Former Nats Greats - #18

Today's member of this not-so-elusive club is a LOOGY who took an impressive 8 years to reach the Majors. This pitcher was a transfer from Montreal, while staying only 8 games in Washington before being shipped out of town to the Zephyrs for the remainder of the '05 season. Just who is our mystery man??

Joe Horgan!

We thank you for your contribution to the inaugural Nationals, but we cringe at the very thought of your pitching performance. Lets dig in.

So, 8 games is all it took and it was so bad that you didn't even get a September call-up. Everything started pretty well in terms of numbers, but all the signs and symptoms were there for an absolute meltdown. On April 4th you came into the game for TJ Tucker (that's right), and you proceeded to load the bases with 1 out, only to get out of the inning with a strikeout and a fly out; no harm no foul. Your second appearance also went well, as you only allowed a walk and a foul out. But here is where the wheels began to come off.

The date was April 11th and the Braves were already well positioned to win the game when you gave up a walk, 4 hits, and 4 runs to make the game an 11-1 slaughter. The up an down nature of your season continued as your next appearance resulted in 0.2 IP appearance with just 2 pitches, as you got Luis Gonzalez to hit into a double play (also out on the play, Royce Clayton).

So far, you have 3 solid outings with 1 bad outing, but the thing about being a LOOGY is that you are never in the game for very long, so when you are and its bad, it becomes really bad. The day after your 2 pitch fantasticness, the Marlins broke out for 6 hits and 5 runs in just one inning. Ouch.

To your credit, you were able to bounce back yet again posting 0 runs and just 1 hit in your next 2 outings (1 IP total). And once again it was time for you to have your swan song.

The date was April 24th, and it will go down in the Horgan household as the last time Joe appeared in a MLB ball game. 6 hits and 6 runs later it was over, but we now need to go over all the gory details. And here they are courtesy of the ESPN.com game log.

C Floyd singled to center.	0	4
C Floyd to second on wild pitch by J Horgan.	0	4
D Mientkiewicz walked.	0	4
D Wright doubled to left, C Floyd scored, D Mientkiewicz to third.	0	5
V Diaz doubled to right, D Mientkiewicz scored, D Wright to third.	0	6
J Seo singled to center, D Wright and V Diaz scored.	0	8
C Woodward singled to center, J Seo to second.	0	8
M Cairo safe at first on error by third baseman C Baerga, J Seo scored, C Woodward to second.	0	9
C Beltran doubled to deep left, C Woodward scored, M Cairo to third.	0	10
M Piazza grounded into fielder's choice to third.	0	10
C Floyd struck out swinging.	0	10
D Mientkiewicz struck out swinging.	0	10
D Wright struck out swinging.

Rocked by Cliff Floyd, Doug Mientkiewicz, Miguel Cairo, Chris Woodward (and Bernstein), Victor Diaz (who?), and the pitcher Jae Seo.

But my favorite note about this whole thing is that the 2nd time through the lineup, Joe Horgan can flat out dominate. After seeing everyone the first time, Horgan struck out the side!

Career over, here are your Nats stats:
8 Games. 6.0 IP. 4 BB. 5 K. 19 H. 14 ER. 21.00 ERA. 3.83 WHIP. 3.85 FIP (!!!). 0.0 WAR

Congrats to you, Joe Horgan, you are the 18th elected member of the Hall of the Former Nats Greats!

Use the comments to talk about your favorite Joe Horgan memories!