It wasn’t so long ago (the Nationals were playing out in Los Angeles, to be specific) that we wrote about walk-off grand slam home runs. They’re really, really unusual — a walk-off grand slam that results in a single run victory has happened (by our count) just 25 times in major league history. A two out walk-off grand slam is even more unusual. And, as we noted in our previous post, an inside the park walk-off grand slam home run has happened just once.
Which makes last night’s walk-off grand slam off the bat of Brian Bogusevic in Houston (albeit, on a 2-2 and not a 3-2 count, but wouldn’t that be something) even more special. The fact that thousands more watched it live than normally would have (during an MLB “live look-in”) is stunning.
The GWRBI (GS) came off the arm of Chicago reliever Carlos Marmol and sent the fans in Houston into ecstasy, and it was a bomb: Bogusevic scorched the ball to dead center and it hit above the yellow home run line in Minute Maid Park. A shot. The grand slam gave the Astros a 6-5 victory.
That’s five walk-offs in a single night in baseball, equaling the season record of five set back in late May. Still . . . still, the Houston walk-off was the most uplifting (so to speak) and jaw-dropping. Oh, and Bogusevic’s walk-off grand slam was hit by a pinch hitter . . .
The word around the Nationals’ clubhouse is that Jayson Werth, struggling through a season-long slump, is finally starting to hit. The Nationals’ everyday right fielder — and headline off-season free agent acquistion — is hitting .306 in his last thirteen games. Indeed, Werth showed some pop at the plate on Wednesday night, sending a typical short-stroke liner into Wrigley Field’s left field bleachers for his fourteenth dinger. But Werth’s home run wasn’t enough to beat the Cubs, who took advantage of their own long ball to down the Nationals, 4-2.
The game’s non-story was Ross Detwiler, the team’s constant experiment on the mound, who pitched (in skipper Davey Johnson’s phrase), “just okay.” Lefty Detwiler gave up three runs and seven hits in five innings of work, the biggest knocks against him coming on long balls from catcher Geovany Soto and journeyman Reed Johnson. Detwiler running buddy Collin Balester (they’re both familiar with how to get from Syracuse to Washington — and back), was less than mediocre in an inning of relief: Balester gave up a home run to Alfonso Soriano to put the game out of reach.
And so it is that the Nationals’ search for more pitching among a group of yesteryear’s youngsters (Detwiler, Balester, Garrett Mock, Shairon Martis, J.D. Martin and Craig Stammen), continues, but without the kind of premium (“he’s a keeper”) results. With the next round of young arms waiting in the wings (Tom Milone and Brad Peacock — and perhaps one or two others), Nationals’ fans are starting to clamor for some new faces, and wondering how long it will be before Rizzo, Johnson & Company run out of patience.
Wilson Ramos missed a sign in the seventh inning on Wednesday, hitting away while Michael Morse sprinted down the third base line on a called squeeze play. Ramos realized what was happening just in time, fouled off the pitch, then walked up the third base line to consult with third base coach Bo Porter. After taking the next pitch, Ramos got it right — laying down a perfect bunt to score Morse and secure yet another one run victory (a 5-4 win), their third in a row against the cratering Cubs.
Calling for a second squeeze after a blown first one is risky. Which is why Davey Johnson figured the Cubs wouldn’t be ready. “You look at the situation, and all the components actually work to our favor,” Porter said after the victory. “You have a guy who doesn’t run as well at the plate. You have a guy who doesn’t run that well at third base and you don’t really want to send him on contact. And in all of my years of baseball, I’ve always said this: Catchers are normally the best bunters.”
The Nationals win tied them with the New York Mets in the N.L. East and put them two games over .500. But three other story lines emerged on Wednesday: Ryan Zimmerman finally seemed to get on track (3-4, with two RBIs and his fourth homer), the Nats’ line-up busted out for 13 hits (Bernadina, Morse and Ramos had two each), and the Nationals’ bullpen once again came through in the late innings: Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez and Drew Storen combined to hold the Slugs to one hit and no runs — standard work for a unit that keeps the team in games and the Nats in the win column.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Cubbie fans are beside themselves with worry. Bleed Cubbie Blue points out that the North Side Drama Queens are 5-26 when they allow opponents to score in the first inning — which they have done in all three of their losses against the Nationals . . .
Adam Dunn’s two home runs and five RBIs powered the Washington Nationals to their fourth straight win on Friday night, 8-3 — sending Atlanta to their fourth straight loss and dimming their chances for a post-season birth. It was Dunn’s 36th and 37th home runs of the year, as the big slugger has now accounted for 101 RBIs on the season. Dunn’s homers were greeted with standing ovations from Nats’ fans, who chanted “Sign Adam Dunn” during the game. Dunn’s power display helped Jordan Zimmermann to his first season win, as the big righty pitched five innings of three hit baseball, lowering his season ERA to 5.76. It was the kind of outing that the team has been hoping that Zimmermann would provide as he recovers from Tommy John surgery in 2009. Willie Harris added an exciting inside-the-park home run to help the Nats win decisively. The largest crowd of this home stand, some 22,000-plus, watched the fireworks provided by an energized Nationals’ line-up. Tyler Clippard, Joel Peralta, Sean Burnett and Miguel Batista closed out the game for the Nationals, who have now won 66 games on the season.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: You don’t need to be an investigative reporter to know that Craig Stammen is not happy being a reliever — it’s written all over his face. The righty has been solid out of the bullpen over the last month, the only real blip coming during “the Nyjer Morgan game” against the Marlins back on September 1, when Stammen yielded six in 3.1 innings of work. When he gets the ball down in the zone he pitches effectively, and he’s done so impressively out of the pen a number of times. Truth is, the Nats seem to be doing some of this in reverse (though there’s no absolute tradition in creating a starter), by using an assignment to the bullpen as a kind of demotion. Of course the Nats would deny that, but that’s sure the way it looks. And our bet is that Stammen feels that way. Maybe it’s time he got another chance . . .
Tim Kurkjian says that the Cubs are giving serious consideration to hiring Ryne Sandberg as their manager, though the actual decision is more than a month away. There’s a glitch, however: the Cubs (Kurkjian reported on Baseball Tonight), are worried that dumping such a poor team on a rookie manager like Sandberg might not go over too well, as those close to the club acknowledge that the team could be in line to lose upwards of ninety games next year — a year of retooling and shedding contracts. It’s not like Sandberg is simply a fan favorite or doesn’t deserve the job: when he said he wanted to manage, some four years ago, the Cubs’ front office told him to go get some experience. So he did. This year he was voted Pacific Coast League manager of the year. Then too, the Cubs are suddenly filled with kids, a lot of whom Sandberg knows well. And c’mon really, what’s the worst that could happen — that the team stinks, loses 84 games and finishes fifth in their division?
The Nationals defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3 at Nationals Park on Sunday, taking two games of a three game series. The game marked the second return of Stephen Strasburg following his stint on the D.L., and “the kid” pitched well, despite giving up a home run to Adam LaRoche and making an errant throw to first baseman Adam Dunn. “I was talking to Stephen a little bit ago. He said that it is the best he felt,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said, following the victory. “The ball was coming out of his hand good. Stras did a great job and gave us a chance to win.” The Nats trailed the D-Backs 3-1 into the bottom of the fourth, when slumping Josh Willingham shook loose from his doldrums and launched a pitch off of D-Backs starter Barry Enright to tie the game. The Nats won the game on a single by Ian Desmond, with Ryan Zimmerman providing an insurance homer. Typically, the Nats’ bullpen closed out their opponents, with Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen shutting down the Arizona order.
The Ghost of Kerry Wood: Nats’ fans at the ballpark on Sunday probably didn’t get a chance to see Strasburg’s frustration with being lifted after pitching just five innings, but “the kid” was clearly angered by the move. Strasburg, mouth set and eyes flashing, sat the bench after the end of the fifth inning fuming. At least that’s what the fans at home saw, with Strasburg’s irritation coming in waves through the camera lens. Nats pitching czar Steve McCatty intervened with an explanation, speaking with animation as Strasburg shook his head on the bench. This isn’t the first time that Strasburg has been angered, though he never mentions it in any post game interview. But if Strasburg is angry it’s only because he has a right to be. And he’s not the only one. Jim Riggleman’s reputation as a manager with an early hook is well-earned. He’s got a shepard’s staff as big as Little Bo Peep (oops … well, let’s go with this version) — the result of his time as the manager of the North Side Drama Queens, when he oversaw the 1998 rookie campaign of strikeout king Kerry Wood.
The ghost of Kerry Wood seems ever-present with Riggleman, who coached the Slugs when they were going somewhere and the young Wood was the talk of baseball. The problem was that Wood had a raw elbow, with his ligaments tearing and bleeding everytime he threw. And in 1998, after a stint in the minors when he rarely threw even close to 100 pitches, Wood was carrying the load for a contending team — and throwing 115 to 120 pitches per game. Eventually (after sitting out the ’99 season with surgery, and pitching just so-so over the next three years), the elbow blew itself out for good and Wood, with successive stints in rehab, became a reliever. It was a loss, for Kerry Wood might have been, perhaps could have been (and maybe even should have been), one of the best starters in the game.
Riggleman, Wood’s skipper, blames himself. “If I had it to do over, I would do it differently,” he told the Washington Post back in March. “And we probably wouldn’t have gotten to the playoffs. If I had known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have pitched him that much, period. But I would have caught a lot of grief. I caught a lot of grief as it was. We lost a lot of games where [Wood] came out after five or six innings. I was getting comments like, ‘C’mon, Riggs, leave him in.’” Wood disagrees: the ripping in his elbow had been happening for several years (he says) and it was bound to explode at some point. It was inevitable. “My elbow was going to go,” Wood told the Post. “If it didn’t go with [Riggleman] it would’ve gone with someone else. It was the way I was throwing, the stuff I had, the torque I was generating. It was a matter of time.”
Which is only to say that there’s a good reason why Jim Riggleman is as careful with Stephen Strasburg as he is. But Riggleman’s decision today — to sit Strasburg after the 5th — struck many fans as overly careful. After all, pitchers strain their arm, or throw out their shoulder, all the time. And not simply because they throw a lot of baseballs, or have a predisposition, or because they’re not on a pitch count. Pitchers blow out their arms because they’re pitchers. Wood understood this: in the end it didn’t matter how many pitches he threw, his “elbow was going to go” anyway. “It was a matter of time.” This is not an argument for having Rizzo, Riggleman & Company allow Strasburg to throw 110 to 120 pitches each and every game. It’s an argument for perspective and practicality — Stephen Strasburg is a pitcher, not a piece of fine China.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s a recognition that Washington Nationals fans aren’t going to show up at the park on Half Street to watch “the kid” throw 70 pitches over five innings — especially when it’s clear that (as happened on Sunday), he’s just starting to hit his stride.
This is what we can probably expect then — that the Nationals will flirt (on-and-off) with being good, but then will slip a bit (it will be tantalizing) before climbing precariously back. After the nearly on-a-respirator Los Angeles Dodgers’ took two of three from the Nats in L.A., there should be little doubt that August and September (but, of course, not October — at least not this year), will be spent reviving old arms (Jason Marquis), trying out new ones (Jordan Zimmermann) and nursing steady progress among those arms that will stay into next year (Stephen Strasburg). It could be a long and painful progress, as the Nats showed on Sunday when they dropped an 8-3 decision to the Trolleys (the game was not as close as the scores indicates). Jason Marquis was anxious for a solid outing, but a recovery from elbow surgery takes time, though Marquis attributed the rocky outing to his own failures: :”I put myself in trouble with the walks,” he said. “There was one play where I didn’t pick up the ball. There was an out I gave away there. I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” The Nationals return home, where they will face the Florida Marlins beginning on Tuesday. Stephen Strasburg is scheduled to start.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Patrick Reddington over at Federal Baseball has a good summary of the career of Andre Dawson, who will be honored at Nationals Park on Tuesday. Reddington surveys the views on whether and how the Nationals should acknowledge their Montreal roots, the subject of much commentary in both the blogosphere and among Nats fans. We have nothing substantive or creative to add to Reddington’s comments, or those of Phil Wood and Ben Goessling, but would add this observation. If the Nationals are so anxious that the team’s fans acknowledge their Montreal roots, then they can stop producing apparel that dates the franchise (in chronological order) “Established 1905″ or “Established 2005″ — hell, why not 1886, when the “Washington Statesmen” were founded? If we want to acknowledge our actual franchise roots, there should be a sweatshirt that reads “Established 1969,” the year the Expos came into the league. Keeping it “Established 2005″ is just fine with me, and I would just bet that that is the preference of Washington fans.
Which is not to say that Andre Dawson does not deserve our applause. He does. He was an amazing hitter and young speedster (until Astroturf tore up his knees) and had an outfield arm that was second only to Clemente. I did not see him play in Montreal, but only in Chicago — where I recall him as one of the truly great clutch hitters in the game. Dawson was the one player the North Siders had before Sandburg and Grace made them a near powerhouse. I find it hard to believe that it took Dawson eleven years to make it into the Hall of Fame. He was the N.L. MVP in 1987, when the Cubs finished last. Dawson hit 49 home runs that year and knocked in 137 RBIs. None of his teammates were even close. And this in an era before steroids became prominent. He never touched them. Coulda, woulda, shoulda . . . but still: if Dawson had not had cartilage that sounded like grinding metal those last five years, he would have had 3000 hits.
Scott Olsen’s seven inning gem against the Dodgers has Nats fans (and the Washington Post) oohing and ahhing about the team’s new attitude. “Instead of saying ‘Get ‘em tomorrow,’ the Nats have finally assembled a tougher, more irritable group that actually does it,” Post columnist and leading baseball pundit Thomas Boswell writes. Boswell goes on to note: “It’s not just the Nats’ record that is different this spring. The Nats themselves are. They’re starting to resemble the first gritty crew that brought baseball back to D.C. after a 33 year wait.” Tougher? More irritable? Gritty? My first reaction was to scoff: forget irritable and gritty — we need front line guys who can throw strikes. Please, please, please Tom (I know you’re the best, or close to it), but you know (and I know, and it’s no secret) that a rotation of Lannan, Stammen, Olsen and Hernandez are not going to get it done.
But in studying yesterday’s box score, I began to question by own cynicism. The difference in the Nats 1-0 win yesterday (a beautifully pitched game, if ever there was one) from any of their wins last year was obvious. For right there, in the middle of the line-up, were two players the Nats needed, but didn’t have, in the ’09 campaign. When Mike Rizzo signed Ivan Rodriguez and Adam Kennedy in the offseason, he not only filled two special needs, he added two gamers to the clubhouse — players who not only know how to win, but want to. While Rodriguez and Kennedy went a combined 0-6 yesterday, their role on the team has been indispensible, providing much needed leadership to a crew of talented, but young, players. Mike Rizzo added a caveat: “We’re a long ways from where we want to be.” Yeah, true. But you’re also a long ways from where you were.
The difference between the ’09 and 2010 Nats becomes more obvious when you go through the line-up of the Chicago Cubs, whom the Nats face in Chicago starting tonight. The North Side Drama Queens are a team of head cases and disasters-waiting-to-happen: Alfonso Soriano’s penchant to drop flies in left field is damn near agonizing, the perpetually petulant Carlos Zambrano has been demoted to the bullpen, the perennially injured Aramis Ramirez is a fracture away from putting the Cubs in the cellar and Kosuke Fukudome is overpaid and (undoubtedly) on the trading block. I know, I know — the Cubs just swept the Brewers and can hit the hell out of the ball. But the name of this game is pitching, and the Cubs don’t have it. Forget the starters (or don’t — if you really believe that Carlos Silva is the answer), and focus on the bullpen. The line-up of Berg, Grabow, Gray, Russell and Marmol is a patched together crew of rookies and semi-veterans (like Marmol) who have yet to prove they can hit the strike zone. Put another way, we would be justified in saying that the Cubs bullpen collapsed in the first two weeks of the season, but we’d be wrong. It had nothing to collapse from.
Cubs fans are on a death watch. Nats 320 has an outstanding interview with Cubs blogger Joe Aeillo of View From The Bleachers, and while Joe sounds positive enough, you can almost hear the ‘Oh-God-wadda-we-gonna-do’ tension in his voice. Joe talks about Uncle Lou’s bullpen problems and notes that Zambrano has been “the weak link” in the rotation so far this year, but the icing comes when Nats 320 asks about Soriano. “I’ll give you $20 right now, straight cash homie, if you convince the Nationals to take him back,” Joe says. That’s a deal we can pass up: we’ll keep Willingham. Soriano, the bullpen — they’re all problems. But the real problem facing the Cubs is down the road in St. Louis. The Cubs don’t have anyone who matches up with Chris Carpenter, Brad Penny or Adam Wainwright. I can’t stand Penny (he should just rob a 7-Eleven and get it out of his system), but the former Dodger bad boy is pitching brilliantly — with three wins and a 0.94 ERA. That’s a record that Zambrano can only dream about.
The Cubs haven’t had a team since Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were five outs away from the World Series. Remember? Prior was a USC power pitcher with Cy Young stuff and Woods struck out 20 in his rookie season. And then . . . and then, in the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS a little pop foul that should have been caught did them in. It was their last shot. Neither Prior nor Wood have been the same since; Prior became a surgeon’s dream and is now out of baseball and Wood is in Cleveland, dealing with a cranky back. Looking at Prior (a shoulder, an achilles tendon, a hamstring, another shoulder), you can understand why Mike Rizzo wants Stephen Strasburg in the minors — and why he insists that any member of the Washington club have a winning attitude. Put another way, the problem with Cubs comes down to this: Carlos Zambrano throws the ball in the mid-90s and is capable of a 20-win Cy Young season. But wouldn’t you rather have Livan Hernandez?
