Sunday, August 1, 2010

Nats Have Successful Homestand, Head West Monday

(AP Photo/Nick Wass)

The Nationals came home from their last road trip dejected. They were 3-7 on that trip as they traveled through Florida, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee. But as they have all season, the Nats returned to DC with some spark. They won 4 of 6 against the numbers 1 and 2 teams in the NL East. They came just inches from sweeping the Phillies on Sunday and earned the series win on Saturday with yet another Ryan Zimmerman walk-off homer. It was to deeeeeeep center and the 7th walk-off homer in his career.

But the latest homestand merely proves what most of us already knew. The Washington Nationals are a great home team; they have a 29-22 record. Away, they are simply dreadful, only 17-36. For those keeping score at home, that's a distressingly low .320 winning percentage away from Nats Park.

But there are things to look forward to as we're barely 2 months from the end of the Nationals' season. Rizzo didn't move Adam Dunn at the deadline. While it's still very questionable whether the Nats will choose to re-sign Dunn, at the very least the Nats will get compensation draft picks for him. At the best, the Nats will land the slugger for a few more years before he starts to trail off. Remember, the Nats still have Bryce Harper to sign and only have until August 16th to do it.

The Nationals starting rotation is also starting to settle in, but you'll have to wait to read about that until my Monday afternoon post. I know, the horror! Just check back here around lunch time. I'll do my best to include a Esteban Loaiza reference, but I'll probably fail.

But in the mean time, the Nats are starting yet another road trip. This time they head to Arizona for 4 games against the D-Backs and 3 against the Dodgers. So it's a week of staying up late for us east coasters. The Nats hope to take adavantage of a depleted Diamondbacks team after they lost some depth at the trade deadline. So until the afternoon post...

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