Review: BBTN Comes to Viera

Well, lets just say I'm not the biggest fan of ESPN and their baseball coverage, as it tends to be very focused on just Boston and New York. I sat down to watch the 30 in 30: Nats coverage of the very popular Baseball Tonight, originally broadcast at 3:30. And as I watched, I hoped to glean a new found respect for the program, considering I haven't watched it since the advent of MLBNetwork. Here is what I noticed.

Observations:
- Times Stephen Strasburg mentioned: 8

- Times Bryce Harper mentioned: 7

- Times Jayson Werth mentioned: 7

- Times Ryan Zimmerman mentioned: 2

- Times Adam LaRoche mentioned: 4

- Times the whole rest of the team was mentioned: 6

- Werth puns: 1

- To wrap up those numbers, Zimmerman and the rest of the team were mentioned just as much as a player who won't be heard from until September at the very earliest. Glad to see ESPN has their priorities straight.

- Turns out we were the very last stop on the "Goodyear (TM)" Express Tour. Shocker.

- Wow, ESPN just used WAR in their "analysis", I'm kind of impressed. Though they don't explain at all what it is or how it's used.

- Kurkjian's Three Questions - 1) Strasburg health (shocker) 2) Closer Situation 3) Bryce Harper (shocker)

- Kurkjian says our rotation will give us only 5 innings a night... I can't believe this to be true with Livo being Livo and having a healthy Jason Marquis.

- ESPN's projection of our lineup - Espi 4 - Desi 6 - Zim 5 - LaRoche 3 - Werth 9 - Morse 7 - Pudge 2 - Morgan 8 - Livo 1

- ESPN's projection of our rotation - Livo - Lannan - Marquis - Zimmermann - Gorzelanny

- Aaron Boone loves the middle infield combo of Desi-Espi. "Two really athletic guys with a lot of upside, especially on the offensive side of the ball."

- Lots of 2012 talk

- Ravech, "There's a chance LaRoche could be replaced next year by Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols"

- Boone, "(Strasburg) and (Zimmermann) give them two potential aces in the future"

- Boone, "Once they climb the mountain, this is a team I believe will stay relevant because they are gonna be able to afford to go out and compete with some of the big boys for elite free agencies [sic]"

- End of the show features Kurkjian and Kruk showing off their tour bus to Jayson Werth - who makes fun of it and Kruk. IE "this kinda smells like cheesesteaks".

- Recap - "Strasburg, Harper, Werth, some other guys - maybe next year"

Adam Dunn Talks Strasburg, Lincecum, Nyjer's Tantrum, and Golf

The Nats are obviously in San Francisco for the 2nd of 3 against the Giants, and the club gets to face reigning 2 time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum. The Nats lost last night after Livan had a rough bottom of the 5th that started with a Todd Wellenmeyer "duck fart" single with 2 outs. I swear, that's what he called it. The Giants went on to sore 4 in the inning, and the Nats couldn't recover. It was Livan Hernandez's first loss of the year to someone that wasn't named Jimenez. Tonight, Luis Atilano gets to face the Cy Young winner Lincecum. Talk about a mismatch. Hey, even a blind squirrel gets a nut every once in a while.

Today on the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio, Adam Dunn talked to Scott and Ryen about Lincecum, the Nats .500 record, last year's bullpen, Nyjer Morgan tantrum, free golf clubs, and yes, Stephen Strasburg.

When asked how he is going to go about facing Tim tonight, Adam responded simply, "Swing hard in case you hit it." Hopefully Adam heeds his own words and doesn't strike out looking more than once. I know, I'm being optimistic.

When asked about the Nats exciting .500 season this far, Adam responded, "It's where we thought we would be.... We're gonna score runs, we just gotta hold them under a touchdown." Maybe a bit of a jab there to the starting pitching that has floundered a bit lately? I support it. The only two guys that have held their weight (joke kinda intended her) have been Hernandez and, surprisingly John Lannan since his return. Of course Scott Olsen is on the list, but he's on the DL now, so I'm not including him. DL is a killer for starting pitchers all too often to be excited about Scott's return.

In what is a stupid journalistic question, co-host Ryen Russillo asked "Are you underrated or overrated as a player?" To which Dunn responded, "Oh overrated, no doubt." Love the sass on the WTF question. He was also asked about how much better this year's bullpen has been than last year. After giving due credit to the "7th, 8th, and 9th inning guys," Adam said what we all know, "That's [the bullpen] what killed us last year."

Of course the guys asked Dunn how much flack Nyjer Morgan got after his 5 year old poutfest in center field that caused an inside-the-park home run. Adam: "He's such an emotional guy and you don't wanna crush him... He takes the stuff personal, in a good way, I'm not trying to say he's sensitive.... He was on suicide watch that night man." Nyjer returned ready to play the next game, so maybe he needed the embarrassment that game.

On a cool note, Dunn got a free set of golf clubs from Callaway for hitting a 471 foot blast of a home run. Apparently, Adam plays golf and when asked how far his drive is, he said only about 280, to which he added, "I'm a finesse player, dude."

And of course, Stephen Strasburg.

SVP: "What's the first thing your gonna say to this young pitcher when he gets called up...?"

AD: "Just be as good as you're supposed to be.... No, I wouldn't tell him that.... He's a good kid. I learned a lot about him in spring; he's gonna handle this well. He is what he is. Really good."

On when he'll be coming up, he said, "I'm hearing next homestand, but I haven't got the official report." Well when you do Adam, let us all know, would you? I have about 41,888 friends that would like to be there for it.