Zim Is Not Alone: The one piece of good news amidst the doom of the Washington Nationals season is that Ryan Zimmerman has emerged as the National League’s premier third baseman. You couldn’t say it before this year, but with Zim hitting .355 (with ten home runs), the Nationals can point to him as proof that the Lerners (we may demote them, once again – to “Learners”) have gotten at least one thing right.  But Zimmerman has lots of competition.

There are at least six all-star quality third basemen in the National League: Chipper Jones, Casey Blake (why did the Indians trade this guy?), Aramis Ramirez, David Wright and (arguably) Garrett Atkins, in addition to Zimmerman. When Troy Glaus comes off the DL, he’ll join this bunch (we should remember — Glaus hit 47 round-trippers with the Belinski’s in 2000). Then too, if the Brewers moved Ryan Braun back to the hot corner from left field he’d surpass nearly everyone in pure hitting ability — with the exception of Zimmerman.

You can make a good case that Zimmerman’s the best; he has more power than nearly any of his competitors (including Braun), fields his position better than Wright, has a higher batting average than either Blake or Atkins and, considering his age, is more resilient than Jones. By my calculations, Zimmerman is on a pace to hit 32 homes runs with 122 runs batted in. A hot weather hitter (he usually slumps in April and May), these numbers could go higher.

MLB Outsider ranked Zimmerman behind Jones, Wright, Ramirez and Atkins in a pre-season snapshot of the other NL contenders at third, but that was before Zim put up this year’s numbers. Then too, someone seems to have moved the fences out on Jones, Wright has begun to struggle, Ramirez has been hobbled by injuries and Atkins is having an off year. Casey Blake matches up well against Zimmerman (but was not mentioned in the “Outsider” rankings), though he’s not as consistent at the plate. Which is to say: Zimmerman should be the National League’s all-star selection at the hot corner, though a strong New York vote will probably put Wright there.   

A lot of baseball commentators have taken notice of this, including “Baseball Tonight’s” Tim Kurkjian, who has written of the third base “renaissance.” Kurkjian opines that Chipper Jones will go into the hall as one of the best third basemen of all time and he’s probably right. But it would be difficult to put him ahead of Brooks Robinson, George Brett, Mike Schmidt or this guy who, for my money, was the best there ever was:

Slider, Slider, Slider, Wild Pitch: that’s the pitch sequence followed last night by Joel Hanrahan, who served up the go-ahead run with the slumping Adam LaRoche at the plate. The guy two rows ahead of me sunk his head in his hands before yelling — “Hey Manny, Hanrahan’s not a closer.”  I was struck by how evenly matched John Lannan and Paul Maholm were throughout the game, with nearly the same pitch count heading into the sixth (Maholm had 62, Lannan had 57). They were both in control. Maholm might well be the template for Lannan. The southpaw featured a 90 mph fastball, which never topped out over 92 (which he threw, twice), an off-speed curve (at about 85) and a good low-70s change-up. Lannan is more gangly than Maholm, but he features the same game — moving the ball in and out and mixing his pitches well. It’s taken awhile for Maholm to learn the game, but he’s confident now and you can see it. Like Lannan, he works best against the good hitters, but seems to lose focus against those lower in the order. He owned Adam Dunn: