And We're Back: Strasburg Time

(Photo taken by Keri Roberts for Capitol Baseball - 2010)

Welcome back to the unofficial 2nd half, ladies and gents. Cap Baseball has taken a load of for a few days to prepare for the exciting post-All-Star break festivities. So let's start the ride.

Tonight, Stephen Strasburg begins the push to the end of his season (late-August, early-September), quite possibly just in time to see Jordan Zimmermann return to the rotation with a week or two of overlap possible.

But before anyone worries about that, Strasburg has to take on the Florida Marlins in... Joe Robbie, no Pro Player, no Dolphin(s) Stadium, hm... Land Shark, nope, oh, right, Sun Life Stadium. (Aside: Seriously, who paid the money to switch the stadium from Dolphins Stadium to Dolphin Stadium in 2006. That is outrageous)

The Nats are 3.5 games behind the Marlins in the NL East... for 4th place... so this series is important for them to help close that gap. The Nationals decided to go with Strasburg just for this reason; they want to get the best start from the best pitcher they have to start the second half rolling. Strasburg is 3-2 with a still-impressive 2.32 ERA and 61 Ks. He'll take on Ricky Nolasco instead of Marlins ace Josh Johnson, since Johnson just pitched in the All-Star Game. (Nats hitters are undoubtedly relieved.) Still, Nolasco has been impressive with his 9-6 record and a passable 4.55 ERA.

The Nationals need to pick up where they left off at the end of the first half. I'm not talking so much about the Livan loss on the Sunday before the break. It's more about the run support that the offense has been able to generate (15 runs in the last 3 games). Not to mention Adam Dunn's 2- and 3-homer games and his .500 batting average in the last 5 games. And Zimmerman's .316 average in the same span.

Strasburg will have to face guys like Home Run Derby runner up Hanley Ramirez who is sporting a .301 batting average with 13 home runs and 53 RBI on the year, and his fellow phenom on the Marlins, Mike Stanton. Stanton tore up the the Marlins' minor league affiliate Jacksonville Suns early in the year, batting .311 and hitting 21 home runs in just 52 games. The Marlins had seen enough, and they brought him up in early-June. But Stanton hasn't been quite as unshakable as Strasburg. He's hitting just .231 with a .276 OBP, and facing Strasburg won't make it any easier for the young man.

I know that you're all as excited as I am to get back into baseball, so let's see what Stephen can offer the Nationals today. But more importantly, let's see what the Nationals offense can offer him in support.

Game 31: Nats take the Marlins and the series

The Nationals took the series from the Marlins today to go 17-14 for a 2nd place tie in the NL East with the Mets. The Nats travel to New York tonight for the start of a 9 game road trip. The Nats will take on those very Mets in 3 game series starting on Monday. That will tell a lot about where this early part of the season is going for the Nats, so watch closely.

Let's go a little with today's game against the Marlins. The Nats took an early lead, as they have done so often this season, in the 2nd inning with a sacrifice double play (weird to think of that, but it's possible) that scored Nyjer Morgan. They got another run in the 3rd with an Adam Dunn RBI single through the shift that scored Adam Kennedy from 2nd. Then Livan Hernandez, who had yet another simply amazing outing, gave up a solo home run to who else, but Hanley Ramirez. That was the only run that Livan gave up all day, bringing his ERA allll the way up to... 1.04. Wow. That's 2nd in the NL only to Ubaldo Jimenez. After 7 innings of 1 run, 5 hit ball, Livan called it a day after 110 pitches, 75 of them for strikes. Time to Clipp and Save, right? Well... maybe not so easy.

Tyler Clippard entered the game after Sean Burnett gave up a single in the top of the 8th. Then Clippard immediately gave up a single to Wes Helms and walked Hanley Ramirez to load the bases. With no outs. Clippard has gotten himself into this spot one too many times this year (see tomorrow morning's post for more on this), and his offense has bailed him out every, single time. Clippard ended up giving up a sac fly that tied the game 2-2 before he got himself out of the jam. But the Hammer was out to save the day.

Willingham came up in the bottom of the inning with 1 out and crushed a home run to left field into the wind, eventually giving the Nats the 3-2 win. Capps came in and had a painless 1, 2, 3 inning and got his MLB leading 13th save of the year, and the Nats moved to 3 games over .500 for the 2nd time this year. It was a great (although cold and windy) day for baseball in the city, and the team went 4-2 on the homestand. They hope to do the same thing on the road trip, but it will be difficult with a 3 game series with Mets (who are playing very good baseball right now), a 4 game series with the Rockies, and a 2 game series against the Cardinals. If the Nats can come out on top here, it's really going to speak volumes about where the club is going this season.

Matt Chico, J. Max, and Game 30 with Florida

Just a few days ago, Nationals Journal posted an article about how Matt Chico had a long way back to the majors, how he had so many guys in front of him in the depth chart. I joked with a fellow co-worker the day that it came out that Lannan wouldn't make his next start that maybe Chico would get the start. We both had a good laugh about it.... Well, we probably shouldn't have been laughing.

Chico will get his first start in the majors today in 24 months against the Florida Marlins. No, that's not a typo. Two solid years, or at least it would have been on May 21st. In that time, he's had a ligament replaced in his elbow, gotten two years older, and has become sort of a running joke among die hard Nats observers. He barely looked passable this spring, resulting in his being sent to AA Harrisburg in April. But now he gets his shot. His last full season in DC, his rookie year, he was 7-9 with a 4.63 ERA. Now, you have to remember, at that time, the Nationals were a terrible ball club. There was no offense to speak of and Chico was a rookie. Maybe this is the opportunity Matt needs to figure himself out. But if I actually believed it, I wouldn't have laughed audibly when I heard he was starting today. Prove me wrong, Matt. Capitol Baseball will be there with my younger sister, so I'll be sure to snap pics of this momentous (hilarious?) moment in the Nats 2010 season.

Meanwhile, Justin Maxwell has been sent down to Syracuse yet again to create roster space for Chico, since Lannan won't be put on the DL. This has to be frustrating for the young Maxwell, who has been shipped around the farm and majors all year. Maxwell is batting below .200 although his OBP is aroun .350, the Nats are only playing him against lefties, and it should be quite a while before the Nats face another lefty as Mark Zuckerman reports. Until next time Justin.

The Nats today look to avoid another loss to the Marlins which would put them back down to .500 on the season and would create a guarantee for another series loss to the team. The Nats need a win today to keep their winning record that is getting fans to the park and not suffer another loss to an NL East team early on. To do that, Matt Chico is going to have to seriously outperform expectations. Until the post game recap, enjoy this beautiful Saturday in DC.

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.