had hoped. But unfortunately, the offers that the Nats will get for anybody other than Ryan Zimmerman (and good luck prying him loose) will be meager at best.
Bowden's obvious best bet to get good value would probably be to deal Chad Cordero, who has had rumors follow him around for the past few months. Teams may be more willing to overpay for a closer nowadays that more teams are putting emphasis on the bullpen. Also, with Cordero not eligible for free agency until '09, teams would pay more for him than for Soriano, who was a free agent this past winter and would have been a slam dunk to move on no matter where he was traded.
Ronnie Belliard, John Patterson, or even Ryan Church could be other players used to rebuild the farm system come July.
It's easy to forget that baseball is played by real human beings with real problems outside of their day jobs. Nationals teammates Robert Fick and Dmitri Young know from real problems. For one day anyway, they could lose their problems in a sea of happy Nationals after their first win of the season.
Fick and Young perhaps were most boisterous. "Been through the thick of things" was how Young described his relationship with Fick. They are both 33, the oldest players in the clubhouse. They grew up in Southern California, Young a first-round pick out of Rio Mesa High in Oxnard, Fick down the road at Newbury Park.
They kept tabs on each other and eventually became teammates with the Detroit Tigers in 2002 before their own travails. Young's troubles last season are well documented -- charges of domestic abuse, problems with alcohol, a release by the Tigers and a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. Fick's struggles are more private. His mother, Gloria, is dying of lung cancer in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Late last week, he flew home for a brief visit. In a way, it made things harder.
"She's doing worse than ever," Fick said yesterday. He is considering another trip home on Monday's off day. "I'm not going to make any excuses. She's what keeps me going. She's my strength."
And you thought the prospect of losing 125 games was bad. Somehow, I think that Fick and Meat Hook will find a way to put those kind of problems in perspective. I'm sure that these old friends will find a way to lean on each other to get themselves through the tough times.
NEW YORK -- Friday night was a freebie for the Mets. Few things in baseball are a better bet than Johan Santana against the pitiful Nats, and so it was that a four-game losing streak went quietly by the wayside, giving the Mets a night to breathe and forget about that ugly three-game sweep in St. Louis.
It is said about good teams that they find ways to win when their go to guys have an off night. The Nationals are becoming the exact opposite. They're starting to find ways to lose when their achilles heel is a strong point.
The Big Unit had a 
The Diamondbacks came into the season as many people's sleeper team to not only 
Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell could probably step right into the Nationals rotation and have the strongest arm of the whole bunch. On Saturday night, Campbell settled for throwing out the 
Four earned runs in six innings doesn't sound like a spectacular game for a starting pitcher But for the Nationals, it's a start worthy of a pre-game ceremony the next day. Jerome Williams, the fifth starter for the Nats, pitched the first 1-2-3 inning of the season for a National pitcher. Considering that we're talking about the fifth game of the season, that's a sad state of affairs.
Or does he just have realistic expectations? Bowden explains the mindset regarding the trade deadline in his 
It's easy to forget that baseball is played by real human beings with real problems outside of their day jobs. Nationals teammates Robert Fick and Dmitri Young know from real problems. For one day anyway, they could 
