On Tuesday night, Collin Balester plunked a batter in the head for the 2nd time in 2 weeks. Talk about a horrifying day for a pitcher who is just trying to earn a bullpen spot.
In the Brewers series, Balester hit 2B Rickie Weeks in the head, but Weeks was able to stay in the game. On Tuesday, Balester had another pitch come up and in on a right handed batter. This time, it was D-Backs slugger 3B Mark Reynolds. And it was a 95 mph fastball. Reynolds ended up on the ground, but tests came back negative besides a big bump on his head.
While it's not quite as bad as former Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel's pitching breakdown in 2000, it's just as dangerous. In 2000, Ankiel started Game 1 of the NLDS for the Cards and broke down in the 3rd inning. He became virtually unable to throw strikes from that point on, for the rest of his career. In that inning, he earned 5 wild pitches and was pulled. In Game 2 of the NLCS, Ankiel threw 20 pitches in the 1st inning and was pulled. One-quarter of those pitches sailed to the backstop. Ankiel never figured out his problems, and became an outfielder for the Cardinals, then the Royals, and now the Braves, and a pretty successful one at that.
While Balester isn't as wild as Ankiel, he's become incredibly inpredictable. It's dangerous for every batter he faces. When a pitcher knows there's a problem (in Bally's case his elbow stays below the ball for too long and the arm never catches up, creating a high release point), and is unable to fix it and it's resulted in 2 batters being hit in the head by his pitches, well, it's an unacceptable problem.
I like Balester's heart and he has potentially great stuff, but he can't locate it. I hope that Balester can fix the problem soon, mostly because I love his ginger mustache, but also because you can never have enough organizational pitching depth. But until he does figure it out, Bally cannot face any more live batters.
Adam Dunn was placed on waivers by the Nats this afternoon. OH MY GOD!
No. Stop.
When people refer to the "trade deadline" in baseball, they usually mean the non-waiver trade deadline, or July 31st. On or before this date, teams can trade players to their hearts content (pending league approval) without sending the player through waivers.
From August 1st through August 31st, players must pass through revocable waivers. (Since players must be on the active roster by August 31st to be eligible for the playoffs, not too many trades are going to happen after that date.) That means, since it is after August 1st and before August 31st, Adam Dunn has been placed on revocable waivers. Meaning that if any team tries to claim Dunn, Rizzo can say "nope" and pull him back. In all likelihood, that's exactly what he'll do.
However, if Dunn passes through waivers and none of the 29 other teams claim him, he is then eligible to be traded just like he was before July 31st. Kapish? Doesn't mean Dunn is going anywhere, but Rizzo is continuing to explore his options, and why not? That is his job, after all.
I hope you've enjoyed our Baseball 302 lecture on trades this afternoon. I'd say this stuff is a bit to advanced to be considered a 101 class. And now I've realized I've spent too much time thinking about the number I just gave this fake class. Ok, so you stop worrying about Dunn and enjoy the Nats (Olsen) and the D-Backs (Saunders) tonight, and I'll stop spending so much time on meaningless banter.
The Nationals took on the Diamondbacks and won the game with barely a hitch on Monday night in the heavily protested State of Arizona. As a matter of fact, in the bottom of the 1st inning, there was a large sign displayed in left field protesting Arizona's immigration law that is currently in limbo pending further court action. It was only a brief delay. But on to the actual game.
Ivan Rodriguez became only the 5th catcher in MLB history to hit 300 home runs in a career. He joins the likes of Mike Piazza, Carlton Fisk, Johnny Bench, and Yogi Berra. That's some elite company for the future Hall of Famer. Congrats to Pudge, and it's nice that the milestone was reached in a Nats uniform.
Adam Dunn crushed his 26th home run to right-center field off of Rodrigo Lopez. That ties him for 2nd place in home runs in the NL with Cardinals' 1st baseman Albert Pujols. Dunn is just 1 behind league leader Joey Votto, who is day-to-day with a "tweaked" wrist.
Finally, for this series with the D-Backs, the Nats get to enjoy the umpiring of Joe West, Angel Hernandez, and their simply dreadful staff. (Read my previous post on the crew from earlier this season here.) It shouldn't surprise anyone that there was a blown call at 1st base on a Willingham infield single. The 1st base umpire (anyone have a name, was it Schrieber?) blew a call where the Hammer was safe by more than half a step. It wasn't close in fast motion, let alone in slo-mo. Riggleman argued the call, to no avail.
Luckily for the Nats, the blown call didn't affect the income despite the fact that they were unable to score a run after the 3rd inning for the millionth time this season. Livan had a great start, throwing only 91 pitches in 7 1/3 innings. Sean Burnett was on the rubber for the last 5 outs, earning him his 1st save in 2010 and only his 2nd career save. He did it in 19 pitches, and didn't allow a runner on base, while striking out 2.
All in all, it was one of those games that you watch and say, "Hey, this is a real baseball team." The Nats hope to continue to be a real baseball team on this 7 game road trip visiting the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers after taking 4 of 6 at home against the best teams in the NL East, the Phillies and the Braves. Continuing the success will be up to Scott Olsen on Tuesday as he faces a new D-back, Joe Saunders, who was acquired from the Angels in the Dan Haren trade. It should be an exciting matchup.
In Sunday's game between the Nats and the Phillies, John Lannan got a bit shelled in the first inning. One Phillies player involved in that abuse was Ryan Howard. In all reality, Howard only got punked in the elbow. But he got moved over to 2nd base on a Ben Francisco single.
As you'll see below, Michael Morse tried to toss out Howard as he overran 2nd base. On the way back, Howard rolled his ankle pretty badly and got pulled from the game.
All reports indicate that Howard will be day-to-day for now with a sprained ankle, but it's entirely possible that he could yet end up on the DL. When speaking with The Philadelphia Inquirer about the possibility of a DL stint this late in the season, he responded, "I hope not. It's kind of a bad sprain.''
This is the last thing the Phillies can afford with Chase Utley and Shane Victorino already on the DL as they push for a 3rd consecutive NL title.
(Photo Courtesy Reuters)(AP Photo/Nick Wass)
The Nationals came home from their last road trip dejected. They were 3-7 on that trip as they traveled through Florida, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee. But as they have all season, the Nats returned to DC with some spark. They won 4 of 6 against the numbers 1 and 2 teams in the NL East. They came just inches from sweeping the Phillies on Sunday and earned the series win on Saturday with yet another Ryan Zimmerman walk-off homer. It was to deeeeeeep center and the 7th walk-off homer in his career.
But the latest homestand merely proves what most of us already knew. The Washington Nationals are a great home team; they have a 29-22 record. Away, they are simply dreadful, only 17-36. For those keeping score at home, that's a distressingly low .320 winning percentage away from Nats Park.
But there are things to look forward to as we're barely 2 months from the end of the Nationals' season. Rizzo didn't move Adam Dunn at the deadline. While it's still very questionable whether the Nats will choose to re-sign Dunn, at the very least the Nats will get compensation draft picks for him. At the best, the Nats will land the slugger for a few more years before he starts to trail off. Remember, the Nats still have Bryce Harper to sign and only have until August 16th to do it.
The Nationals starting rotation is also starting to settle in, but you'll have to wait to read about that until my Monday afternoon post. I know, the horror! Just check back here around lunch time. I'll do my best to include a Esteban Loaiza reference, but I'll probably fail.
But in the mean time, the Nats are starting yet another road trip. This time they head to Arizona for 4 games against the D-Backs and 3 against the Dodgers. So it's a week of staying up late for us east coasters. The Nats hope to take adavantage of a depleted Diamondbacks team after they lost some depth at the trade deadline. So until the afternoon post...
