The Inches We Need.

Hyper optimistic pessimism, if we don't make the playoffs by 2 or three games, is that Strasburg's late call up and Dukes not being in RF?

How irresponsible does the Dukes release seem now. Obviously, no one thought contention was likely this year, but now it is happening. Will it last? Probably not.

It is certainly a fact that we could do with a better right fielder.

You are telling me we scored 6 runs?

Emilio Bonifacio is, hopefully, not the next Rickey. It just feels like he is.


Possibly the greatest opening sentence ever-
"There is no real link between Emilio Bonifacio and Adam Dunn, other than absurdity itself."

Something to remember.

The Washington Nationals do not improve if Jim Bowden leaves the orginization.

The Washington Nationals improve if Jim Bowden leaves the organization and is replaced by a better General Manager.

Do not forget that.

Hope springing from a limited knowledge of stats.

The 2008 LAAA record is 49-30.
Their pythag record is 39-37.

They will probably lose a number of games on the way to the record getting closer to normal. Hopefully three of those losses will come against us.

And lets all remember, Mike Scioscia is a piece of garbage.

Lensterino.

To Chris's Cry of "Fire Lenny Harris." comes a resounding rejoinder of "So Say We All!"

Jumping on the bandwagon, here is Harris himself.
From The wapo-

"Harris, who collected more pinch hits than any other player in history, also drew clear distinctions between what he sees going on with the Nationals and what he experienced during his career. "I had mentors," he said. He's not sure the younger Nationals do.

"I had baseball guys who felt for the game," he said. "When we came out, we already felt that we were going to win the ballgame. . . . It's hard for me to speak for them. All I can do is see and watch them play, and I see a difference already, because our attitude on the bench was different. Every team we played for, we were always encouraging, always in the game. This is like a different environment now. We got a whole bunch of young kids."



Really? He had mentors? He had baseball guys telling him about the game? You mean like coaches? You mean like hitting coaches telling him about the game and how, in the game, to hit baseball? That kind of mentor?

BPIBB

If one can trust the MLB probable starting pitchers page two days before a game, Wednesday is the big day for us.

Personally, I wouldn’t waste him on us, but thankfully they are going to. Should be some nice padding to his universally predicted Cy Young campaign.*

*For the value of universal predictions, please see ‘Tigers, Detroit. 2008 Edition’

As a Nationals fan, I’m pretty happy with Santana pitching in this division. We are most likely not play-off bound during his peak years. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of potentially good players are no longer going to be helping the Mets when the Nats are playoff contenders. A move of this magnitude also hopefully puts some more “win now” pressure on the Phillies, and to a lesser extent, the Braves. If several teams start mortgaging their future for the present, we could have a lull in division strength in 2011-14 or so.** During that lull the Nats, with some group whoever survives the perils of prospectdom could hopefully start making the playoffs, increasing team revenue, and then making the playoffs again with better and then better teams.

**While I do believe I am more correct than incorrect with this assessment, I must admit I have not recently looked at who is under control for how long by which teams. I am making my judgment based more on gut than on facts. In the case of the Braves, Chipper has to age, right? Teixeira is a free agent at the end of the year, and they traded their farm system to get him. Their pitching is, mostly, ancient. The Phillies seem to have a lot of players in their peak years right now, although I cant speak to their farm system. The Mets have two of the best young players in the game, a few young pitchers, F-Mart, and then a whole bunch of oldies. Can all of these teams fix their coming problems? Sure. Still, they have a lot of problems on the way. If we capitalize on those problems, we can beat them.

Much more importantly, as a baseball fan, I love the move because we get to see Santana pitch. How wonderful is that?

I think I need to talk about my relationship with baseball in order to talk about my idea of Santana. It seems to me that most serious Nationals fans were baseball fans before the 2004-2005 off season. They were Yankees fans or expos fans, Brewers or Angels fans, Sox or Sox fans, and of course reformed Os fans. . They became Nationals fans through their love of baseball. I, on the other hand, began to love baseball because of the Nationals.

I was sorta a Mets fan my first few vague years, mainly because my older sister was a Yankees fan and Darrly Strawberry’s last name was, like mine, a common object. During that period the Mets won the World Series, an event I have no recollection of. Then I spent several years in England, where my nascent love of baseball, and Darrly Strawberry, waned away to nothing. Years later, after moving to the NoVa area with my family, we would go to several Orioles games a year. I took my lack of interest in these excursions to mean I did not like baseball, rather than learning what was probably the correct lesson, that is- I just do not like the Baltimore Orioles.*

*Except Cal. Like everybody, I liked Cal. Turns out the rest of the team was on steroids. So yay for me for not liking them.


Then, the Washington Nationals came. My roommate that off-season was a member of that proud, knowledgeable, and often-wronged race, Mariners fans, and he pushed and prodded and sorta forced me to fall in love with baseball. So I started following baseball in earnest in 2005. However, having so much to learn about baseball (which is still true) I just focused on the division the first year. The American League was something I did not particularly care about.
I remember during the 2006 season having to admit to a bay area friend that no, I did not know who this Barry Zito fellow was, except I thought he was probably a pitcher. This is the level of ignorance we are talking about.

So I would always hear about this guy, this magical unstoppable pitcher toiling away in the frozen north.

He had a weird name, he had struck batters out, he was just very very good. I remember the first time I heard him pitch, Minnesota had an afternoon play off game and I used my lunch break to listen. It sounded beautiful. I've never seen him pitch. Sure, games have been on a tv at a bar or some such. But I've never really watched him pitch, pitch by pitch.

The whole point is, its going to mean alot to me to watch Tim Redding get the win Wednesday night.

Oversights

Metsblog, a pretty good blog generally, does a recap of last nights 14-inning marathon. They do not once mention Scourge of Potential MVPs John Lannan, and his 11 strikesouts. Sure, starting pitching doesnt seem that important after the fourteenth inning stretch, but still, its an annoying omission.Since you know, that is all we had, really.