Center Field Gate

Diamond Nuggets for 3/07/10

Spit and Vinegar:  Grizzled veteran Jamie Moyer is in Phillies camp this spring after three surgeries since the end of last season. The 47 year old went under the knife to repair three torn muscles in his groin and abdomen – injured in a late September relief outing. The $8 million man will join just 14 other players to compete in four decades. Moyer began his career in 1986 with the same Cubbies team that featured Ryne Sandberg and Ron Cey. To give some indication of his toughness, assuming an average 100 pitches per start (since I’m not counting some 60 relief appearances), Moyer has thrown 60,000-plus pitches in his career. 

Trivia Time: Which of Moyer’s teammates on that 1986 club went on to win two World Series Championships with another team?   

Swing and Miss? In the bottom of the second inning of a Cincinnati/Cleveland pre season game on Friday Redlegs right fielder Jay Bruce was called for a swinging third strike. Ordinarily that shouldn’t be a cause of dispute but Bruce’s wrists never broke and his hands hadn’t gone through the plane of the plate. But his bat did. In Bruce’s attempt to check his swing his bat broke in half and the top portion missed the pitch for strike three.  Bruce is a big kid, but I gotta believe it was the narrow bat handle that was the culprit. 

Say What? I guess the good ol days of players coining a phrase like “hit ‘em where they ain’t” or “give him some chin music” are long gone. The players are better educated than they’ve ever been and maybe the game’s gotten too sophisticated – or we have. But things may have hit a new low this week when a term best associated with Hegelian philosophy crept into the baseball lexicon. In response to a question about the growing trend of veteran players vying for a job as non-roster invitees outfielder Cory Sullivan told a USA Today scribe that it’s just part of the business now.  “It’s the zeitgeist of baseball,” he said.  Where’s Tom Hanks when you need him? 

“There’s no zeitgeist in baseball!”

Trivia Answer: Which of Moyer’s teammates on that 1986 club went on to win two World Series Championships with another team? Terry Francona, manager of the 2004 and 2007 Boston Red Sox. C’mon. You knew there’d be one Red Sox reference here didn’t you?

That glazed and puzzled look that has appeared on the faces of so many other post season teams (the St. Louis Cardinals yesterday, and the Chicago Cubs last year, to name just two) is now being worn by the Boston Red Sox. The A.L.’s wild card entry was stunned by a ninth inning rally in Boston on Saturday, and swept in three games by the Los Angeles Angels to be eliminated from the playoffs. The Bosox appeared headed for a sure win in their head-to-head match-up against the Belinskis, leading the Halos 6-3 heading into the 9th inning at Fenway Park — with their ace closer, Jonathan Papelbon on the mound. But with two outs, Papelbon’s down-and-out or up-and-in stuff failed him: Erick Aybar singled, Chone Figgins walked and Bobby Abreu doubled to tighten the contest. Even then, the Red Sox remained a simple grounder or fly ball away from victory. To set up a force out at every base, Papelbon walked Torii Hunter intentionally. That brought Vladimir Guerrero to the plate. On the very first pitch to one of baseball’s beset bad-ball hitters, Papelbon gave up a single to center. Guerrero’s hit, a leaning over-the-plate smack of a low and outside fastball, scored Figgins and Abreu and gave the Angels the 7-6 victory.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The elimination of the Redbirds and Bosox now sets the wheels in motion for the offseason in both Boston and St. Louis. There’s a lot to do. Fans of “the Nation” face some big questions: about the future of David Ortiz and the cost of Jason Bay. The team is hardly in need of a major overhaul, yet the horses that have consistently put it into the off season are aging or hobbled. The entire left side of the Boston infield is in question: Mike Lowell can’t play third forever and the team has no ready answer at shortstop. “Phtttt . . . c’mon” — fans of the Nation say: what about Jed Lowrie? Well, what about him? Maybe Baseball Reference is lying, but their stats show him hitting .147 in 32 games. Hell, there’s a shortstop in Washington who hits a damn sight better than that and he’s no damn good at all . . .   

The Redbirds are younger, but the questions might be more pertinent: whether to pony up the big bucks it will take to keep Matt Holliday in left and (just like the Red Sox) what to do at third. Mark DeRosa is a free agent and while he likes St. Louis he will test the free agent market. Then too, while shortstop seems set for the River City Nine, rookie phenom Brendan Ryan hit a scorching .083 in the playoffs and looked shaky in the field. Redbird fans have the same reaction to this negativity as their Bosox buddies: “Oh yeah, well what about Troy Glaus?” Okay, right. Troy Glaus: who left his right shoulder somewhere in Toronto and hasn’t been the same since. Maybe he’ll return to his 2008 form (.270, 27 home runs), but it’s a pretty big maybe. Then too, number three starter Joel Pineiro is a free agent and would be a number one starter on most major league teams: including the Nats (now there’s an idea). Oddly, whether Holliday or DeRosa or Pineiro decide to stay in St. Louis might hinge more on the fate of Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan than on how much money Billy DeWitt puts on the table. LaRussa and Duncan’s contracts are up and both are rumored headed to Cincinnati, to team up with their old St. Louis G.M. pal Walt Jocketty . . .

Andy Warhol's rendition of Pete Rose

Pete Rose has never done himself any favors. Arguably one of baseball’s greatest players — and inarguably the greatest player to ever put on the uniform of the Cincinnati Reds – the inimitable “Charlie Hustle” bet on baseball games. And he lied about it for fifteen years. Coming clean in his autobiography My Prison Without Bars (intended as an apology to baseball for his actions), didn’t seem to help: Bud Selig refused to remove Rose’s name from the ineligible list. Of course, for some this is old business. The punishment is set, the man is banned — let it go. He bet on games and that’s all we need to know. But the continued punishment of Pete Rose is of moment now, particularly after recent reports that Bud Selig was considering reinstating Rose — and letting bygones be bygones.

There’s been some piling on: Rose agreed to be put on the ineligible list in 1989, with the apparent understanding that he could apply for reinstatement the following year. There was a wink-and-nod appearance, it was said, that Rose would be punished, but that the punishment wouldn’t be permanent. Rose apparently believed that (having served his time on the list), he might be soon forgiven. It didn’t happen. In 1999, Rose was named to the MLB All Century Team, and his name is there still — on the MLB website — just above Babe Ruth’s. But after appearing at a ceremony marking the naming of the team, Major League Baseball refused to allow him to participate in 25th anniversary ceremonies celebrating Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine,” he was barred from a ceremony marking the closing of Cinergy Field and then from a ceremony marking the opening of the Great American Ballpark. Rose is also barred from entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but that decision came after Rose was declared ineligible, as if to emphasize the stain that marked him. The punishments never seemed to cease.

Did Rose have it coming? There are those who argue that Pete Rose’s sin is equal to that of the “eight men out” of Black Sox fame. They gambled and they were barred. But those who make that claim nearly always fail to add that there’s no evidence that Rose actually attempted to throw games. That’s not true of Joe Jackson and Company, despite the recent romance surrounding ”Shoeless Joe.” Joe Jackson, his defenders say, didn’t set out to enrich himself. He did not know that what he was doing might destroy the game. And that’s right. Joe Jackson didn’t set out to enrich himself and harm to the game, but his buddies did and he was a part of it. And they damn near succeeded.

That’s not true of Pete Rose.

There’s a case to be made for reinstating Rose, but it comes with some caveats. The first is that the vast majority of baseball fans (according to any number of polls) want him reinstated. Critics might respond that the argument carries no weight because baseball isn’t a popularity contest. They’d be wrong. Of course it’s a popularity contest. That’s what makes it America’s game. And that’s what makes Rose is a fan favorite. He always has been. The second reason Commissioner Selig might reinstate Rose is that he’s done his penance to baseball — as demanded. Penance does not require rehabilitation, but forgiveness seems well within the American tradition. “This is America, you’re supposed to be given a second chance,” Rose said in January of 2006. ”But a lot of people don’t want me to have that.” He’s right. It’s hard to forgive. But we might remember, while Pete Rose bet on baseball, he didn’t kill dogs.

Finally, while the argument that Pete Rose should be reinstated simply because he was a great ballplayer remains  suspect — even intellectually dishonest — there’s something to it. Especially for diehard fans. There has been only one other player like Pete Rose in baseball history, and that’s Ty Cobb. For decades Cobb’s record of most hits by a major league baseball player was never in peril. It stood, like a great marble column, over all of baseball. It was the record that could never be broken. Cobb’s record of 4,190 hits, it was said, could never be matched. Rose shattered it, in Cincinnati, on September 11, 1985. 

What is most poignant about Cobb’s record is that it was broken by a player most like him. Cobb was fast, tough, was a choke-it-up and bang-it-out singles hitter who played the game hard and was deeply disliked by his fellow players. That true for Rose: he was a roll-in-the-dirt ballplayer who made few friends and a lot of enemies. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s one of the greatest two-strike hitters I’ve ever seen,” pitcher Bill Lee once said. And there’s this, also. Like Rose, Ty Cobb bet on baseball games. He did so in 1919 with his boon buddy and fellow Hall of Famer (and one of my very favorites) Tris Speaker. The allegation was made by pitcher Dutch Leonard who said that he and Cobb and Speaker and ”Smokey” Joe Wood bet on a baseball game in 1919 that they knew was fixed. Kennesaw Mountain Landis investigated the charges and exonerated Cobb and Speaker.

And there it stands — though not exactly. It’s still hard for baseball historians to believe that Leonard, in implicating Cobb, would also implicate himself. Then too, Landis knew that in 1925, when the allegations were first aired, baseball could not stand another gambling scandal. And finally, any number of baseball scholars have been through the evidence, and weighed in with their own views: Cobb and Speaker were exonerated, but probably guilty. So it is: Cobb and Speaker (and Leonard and Smokey Joe) are dead, their records are in the books. And Ty and Tris, two of the greatest players of all time, are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Which is where they belong. So too does Pete Rose. Swallow hard and listen to Hank Aaron: “I would like to see Pete in. He belongs there.”

The Washington Nationals finished their four game series with the Cincinnati Reds with a bang on Sunday — with a home run by Josh Willingham, two doubles by former Red Adam Dunn and a miscue by a rookie second sacker that was the difference between victory and defeat. Willingham and Dunn accounted for all five of the Nats’ runs in the 5-4 victory. Willingham was three for four and drove in three, while Dunn was 2 for 2 and scored three runs. Over the last three games, Dunn was 3 for 6 and walked five times, while Willingham was 5 for 9 with four RBIs. After a stellar start, the Reds seemed hardly in the series — fielding a young and inexperienced team that is second to last in hitting in the National League. The Nats took advantage of the listless Baker Boys by banging out a barrage of extra base hits and home runs, accompanied by snappy mound work from an ever-improving relief corps. On Sunday, Mike “Heart Attack” MacDonald earned his thirteenth save, working 1.1 innings.

Despite the bombs away feel of the series, the decisive blow in the Sunday matchup was Ryan Zimmerman’s eighth inning pinch hit single, which drove in two runs — the last by Willingham. Willingham upended Reds’ catcher Ryan Hanigan after Reds’ rookie second baseman Drew Sutton nonchalanted the ball back into the infield. Sutton’s non-play marked the first time during the four game series that ever-patient Reds’ manager Dusty Baker came close to the only known instance of spontaneous combustion by a human in history. The Nats took three of four from the Redlegs after dropping two straight to Atlanta. The Anacostia Nine return home to Nationals Park for a series against the Colorado Rockies that begins on Tuesday.

While Nats fans focus on the shelling Nats’ bats are capable of imposing — evidence of which was on full display at Cincy’s Great American Ballpark on Saturday – victims of the Anacostia Nine wonder how their team can lose to a club that is “a joke” and “one of the worst teams in baseball history.” Reds fans are the latest such whiners, trodding ground already worn by the footsteps of bloggers from Miami. ”This year I haven’t really considered the Washington Nationals a real team. They’re just so bad, it’s hard to take them seriously,” Cincinnati blogger Red Hot Mama writes in the wake of the Nats pasting of the Reds. ”I mean, they’ve consistently been winning only a third of the team [their games] for most of the year. In the world of bad teams, that’s truly atrocious.”

Red Hot Mama (the most interesting of all Reds’ blogs — in my humble opinion) is not alone in underestimating the Nats. For baseball beat reporter John Fay, it’s not so much that the Nats are good, it’s that the Reds are bad. This path is also well-worn: when the Nats beat up on Dan Haren at Nationals Park last week, “Baseball Tonight”  commentators attributed the loss not to the Nats ability to hit, but to Haren’s unusally poor outing. When the Nats are bad it’s because they’re bad, when the Nats are good it’s because they’re lucky. Of course, not only are the Nats not even close to being the worst team in baseball history, if they continue to win games at the current rate they may well catch the other “worst” teams in the MLB: The Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates and San Diego Padres. It’s even possible to make the argument that the Nats post-July 4 record is not only pretty good — it’s a lot better than the other “atrocious teams” in the majors. The Nationals have played forty games since Independence Day, and they’re 20-20. That’s enough to vault them out of last place in the ESPN power rankings — ahead of the Monarchs, Ahoys and Friars. That hasn’t happened yet, but it should. And just think, this from ”a joke” and “one of the worst teams in baseball history.”

It’s no secret: the Nats’ revival is more due to their ability to swing the wood than throw the horsehide. This was on full display in the ballpark beside the Ohio yesterday. When the Reds came to bat in the fourth, the Nats were leading 7-0 and starter Johnny Cueto was sitting on the bench next to a shell-shocked Dusty Baker. By the time the game had ended (with Nats’ smiles all around), our Anacostia boys had pulled out a 10-6 victory. The Nats’ attack included fourteen hits and an Adam Dunn home run. Morgan, Belliard (Belliard!!), Zimmerman, Dukes, Gonzalez and Nats’ starter J.D. Martin had two hits each — the nail-in-the-coffin stroke coming from a still struggling Alberto Gonzalez, who scorched a double just inside the bag at third, scoring three. The Nats needed all the hits they could get. Starter Martin was game, but not that effective (the Reds threatened in nearly every inning), while reliever Logan Kensing (usually effective — after being recalled from Syracus), gave up four earned runs and lasted less than an inning.

It’s true: the Nats have been “truly atrocious” — as Reds bloggers would have it. They’ve won only 42 games. They’re 33 games under .500. They’ve “struggled” all year. But hope springs eternal: they could catch the Padres, Pirates and Royals in the standings. Why, they could even catch the Reds. In the world of bad teams (teams like, ah . . . the Cincinnati Reds), that’s really amazing. Or maybe it isn’t.

In the immediate aftermath of one of this season’s more-than-typical collapses — in which nothing worked — the Washington Nationals rebounded for a 2-0 defeat of the Cincinnati Reds, in which everything worked. Garrett Mock, on the heels of a steady start against the Showboats (which he won 5-2) pitched a six inning gem and the Nats took the second game of the four game set against the Redlegs 2-0. Mock got into trouble in the sixth inning, when he loaded the bases, but he was able to pitch out of the jam. Other than that, Cincy’s bats remained silent and Mock remained steady; he threw 101 pitches, 59 of them for strikes.

After a shaky outing on Thursday, the Nats’ bullpen was superb, with Jorge Sosa, Sean Burnett, Jason Bergman and Mike “Heart Attack” MacDougal blanking Dusty Baker’s pitching-light Red Stockings through three perfect innings. MacDougal sailed through the ninth, recording his twelfth save. The game could not have been scripted any better: the starting pitching was strong, the relievers looked untouchable and (while the Nats were not overpowering at the plate) the Anacostia nine got hits when they needed them — on improbable solo shots from Wil Nieves and Ronnie Belliard.

Down On Half Street: The clock is ticking on the deadline for signing first overall pitching messiah Stephen Strasburg. Bill Ladson and the Washington Times are reporting that the Nats met with Strasburg last week in Southern California. Ladson reports that team officials came away from their meeting impressed by the young righthander. If he is signed, Strasburg may be called to the big club in September . . . It seems notionally true, particularly in the wake of Jordan Zimmermann’s impending Tommy John surgery, that the Nats may need Strasburg more than ever. But that knife (so to speak) cuts both ways. The Nats are in a need of a young starter — true — but Zimmermann’s injury points up the fragility of young arms, particularly as the Nats were careful not to overpitch J.Z., setting strict limits on his pitch and game numbers . . .

As Ladson points out, David Clyde and Ben McDonald are the only other two pitchers in MLB history to be drafted #1 and pitch in the majors in the same year. Clyde was rushed into the Rangers’ rotation (as a way of bringing fans to the park) and didn’t pan out, while McDonald battled arm problems during a curtailed career . . . Scott Boras is apparently telling reporters that Strasburg deserves the same level contract (about $50 million) as Daisuke Matsuzaka. If true, Boras may want to rethink his peroration: Dice-K is 1-5 with an 8.23 ERA and is battling “shoulder fatigue. He is probably out for the season . . . Everyone is remaining silent on the Nats’ chances and most particularly Strasburg’s agent; but that’s not unusual for Scott Boras, who usually negotiates to the last second . . .

The Cincinnati Reds are the oldest team in professional baseball, so you’d think that after all these years their rich legacy would have yielded a tradition as intimidating, or as legendary, as (say) the New York Yankees. Not so. While nearly 120 years old (they were founded as the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1866), the Reds have struggled more than triumphed – with their earliest years being the team’s most successful. In 120 years, Cincinnati has won five world championships, their last coming in 1990. Even “the Big Red Machine,” the leave-em-for-dead powerhouse of the 1970s, is now a fading memory, with the proud franchise along the Ohio River continually and vainly groping for an identity. The last time Cincinnati won a world championship was in 1990 and they’ve never finished higher than third in any of the last nine years. So . . . what’s the problem.

There’s a big problem in River City and it starts with a ‘p’ and it ends with a ‘g’ . . . and it’s called pitching. The problem with the Cincinnati Reds is that through all of their history, the franchise have never really (ever) had any pitching or, rather, they’ve never had any overwhelming pitching. Go ahead, name a really great Cincinnati Reds’ pitcher. Or better yet, name a really, really good one. In a game where pitching is at a premium (and something you can never have too much of) the Reds have never really had any. Is that even possible? Well, let’s check the record. In a list of the top ten Reds’ players of all time — a very subjective list — there are no pitchers. Here’s my list: 10. Dave Concepcion (shortstop), 9. Ted Kluszewski (first base), 8. Vada Pinson (outfield), 7. Barry Larkin (shortstop), 6. Edd Roush (outfield), 5. Tony Perez (first base), 4. Joe Morgan (second base), 3. Johnny Bench (catcher) 2. Frank Robinson (outfield), and 1. Pete Rose. Five of that list played for the Big Red Machine, Pinson is a maybe (you could as easily have included outfielders Eric Davis or George Foster). Truth is, you might even be able to make a “Top Fifteen” list of the greatest Reds — and not one of them would have been a hurler.

Of course, there’s always Eppa Jephtha Rixey, a gangly pretzel of a Reds’ pitcher who is now in the Hall of Fame — having been put there by the veterans’ committee back in the 1960s, long after Eppa hisself had passed from the scene. The problem with Rixey (one fine pitcher, to be sure) is that his 266-251 record is what kept sportswriters from considering him as one of the all-time greats. In two years he led the National League in losses. There’s also Joe Nuxhall, who pitched in his first major league game when he was 15 — they thought he was that good. It would be another seven years before Nuxhall returned, and he pitched well. But even with that, Nuxhall’s career numbers are not that good and he developed arm trouble that hampered his later years. The pitchers for the Big Red Machine were good, even very good, but they weren’t great: the Reds’ won the ‘75 world championship with a front line of Gary Nolan, Jack Billingham, Fred Norman and Don Gullett. None of them won over fifteen games and the best of them, Billingham, had a very good but (again) not great career. The Big Red Machine was not a pitching machine.

We’re left with this: not counting Rixey (and I’m not counting Rixey) either Bucky Walters (who came from somewhere else) or Tom Browning are the best pitchers in Reds’ history, with Jim Maloney, Don Gullett, Noodles Hahn and Johnny Vander Meer third to sixth. Then you have to search. Of course, Reds’ fans will tell you that Tom Seaver was great in Cincinnati, but he went into Cooperstown as a Met. Don’t kid yourself, when Tom Terrific went to Cincinnati people (except in Cincinnati) stopped paying attention. He was terrific — in New York. Which is to say: we can look forever through the endless pages of Cincinnati baseball history and never come across a Sandy Koufax (Dodgers), Mordecai Brown (Cubs), Pud Galvin (Pirates) Christy Mathewson (Giants) Warren Spahn (Braves), Robin Roberts (Phillies) or Walter Johnson – Senators. That’s seven teams, all from the original senior circuit of the original eight and all of them with great pitchers. Some of them, by golly, even have two.  But not the Reds. Looking for great Reds’ pitching is like looking for blue food. There isn’t any. 

This year isn’t any different, of course, but at least one thing has changed. The Reds front office has been transformed into a pitcher-hunting development hit squad that understands there’s no way to win this game without some arms — and they’ve done their best to get some. True, Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang aren’t the long-term answers, but Homer Bailey and Johnny Cueto might be. (If Dusty doesn’t throw out their arms first.)  But even with that (even with that) there’s a sense, a whisper almost, that like so many other traditions in baseball (the Cubs aren’t going to win this thing, are they — and the Marlins may win it, but only by accident), this one is so deeply rooted that it may last forever. Cincinnati has never had pitching and they never will. Cincinnati is where pitchers’ arms go to die.

After losing the second of two in Atlanta (final score: 6-2), the Washington Nationals had high hopes of rediscovering their winning ways in Cincinnati, where the struggling Redlegs are trying to decide whether to wave the white flag or make one last run at the wild card. Sadly for the Nats, Thursday night’s contest was among the most lopsided defeats the Anacostia nine has suffered this year, if not in number of runs scored (or not scored, as the case may be), then at least psychologically.  This seemed a reversion to earlier times, when nothing worked. The Nats’ were held to two hits in their 7-0 loss at the hands of Redlegs, making starter Bronson “Bongwater” Arroyo look like Johnny Vander Meer. Arroyo, with a lackluster 4.74 ERA, is now 11-11. He was all smiles after the game.

While Nats’ fans decry the lack of starting pitching (inaugurated by John Lannan’s blow-up on Tuesday), and the woes in the bullpen (which collapsed in the loss to the Braves on Wednesday), they can now add another factor to the list of complaints: the Nats have scored three runs in three games — and they’re lucky it wasn’t worse. That’s three up and three down: no pitching, no relief pitching, no hitting. Arroyo, a semi-rock star with his own album and a sometime guitarist with the Quincy Massachusetts-based punk rock band Dropkick Murphys, looked untouchable, while Nats’ pitcher Collin Balester looked shakey. At best. Balester, now 1-2 with an even 6.00 ERA, threw strikes: but not many of them moved. The hero for the Reds was Jonny Gomes – a light hitting part-time former Tampa Bay Ray, who hit three home runs: two off of Balester, one off of Jason Bergman. If Arroyo looked like Johnny Vander Meer, Gomes looked like Vada Pinson.

Guitarist Arroyo and groupie

For the first time in two weeks, Washington manager Jim Riggleman was clearly irritated, his mouth set and voice rising during post-game interviews. The Nats played poorly and Rigglemam told them so in a clubhouse meeting after the Reds recorded the last Nats’ out. ”You look flat when you get two hits and you don’t have many baserunners,” Riggleman said. “You have to create some energy. You have to be hustling down the line. You have to be running balls out. You hit fly balls, you have to round the bag hard.” The Nats face off against the Reds again tomorrow at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.

Zimmerman is an All Star: Scott Olsen scorched the Braves on Sunday and the Washington Nationals walked away with their second win in a row. Olsen nearly completed the game before giving up a home run to Braves’ centerfielder Nate McLouth and being relieved by Mike MacDougal. The win sealed the growing sense that the Nats have turned some kind of corner, their play evidence that interim GM Mike Rizzo’s plan for the team is beginning to yield results. During the post-game, MASN analyst Ray Knight seemed to suggest that at least part of the reason for the turnaround was the different mix in the clubhouse — a hint perhaps that it was not only the addition of Nyjer Morgan that was making the difference, but the subtraction of others (including Elijah Dukes) that was changing the way the team approaches games. Knight’s question, to guest Josh Willingham, was laden with not-so-subtle implications.

But Willingham either didn’t understand the question, or purposely ducked it: his answer was worthy of any cliche from the mouth of Crash Davis — teams that play good defense and pitch well win, he said, and that tends to put everyone in a good mood. Knight laughed and told the new rightfielder to keep hitting. Even so, Knight’s comment gave voice to rumors that the team did not like Dukes’s attitude and that the troubled centerfielder would not be returning to the big club anytime soon, if ever. With Dukes gone, Knight implied, the Nats clubhouse was a happier place, the team more capable of focusing on how to win games. And so the process of what The Nationals Enquirer calls “de-Bowdenization” continues. It seems it is now only a matter of time before Rizzo rids the team of the rest of Bowden’s experiments, as well as his penchant for signing former Cincinnati Reds has-beens. That means that Elijah Dukes is being offered to other teams — along with Austin Kearns, who seems to now have taken a permanent position on the Nats’ bench.

The Nats win came on the same day that third sacker Ryan Zimmerman was named to the MLB All Star team, the result of a vote of his fellow players and MLB managers and coaches. “This won’t be the last time we’ll see him as an all star,” TBS commentator Cal Ripken noted during the all star selection show. Zimmerman, the face of the franchise, will be making his first all star appearance, despite his fall-off in production over the last month. Major League Baseball also included Cristian Guzman among five finalists for fan votes for inclusion on the final squad. For whatever reason, Guzman seemed less than thrilled with the prospect of playing in St. Louis. “I don’t care if I go or not go,” he told Washington Post reporter Chico Harlan. “I’ve gone twice already. I want to take my three days off and have a very good second half.” Guzman is in the mix for the final all star spot with Dodger Matt Kemp, D-Back Mark Reynolds, the Giants’ Pablo Sandoval and Phillie Shane Victorino.

Our friends over at The Nationals Enquirer speculate that we may be seeing the last of Austin “Kentucky” Kearns — and I’m inclined to agree. Kearns will be the designated hitter for the Nats in Tampa (though he sat the bench last night), but it could be the former Redlegs (sometime) powerhitting rightfielder’s swan song with the Nationals. Kearns continues to struggle to break out of a two year slump. The Nats have clearly run out of patience. What is so surprising about the built-like-a-ballplayer Kearns is that, with the exception of 2006, Kearns never reached his potential. He plays a passable rightfield; in fact, he’s an excellent defensive player. But watching Kearns play rightfield is like watching that little dog with the tutu dancing on her hindlegs: it’s interesting, but what’s the point? The truth is, he never learned to hit major league pitching.

Kearns was “Mr. Baseball” in Kentucky, emerging as a dominant high school pitcher. He was offered a baseball scholarship to the University of Florida, but chose to sign with Cincinnati, and the close-to-home converted outfielder was considered an exceptional prospect. He was drafted #7 overall in the 1998 amateur draft and spent three years in the low minors, where he showed considerable patience at the plate — and a high on-base percentage. But he never hit for power, which bothered the Cincinnati brain-trust. Baseball Prospectus noted that his power blossomed in 2001, and he was soon headed to the majors. But when he showed up in Cincinnati, he started acting like that brilliant but under-achieving child: a kid with enormous talent, but little show for it. The kind of kid that teachers take into the hallway: “Austin, you have so much potential.” And the power disappeared.

But they loved him in Cincy. There’s even a blog of his baseball cards (of which the one above is a good example). He was the home-grown talent who was going to lead the Redlegs to the world series. The bloom came off that rose fast enough and Kearns ended up in Washington. The trade, a Jim Bowden special, was considered a steal at the time, but the Nats are mightily tired Kearns just now. This year, Kearns is hitting .206 with three home runs. There seems little prospect that he’ll somehow reach his potential. After awhile, some .206 hitters are just that: they’re not under-achievers, they’re .206 hitters. Austin’s reaching the end of the line.

Five Things About Yesterday . . . fans of the appropriately named New York Chokes who are consigned to hell will be condemned to watch Luis Castillo’s dropped ninth inning pop fly against “The Empire” for eternity (”on no, not that, anything but that“) as penance for their sins. Don’t miss it. It’s priceless . . . There were three gems pitched last night out west and I tried to watch each of them, switching between games. You don’t get to see this kind of thing very often. In the first, Dan Heren pitched a complete game two-hitter against the Astros, throwing 112 pitches and facing 30 batters. The Showboats won, 8-1. Heren is so damn good it almost gives me cramps . . . in the second, Tim Lincecum pitched a seven hit shut-out against the White Elephants in Oakland. He threw 110 pitches, 76 for strikes and stroked a single with the bases loaded. The Giants won 3-zip. An unbelievable game . . . in the third, one of the game’s great underrated pitchers, Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez threw a 130-pitch complete game against the Mariners, beating them 6-4. Jimenez, who sometimes struggles with his control, is one of the best-kept secrets in the majors. If his arm doesn’t fall off, Jimenez could emerge as one of the game’s great pitchers . . . The Rockies (the Rockies!) have now won nine games in a row . . .  So that’s three complete games in one night in a division that, not counting the Trolleys, stinks . . . and one other thing. Out in Chicago, where Lou Piniella is popping bottles of Pepto Bismol, Milton “they’re picking on me” Bradley tossed an end-of-inning ball to his fans in the bleachers. The only problem was, of course, that it wasn’t an end of inning ball. It was only the second out. “I hadn’t seen that one before, I’ll be honest with you,” Lou said. Which is to say: Lou hasn’t been the manager of the Cubs for that long . . .