Questioning Riggleman's Lineup Card and Episode II: The Stras-pire Strikes Back

This weekend has been full of World Cup talk and game watching my house, like hundreds of millions of homes across the world. It's an exciting time every 4 years when June comes around, even for those that aren't huge soccer fans. It's very exciting to watch players compete for their countries in the most popular sport on earth. But I digress; back to America's Pastime.

Jim Riggleman came into the series against the Cleveland Indians hoping to capitalize on the Nationals sweep against the Pirates, the excitement over Stephen Strasburg, and the offensive weakness of the Indians.

Well, none of that has happened so far. The Nats have given up 7 runs in each of the first 2 games against the Indians. The pitching has been abysmal, and one former Nationals player that the team dismissed and ate his $8 million contract came back to bite them. Austin Kearns, yes, the Nats player that hit the Mendoza Line in 2009 and was injured for most of the last 2 years of his Nationals career is healthy in Cleveland, hitting .307. He hit 2 home runs against Atilano on Friday. Personally, I'm happy to see Austin healthy and successful.

However, Riggleman did give himself much offensive assistance with his Friday and Saturday lineups. Most questionable of all of those calls was Willy Harris as a DH on Saturday. The Nationals wanted to get Harris some consistent playing time to get his confidence up. However, the offensive expense was great. Harris is now hitting .163 and went 0 for 7 against Cleveland. He is not in the lineup today.

Meanwhile, Michael "Don't Call Me Mike" Morse is hitting .417 and was coming off of a 3 for 3 night against Pittsburgh to end that series with a sweep. To me, it defies logic how a team that is competitive in the NL East well into June can take the bat out of a kid's hands who is hitting over .400 to put it in someone's hand that is hitting well below .200 and is a liability with the bat. Making a lefty batter against a righty pitcher in favor of Harris is irrelevant as well. Harris is hitting just .165 against righties, while Morse is hitting .556; even better than he is against lefties.

Morse has taken it all in stride. He knows his role as a utility guy, and has embraced it. However, when you have a player that is as dominant as Morse is, I question Riggleman's managerial decisions putting Willie Harris in the game.

Today's lineup looks a little more like the Nats want to compete to win, but the Indians certainly are going for the sweep with theirs. Oh, and some good young kid is pitching for the Nats for his 2nd start. Maybe you've heard of him...

Nationals
1. Guzman, 2B
2. Nyjer, CF
3. Zim, DH
4. Adam Dunn, 1B
5. Hammer, LF
6. Pudge, C
7. Morse, RF
8. Ian Desmond, SS
9. The Attorney General (Gonzalez), 3B
SP: Stephen Strasburg

Indians
1. Trevor Crowe, CF
2. Shin-Soo Choo, RF
3. Carlos Santana, C
4. Travis Hafner, DH
5. Austin Kearns, LF
6. Russell Branyan, 1B
7. Jhonny Peralta, 3B
9. Luis Valbuena, 2B
9. Anderson Hernandez, SS
SP: David Huff

Scott Olsen is Back

Well this post is about game 28 and the Nats win over the Atlanta Braves, but it's really about Scott Olsen. Before today's near no-hitter, Olsen was 2-1 with a 4.36 ERA. The Nats won in 3 of Olsen's first 4 appearances (his first start was a no decision against Philly). But Olsen's defense was behind him tonight, especially Ian Desmond who made a basket catch and a diving grab for a 6-3 put out, and though he didn't get the decision, he contributed to another Nats win and the Nats are now 4 for 4 when Olsen goes 5 or more innings.

Olsen had 8 Ks on 97 pitches and only one walk in 7 1/3 innings. Finally in the 8th, after striking out Matt Diaz, Scott gave up a line drive hit to the left to David Ross. Did Olsen then look dejected or angry? No way. He gave a smile, looked at Ian Desmond and said, "c'mon, 2 more." He wanted to keep going and get out of the inning. 17,000+ fans at Nationals Park gave Scott the standing ovation, and it was well deserved.

Since his last bad outing against Colorado on April 20th where Olsen only made it 2 innings, he has seen his ERA go from 11.74 to 3.54 in just 3 starts since then. He has been remarkably effective in his last 3 games: 20 strikeouts, only 5 walks, and 2 runs; both of them earned today after Tyler Clippard's below average relief appearance. Before those 2 runs, Tyler went 20 innings without allowing a single run. That's just the beginning of his improvements.

In the spring, Olsen was throwing his fastball in the 80s with little to no movement. Now, his fastball is hitting 92 consistently, they're dancing around. His change up is making other hitters look silly. It's exciting to watch the young lefty get back to his old ways. Looks like, as usual, Mike Rizzo knew what he was doing when he brought back the not-completely-healthy Olsen before spring training.

The game ended in the bottom of the 9th after a very patient at bat by Adam Kennedy, who drew a walk. Then Gentleman Zimm came up and faced Peter Moylan. Remember him, Nats fans? Rewind to Nats Park, March 30, 2008. Ryan Zimmerman drills a walk off home run to the Red Porch to win the first ever game at Nats Park against... the Braves peter Moylan. Back to tonight, Zimmerman crushed a double off of the right field wall, advancing Adam Kennedy to 3rd, with no outs. Moylan intentionally walked pinch-hitter Cristian Guzman to bring up the Georgia Peach Willie Harris. Harris had a great at bat and a game winning, walk off single past the 2nd baseman Martin Prado.

The Nats are now 15-13 for 2nd place in the NL East. The team has won 5 series this season, but the Marlins are coming to town, who the Nats lost 2 of 3 against just last weekend. Hopefully they can flip it in the upcoming series. Until then, congrats to Scott Olsen on a great outing and a near historic night.

Game 25: And We're Back

After a productive weekend enjoying friends and family, Capitol Baseball is back! Just in time to briefly sum up the weekend's series against the Marlins and for a Nats off day to travel home from their 6 game road trip.

I'm starting out with a summary focused on Ryan Zimmerman, because, well, wow. He came back for the Florida series, and while I had lots of great things to say about the defensive replacements AG and Willie Harris last week, Zimm proved why there is just no one who can replace him this weekend.

On Friday evening, I was the party pooper who insisted on watching most of the game while at a friends. Luckily, no one seemed to mind that I was distracted by baseball for 3 of the 5 hours that I was out. In this game, the Nationals won 7-1 for the 3rd win in a row and put them 3, yes THREE, games over .500. In his return, Ryan went 3 for 4 with 2 home runs and a double. Welcome back, Zimm! Scott Olsen got another win to put him at 2-1 and his ERA came all the way down to 4.35, a very respectable number for a starter. Especially since it was almost 12.00 after his first outing. He went 6 scoreless innings in the victory. And then, there was Saturday's game...

On Saturday, it was the same 7-1 score, but the Nats were on the losing end of this one. Stammen pitched only 4 innings, which for this team this season, that almost certainly means a loss. But Zimmerman still looked great going 2 for 4 with a double and two great defensive plays. This knocked the Nats back down to 13-11 and back to 3rd in the NL East.

In Sunday's game 25, the Nats, as they so often do, jumped out to an early lead. It makes the game exciting to watch and makes it easier on the pitchers. However, then Lannan has yet another break down on the mound in the 3rd inning. The Marlins scored 4 runs, 3 of them on a Hanley Ramirez home run to deep center. Lannan seemed to have trouble controlling and locating his pitches, with many of his pitches ending up in the zone. If you follow Lannan, you know that's disaster for him. He never recovered, and neither did his bullpen. Brian Bruney had another simply awful outing and the Nats lost 9-3.

The team has come back down to earth with two losses in a row, but are still 13-12 and are coming home for a 6 game homestand. But it'll be another 19 days before the Nats get another day off when the return to action on Tuesday. That's a long stretch, and hopefully the Clippard and Capps can hold up the bullpen for most of the time until then.

Finally, there are lots of guys in AAA and AA who are more than capable of eating some innings from the pen that would be much more effective than Brian Bruney has been since he joined the team. I know the Nats are paying him, $1.5 million this year, but at some point you have to cut your losses. I've been hard on Bruney this year, and will continue to be. I'll be happy to admit I'm wrong if he ends up figuring himself out. Until then, give English or another guy a shot to see what he can do.

Rest for the weary confident

Today is the Washington Nationals first day off in 15 days. Since their last day off, the club has gone 9-6. In this time, the Nats have gotten quality start after quality start from their pitchers, and as you will see in the right column of this blog, 5 of the 8 Silver Elvis Wig winners have been starting pitchers, including 2 for Livan Hernandez already and one for the rookie starter Luis Atilano (2-0 with a 2.25 ERA).

Twenty-two games, or just over 1/10th of the way, into this marathon of a baseball season, your Washington Nationals are 12-10. The current starting rotation has a combined 4.31 ERA, and it is still dropping (Olsen cut his ERA nearly in half in his last outing, although it is still not quite in respectable territory at 6.14). Their combined on base percentage is .317, and that includes all bench players that have played for the Nats this season, excluding pitchers. While that's a bit lower than you'd like, it's not really representative of the quality of baseball this team is playing this season. Let's look at some on the field guys that have contributed most to the club this season. We'll save the pitchers for another off-day.

• Ivan Rodriguez: Pudge has had one of the best years a 38 year old catcher who was, by all accounts, "past his prime" could ask for. He's still batting .400, has a .422 OBP, and is perhaps the main reason for the quality of this young (minus Livan) pitching staff.

• Josh Willingham: The Hammer has worked on a lot of things this off-season, not the least of which are his defense and his batting eye. Willingham has moved himself into the territory of an above acceptable (assonance for the win!) left-fielder. He has a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage this season and even has a double play from left. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, he has started every single game this season. He has had a few circus catches: one against the Cubs and one against the Dodgers at home to basically save the game. As for his batting eye, his OBP is .446 while is batting average is only .286. The man his more accurate at calling balls and strikes than the computer-generated pitch track on MASN.

• Ian Desmond: Ian is a marked fielding upgrade at shortstop from last season. He has 3 throwing errors in 86 opportunities, but all 3 of them were in the first series of the year when he was still working out his nerves. He has exponentially better range than Cristian Guzman had last year and has a gun for an arm. It's amazing to watch him play the position, and he gets better and more confident every single game. (See two diving plays against the Cubs that would have been double plays if it weren't for Guzman's inexperience at 2nd). He has a .710 OPS, and his hitting is getting better as the season goes on. He does need to work at taking more pitches by swinging less at first pitches. This will help get his OBP up from .310.

• Nyjer Morgan: T. Plush has picked up where he left off from last year. He has moved back to sliding head first into 2nd base on steals and is already visibly more comfortable on the bases. His OBP is a solid .372 and has stolen 6 bases on 10 attempts. That percentage will get better as the season goes, as going back to head first slides will certainly increase his efficiency (as long as he doesn't end up hurt because of it). As always, it's just great to have a guy this fast in center field.

• Willie Harris: Willie hasn't been the leading producer at the plate, no doubt about it. His BA is a measly .167, although he does have a passable .311 OBP. Willie's contribution is mostly in the field. He has saved games on multiple occasions with acrobatics on the field. And we're not talking situations where he misplayed the ball and then had to make it up with a crazy catch (see Marlon Byrd: April 28th game. Still a crazy catch by Byrd, however). Harris has caught some line drives that no human being should have been able to make a play on. This type of contribution is keeping the Nats in games late.

• Alberto Gonzalez: Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, the Attorney General is hitting .300 with a .364 OBP after 30 at-bats. I swear, none of those stats were typos. He is hitting and getting on base far more than Adam Kennedy and has proven to be a perfect replacement for Zim while he recovers from his hamstring problems. He has made some routine plays at 3rd, but has also made some Zimmerman like throws and picked some line drives that could have easily been singles to the outfield. He's made a couple errors, but is still sporting a .926 fielding percentage. The AG is having a great year, and is a major reason that the Nats can still compete with injuries to Zimmerman and Harris.

This ballclub, because of the guys I just listed, plus the starting pitching, Clippard, and Capps, are 3rd in the NL East, one game out of 1st, and 3.5 ahead of the last place Braves. The great thing about this season's Nats is that you know they're going to compete in every game, and that, with this kind of start, it is almost impossible to have another 100 loss season. The pitching, fielding, and batting have all come together for perhaps the best season the Nats have had since their remarkable run in 2005. I'm excited to see how it turns out, so stick with me here on Capitol Baseball all season to see how it shakes out.