Nats bullpen flounders, putting the them in familiar territory

Yesterday against the Giants, the Nats sort of were clicking on lots of cylinders. Stammen was pitching better than average, which he needed to even have a shot as staying in the rotation. The Nats jumped out to an early lead (3-1), which they have done a lot this year. When Stammen was all done, he was charged with 2 earned runs, plus 1 on an error, and put him in place for his 2nd win of the season. But the bullpen, and a weirdly-shaped and -marked ball park, saw to it that there was no such luck.

Sean Burnett came in and claimed his 2nd loss of the season, failing to record an out for the 3rd time this season. Big reason why: he's simply been terrible against lefties, which is not what you want to see from your lefty specialist pitcher. It's easy to see Doug Slaten squeeze into this role more and more in the coming weeks, because Burnett simply cannot get the job done. He is much better against righties, so he may become a righty specialist as a lefty. Here's some proof:

• Against righties: .091 average with a .091 slugging. Burnett hasn't given up more than a single against any right he's faced. He has walked 5 righties though, in only 22 ABs.
• Against lefties: .271 average with a .455 slugging (3 doubles and a home run). He's only walked one, but he's given up so many hits in those chances, his "efficiency" is a joke.

As a last note for the people at AT&T Park. Something needs to be done about your upper deck situation. I'm not sure that anyone will ever know if the ball Adam Dunn hit was a home run. If there was a widely available rule available, it would be different. But hitting a railing above the physical concrete would seem to be a home run. A yellow line needs to be added to the stadium. I know it's an eyesore to a very beautiful park, but otherwise there will be discrepancies on home runs that will cost teams a game.

Because of a collapsing bullpen and a questionable home run call, the Nats are back in familiar place. Last place in the NL East and headed into a 3 game series against the best team in the NL West. Bad odds for a struggling team. The Nats need to get on a roll again, and fast.

Stammen Limps into Next Start

Craig Stammen and his less-than-stellar 5.96 ERA enter today's afternoon match up with the San Francisco Giants and Barry Zito. You may think, "oh, Barry Zito, he's not that good anymore." My response: think again.

In his first three years in San Francisco (2007-09), Zito's season ERA was over 4.00, and his record was below .500 all three years. This year, Zito is 6-2 with a cool 2.80 ERA with 37 strikeouts. Zito has pitched at least 5 innings in each game, but he's averaging almost 7 innings a game. As a lefty pitcher, Zito is pitching better against righties (.219) than lefties (.242), and he's only given up one home run all season. This 32 year old, 10-year veteran is having a career season like his early days in Oakland.

Stammen is a bit of a different case. He's struggling immensely. His last 2 decisions have been losses, and the team has lost 4 of his last 6 starts. In those 6 starts, he's averaging just around 5 2/3 innings per game, and he already has two starts this year where he didn't make it 5 innings. His ERA has hovered between 5.00 and 6.00 in his last 4 starts. It's easy to make excuses and call it an anomaly, but if we look at his starts last year, it obviously isn't.

Stammen ended 2009 with a 5.11 ERA in 19 starts and hovered around 5.00 all year. His ERA was never below 4.14 and even that was only for 1 game. Unfortunately, this track record isn't one conducive to a lot of success. Maybe Stammen figures it out, and maybe he doesn't. What is painfully obvious, however, is the Nats can't afford to have too many more starts with Craig Stammen on the rubber. With the Nats still competitive only 4 days from June, it's time for a shakeup. It's becoming clearer and clearer that Stammen should be replaced in the rotation when Strasburg comes up in about about 2 weeks.

Maybe he ends up in the bullpen and poor Justin Maxwell gets optioned to the minors yet again to make the roster space. Maybe he gets sent down to Syracuse or Harrisburg to figure his stuff out. Maybe none of these things happen, because I'm purely speculating. But one thing is for sure, the Nats need to act quickly to stop up this massive hole in the rotation before it's too late.

Stammen Stalls in Recent Appearances

Craig Stammen made his 8th appearance of the year in the first in this short two game series against the St. Louis Cardinals in Missouri on Monday night. Stammen faced a Cardinals club that has be struggling to produce much significant offense of late. So much so, that Cards Manager Tony LaRussa had reigning NL MVP Albert Pujols switch positions with Matt Holiday to bat in the clean up spot for the first time in nearly 7 years (May 30, 2003). Matt Holiday was batting just below .300, so LaRussa made the switch to try to get Holiday some insurance behind him. Turns out Pujols is just as dangerous in the clean up spot, but I’m sure no one thought he wouldn't be. He ended up with 3 singles in their 6-2 victory over the Nationals.

The Nationals have now lost 4 in a row on this road trip as they freefall back to earth after winning 5 of 6 just over a week ago to shoot them 5 games above .500. The team is now only a game above .500 at 20-19 with an offense that has almost completely stalled, not including their 14-6 trouncing of the Rockies last Thursday. The Nats have actually failed to score more than 3 runs in any outing since that game.

Just to illustrate the example: Ivan Rodriguez, just a few weeks ago, was batting over .400 and was one of the most remarkable stories in baseball. Since he went 4 for 4 against the Mets on May 10th, he has just 2 hits in 21 at bats (.095 average), dropping his average 57 points.

Stammen (1-2) got another loss, which is turning out to be conducive to his appearances of late. He gave up 4 ugly runs in the top of the first inning, and then calmed down for some efficient innings, and eventually made it 6 innings. But the damage had been done. The Nats have lost 4 of Stammen’s last 5 starts, and his ERA is still a very hefty 5.86. In his last 4 starts, Craig has failed to make it through the 7th inning once, and has only thrown a pitch past the 6th inning in one of those appearances.

In Monday’s appearance, Stammen threw 96 pitches in only 6 innings; in his last outing against the Mets he threw 100 pitches in a meager 5 innings. In his last two outings, he has 6 walks and 6 strikeouts. That’s hardly the ratio you want to see from your starting pitcher.

Stammen looks to be the easy pick at this point as the pitcher who will be sent down once Strasburg is ready to come up in a few short weeks. The weeks can’t possibly be short enough for the Nats, though. A few more weeks of struggles like these, and the excitement about their contending for a .500 record will be long, long gone.

Bob Uecker & Analyzing the Current Nats Starters

I'm going to start this blog with the sincere comment of the day. Bob Uecker is going in for heart surgery today to repair a damaged aeortic valve. This condition is serious and may require a follow up procedure. Uecker will miss at least 3 months, but probably more. My thoughts are with Bob Uecker and his family, including the Milwaukee Brewers family. Uecker has been the radio guy for the Brewers for 40 years this season, and is one of the broadcasting faces of baseball. Brewers games won't be the same without his play-by-play. I may just make a point of watching "Major League" this weekend.

Now, back to the Nats:

It recently came across the wires that the Nats are going to shuffle up their starters a bit to spread out our two lefties in the order. Previously, Olsen had been 5th in the rotation, and Lannan 1st. Making back to back lefties in the rotation. Now Olsen has switched with Stammen after the off-day to put some distance between them. So now the rotation officially is:

1. John Lannan (LHP; 1-1; 5.53 ERA; 10 Ks)
2. Luis Atilano (RHP; 2-0; 2.25 ERA; 2 Ks)
3. Livan Hernandez (RHP; 3-1; 0.87 ERA; 10 Ks)
4. Scott Olsen (LHP; 1-1; 6.14 ERA; 14 Ks)
5. Craig Stammen (RHP; 1-0; 6.75 ERA; 9 Ks)

If you would have told me 30 days ago, as the team was leaving spring training, that this rotation would be producing the way that it has, I would have had some nasty words for you for getting my hopes up about the return of real baseball to DC. And I would have been eating my words.

My offensive and defensive rundown was extensive yesterday, so I won't be quite as extensive with these guys, because I've been talking about most of them (Atilano, Hernandez, Stammen) all season. So read ahead for my thoughts, including the first Stephen Strasburg mention of my blogging campaign.

You may look at the rotation, and say "whaaaat? Atilano is number 2 in the rotation? Why not Livan?" Well, the answer is simple, really. Atilano is a placeholder for Marquis while he's on the DL with "loose bodies" in his elbow. Although, if Atilano keeps pitching like this, who knows. The likelihood of that seems low, however. Other teams are starting to get more tape on Luis with every start, and at some point sooner than later, he's going to get blow up in a start. It's inevitable. It's a matter of how he recovers after that. Does he go back to hitting his spots are just throw meatballs down the middle? Time will tell.

Lannan is having a... well... a year. Some people out in the Natosphere are speculating that he's hurt because he's not pitching his best. Missing some spots, etc. The problem with a guy like Lannan is that he's a Greg Maddux style pitcher. You may say, "What the heck, Capitol Baseball guy, how is being like Maddux a bad thing?" Well, Maddux is obviously one of the best pitchers of this generation. A member of the horrifying Braves trio that was Maddux-Smoltz-Glavine in their prime. But Maddux was the best of the best location pitchers. He wasn't going to overpower you, but he was always going to hit his spots. When he didn't, he got lit up. And Lannan is missing spots, and giving up more solid hits than we, and the team, have come to expect from him. In my amateur opinion, John isn't hurt, he's just missing spots. Only time will prove me right or wrong.

Bringing up Garrett Mock was the wrong call by Rizzo and Co. on the Opening Day roster. Give them credit, however, because they fixed it quickly. Turns out that Mock may have been hurt as well. Which leads me to this point: come on, pitchers! Communicate with your trainers -- I'm looking at you Garrett, Jason Marquis, and Ross Detwiler. I know you're trying to make a mark on the team, but you'll make more of one when you finally pitch healthy, and you won't hurt the team nearly as much. Olsen should have been up all along; no reason a guy making $1 million for a 1 year deal should start in AAA. If you're gonna make the investment, give the guy the chance at least. They did, and it's been the right call so far.

Livan and Atilano have been covered extensively here in other blog posts, so I'll refer you to the archives to hear my thoughts on them.

Enjoy game one against the Marlins from Sun Life Stadium where Olsen will take on Ricky Nolasco. Should be another great early season game.

T. Plush's Moment of Greed Costs Nats the Win (Game 18)

In today's overcast game, Craig Stammen was a star. After he gave up a 2-run home run to Casey Blake, Stammen relaxed and turned into a machine. He had commanding breaking pitches, and his fastball locations were sublime. His ERA was above 8 and it dropped below 7. He helped himself out of a few jams with 2 double plays. All very exciting stats. Until he gave up yet another home run to Casey Blake in the top of the 7th. This home run should only have tied the game. If it wasn't for another major mental mistake by the Nats.

Last night, I wrote about Willie Harris' big mistake in what was one of the weirdest baseball plays that I had ever seen. Well today's big faux pas wasn't weird as much as it was stupid. First, let me talk up our offensive minded pitchers, because they deserve it. The Washington Nationals' starters do not just go up to the plate to take 3 strikes and sit back down. They take big hacks out there, and it is yielding results. Livan Hernandez was already one of the best hitting pitchers in baseball. Atilano made Haeger work last night. And Stammen nearly killed Kershaw this afternoon. Stammen hit a solid grounder up the middle in the first that went of of Kershaw's foot, had a shot to left for a double, and a grounder up the middle in his final at bat that resulted in the game tying RBI. That put Stammen on 2nd with 2 outs and Nyjer Morgan up to bat. And that's when it got ugly.

Morgan crushed the ball to left center over the left fielder's head. A guaranteed run, right? So you would think. Stammen was trotting home, and Nyjer gets greedy and goes for yet another triple. He got thrown out trying to get there before the slow running Stammen could make it home. It took the lead out of the Nats hands, and the Dodgers hit a homer in the top of the 7th to regain the lead. This type of error is inexcusable. Nyjer Morgan is one of the fastest players in baseball, and the Nats are one of the fastest teams in baseball. But if Nyjer Morgan would have been standing on 2nd, with a 3-2 lead with the young slugger Ian Desmond up to bat, their attempted rally in the 7th wouldn't have been as crucial.

However, in the bottom of the 7th, a sustained rally is killed by Desmond trying to run home on a ground ball to 3rd base. The inning goes from 1 out with runners on 1st and 3rd to 2 outs with runners in 1st and 2nd. Then, Willie Harris grounds out to 2nd and ends the inning. If the Washington Nationals are going to become the better team that they have shown they can be, they absolutely must stop making these stupid errors.

Then, the game went for another 7 innings. That's right, a 14 inning affair. The Nats go down 4-3, due mostly to the running disaster by Nyjer Morgan in the 6th and a questionable call by the home plate umpire in the bottom of the 14th where it appeared that Pudge scored. But when your team makes that many running errors in one game, you're not likely to get the benefit of the doubt.