Center Field Gate

Washington Nationals fans, all agog over new team ace Stephen Strasburg, have come back to earth. That reality is reflected in team blogs, in newspaper reports — and in the young phenom’s own judgment. In a classic pitcher’s duel, Strasburg went head-to-head against Kansas City’s Brian Bannister, whose command of the strike zone and an up-and-down-in-and-out fastball and curve made the difference in the game. The result was a 1-0 Royals’ win, albeit with a dink and dunk, Texas leaguer contest in which the Monarchs refused to fold and (over the course of nine innings) slapped out nine hits. Strasburg lost the game, but took the booby prize: he eclipsed Herb Score’s strikeout record for the first four games of an MLB career — Score had 40 strikeouts in his first four, Strasburg had 41.

Jim Riggleman praised Strasburg, but there was a back handed caveat: “This time he was really good. The other times, he’s been spectacular,” the skipper said in his post game comments. Riggleman also took note of the difficulty of taking on the Royals’ order, a deceptively productive line-up that produces serial singles and station-to-station runs — if not wins. “The Royals have the highest batting average [in major league baseball] and Stephen competed with less than his best stuff today. They know how to hit.” Former Nats outfielder Jose Guillen was more specific: “He still has a little to learn about how to pitch in certain counts,” Guillen said. “He got me 1-2 or something and threw me a fastball right down the middle.” Those who sat through the sweltering oven of a game will add this — that Brian Bannister, lacking the Strasburg fastball (and slider, and change, and hook for that matter), won the duel, pitching six complete and giving up five hits. Bannister walked two (Strasburg none), but the final tally told the tale. When the Nats needed hits, Bannister shut them down.When the Royals needed hits, they got them.

Despite the loss, Strasburg remains the ace of the staff, garnering praise from teammates and opponents alike. It’s not everyday that your manager calls you a “treasure” (a descriptive used by Jim Riggleman in a post game interview), or that your teammates are lavish in their support. Ryan Zimmerman has, at least lately, been outspoken in his support and it seems that Pudge Rodriguez actually seems to like the kid. It shows that Strasburg is starting to fit in — not an insignificant challenge for a 21-year-old who just arrived and needs to show that he can not only pitch, but wants to win. He seems to have convinced the doubters, if there ever were any. This morning Tom Boswell reported that Strasburg summarily dismissed a reporter who asked about an auction of his rookie card on eBay. “Let’s focus on the game,” Strasburg said. “It was a tough loss for us.”

That kind of comment has to bring a sigh of relief to Riggleman and Rizzo, who have focused a lot of their attention on building a united clubhouse, which (at least in baseball) is a minimal condition for building a winning team. Gone now too (we hope) is all this talk of whether Strasburg should be an All Star, that he deserves to have his name mentioned among the NL’s probables — who might well constitute the best group of senior circuit starters in many years: Jimenez, Halladay, Lincecum, Carpenter, Pelfry, Hudson, Latos, Johnson, Wainwright, Cain, Oswalt and Silva. That’s a veritable gaggle of greatness. If Wednesday’s rare-back-and-throw hot-as-a-firecracker duel in the sun proves anything it’s that Strasburg is not there. Yet.

Monday’s 2-1 win at Nationals Park may be taken as “Exhibit #1″ that pitching — good pitching — wins ballgames. While the Nationals squeezed out only three hits against the more-than-mediocre Bruce Chen (et. al.), Livan Hernandez mastered the Royals line-up through seven complete innings, scattering eight hits and striking out five. The Nats relied on the long ball, with super-sometime-starter Mike Morse and second sacker Cristian Guzman providing the fireworks. The victory was closed out by Washington’s “Clipp & Save” crew of Tyler Clippard and Matt Capps — who notched his 21st save. Nats starter Livan Hernandez returned to his winning ways, and his by now traditional slow-slower-slowest methods — a turnaround from his last outing against the Kalines in which he was scorched. “I left the ball up a little bit, but the slider was working very well,” Hernandez said after his victory. “The cutter was working perfectly. I had a bad game in Detroit, so today I knew I had to come through and stop the losing streak.”

The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: There’s a familiar touch that comes from sitting in the same section, game after game after game. It’s not like you’d want to live with these people, but after ten games (or more), you learn to value the comments of your section. Or not, as the case may be. There are times when you want to turn around, facing the guys in the row behind you and say: “Hey listen, I understand that your sale of software is important, but Gavin Floyd is pitching a great game here. Not to mention Strasburg.” You don’t do it, because people come to the ballpark for all kinds of reasons, some of them apparently having nothing to do with baseball. There’s no legislating intelligence, as they say. Still, there are those valuable moments that only a new set of eyes can see. A fan looked over my shoulder, two weeks ago, as I was scoring. “Remember, there’s no RBI on a run scored on a double play,” he said. I looked down at my score book, eraser poised. Mmmmm. Right.

“Nyjer’s act is wearing thin,” a 1-2-9 partisan said this week. A man two rows up leaned forward: “Tony Plush!” — which brought groans from down the row. The guy next to me weighed in. “He has trouble with a fastball, it’s all this dink and dunk stuff, bringing the bat down to bunt and pulling it back. That’s a clear message — he can’t catch up to the fastball. And he doesn’t read pitchers well.” There was silence through the next inning, until Morgan came to bat. He faked a bunt to third, running down the first base line. Strike two. One pitch later he was on the bench. Heads turned, checking his BA on the scoreboard. .251. “So what do we do?” Silence, and then this: “Center field is Bernadina’s natural position and Morse needs playing time.” A dissent was issued, one row back, where talk of software had been ceded to the game on the field. “We wouldn’t be saying this last year.” Two batters later, the response came, from a bright new Nats Cap three seats away. “We were a different team last year. Last year Nyjer Morgan looked like our salvation. This year he looks like a .251 hitter.” True.

Backed by two homers from Adam Dunn, right handed rookie starter Luis Atilano subdued the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, 5-1. It was Atilano’s first start. The rookie threw an effective mix of fastballs, curves and change-ups in notching his first major league victory — earning the praise of both Dodger skipper Joe Torre and Nats’ manager Jim Riggleman. “The youngster really did a good job of throwing strikes and changing speeds,” Torre said. “We had some scouting reports on him and some video, but the fact that he had so many strikes early in the count enabled him to do what he did, which was very impressive. He did a great job.”

While Dunn passed off reporters who questioned whether his 2-3 showing ended his slump, the slugger seemed more comfortable at the plate than he has since the beginning of the season: “It’s just a first game. But it felt good,” Dunn said. “Again, I’ve been feeling good all along. I just haven’t been doing much. Two thoughts went through my head. On the first home run, I went up there, I was going to basically jam myself and stay inside of [the ball]. The other one was to revert back to slow-pitch softball, minus the beer coolers in the dugout.” Dunn’s game vaulted his BA above .200 for the year and eased fears that his slump might be more permanent. His first home run of the night (in the fourth inning) was prodigious — it landed in the upper deck in right field.

Are The Nationals “For Real?” It’s a good question — at least for baseball commentators and “power ranking” gurus. From “Baseball Tonight” to the MLB Network, the Nats are getting a lot of ink. The Nats 9-8 record is nothing to brag about, unless you’re a team with 103 losses in 2009. But the baseball press is taking the Nats seriously, in spite of injuries to Jason Marquis, Ryan Zimmerman’s nasty and nagging hamstring and Adam Dunn’s power outage. Tim Kurkjian (not surprisingly) predicted the Nats’ break out, calling the Nats the “most transformed team in the National League” at the beginning of the season. Baseball’s “power rankings” reflect this new reality: the Nats are listed at 24 (ahead of the White Sox and Mets) by ESPN, but 18th by Fox Sports (ahead of the Red Sox!).

There are some simple truths here: the Nats are better than last year, are better than the Astos, Diamondbacks, Orioles and Royals and deserve credit for their strong and early start. But it’s hard to believe that a staff of Lannan, Stammen, Olsen and Hernandez can out-pitch a staff anchored by the likes of Lester and Beckett. Nats fans know that “power rankings” go out the window once Rizzo and Company have to rely on rookie pitchers to provide stop-gap wins. But the glass is half full: if Chien-Ming Wang can return healthy when he’s supposed to, if Jason Marquis can come back quickly and if Stephan Strasburg is all everyone says he is (and he is), then come June all bets are off. For the first time in five years, the team is tough defensively and has a strong bullpen. It might be hard for some to swallow (like Mets fans for instance, or that team up the road) , but Nats fans don’t need the power rankings to tell you — this team is for real.

The Washington Nationals won their six straight game, coming from five runs down to beat Jon Garland and the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-6 on Friday night at Nationals Park. The Nats were keyed by Josh Willingham’s seventh inning bases-loaded single that put the Nats up 7-5. The Nats won despite another poor outing for their starter. Collin Balester started the game, but gave up five runs on eight hits to the rattlers in a little over four innings. Once again the Nationals were able to overcome the deficit because of the hot bats in the middle of their line-up; Ryan Zimmerman hit his 24th home run, Willingham went 3-4, and Elijah Dukes had three RBIs. The Nats’ bullpen had another strong outing, reversing the team’s early season trend. Returning reliever Saul Rivera — just recalled to the big club from Syracuse — pitched one-and-two-thirds solid innings and Mike “Heart Attack” MacDougal faced eight batters to get the last five outs. MacDougal, whose control seems always suspect, earned his eleventh save.

The Showboats, riding a five game winning streak, provided most of the game’s early fireworks, touching Balester for three home runs – by Mark Reynolds, Josh Whitesell and Stephen Drew. Balester admitted after the game that he was leaving the ball up in the strike zone. “The starting staff knows that it has to give the offense and the bullpen a little bit of a break,” Balester added. “The bullpen has been great and the offense has been great. John Lannan has been consistent all year, but the rest of us need to step up and go deeper in the ballgames. We know that.” Elijah Dukes had another stellar outing: with a second inning sacrifice fly to score the Nats’ first run and the doubling off the wall in the fourth inning. Dukes eventually scored on a Wil Nieves sacrifce fly.

MacDougal, who had appeared in four of the last five Nats’ games was called on early (after one out in the eighth inning) by interim manager Jim Riggleman. “I had an off day yesterday, so it was good,” MacDougal said after the game. “I was trying to get quick outs.” The hard-luck MacDougal seems to have hit his stride: the former Kansas City and Chicago White Sox reliever has thrown nearly 33 innings in 35 games for the Nats, recording eleven saves in 12 opportunities. The former Wake University star’s best year was 2003, when he registered 24 saves for the Kansas City Royals by mid-season and appeared in the all-star game. MacDougal has had to battle through some tough times in his career: he was struck by a bat and lost feeling in his right arm in 2001, lost his relief job with the Royals after battling the flu in 2004, and battled injuries while with the Pale Hose in 2006. He was released by the White Sox and signed a minor league deal with the Nationals last May.

"Heart Attack" MacDougal now has 11 saves

The Nats got their man with the first pick in the MLB Draft last night — but can they sign him? It is a “possible landmark case,” writes The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin, “bringing together baseball’s most notorious agent, a pitcher who has been called the best prospect in history and the worst franchise in the game—all within a draft system that has been criticized as unmanageable and unfair.” The case is a “landmark” because Strasburg agent Scott Boras believes the San Diego State phenom should command the same amount of money as Daisuke Matsuzaka, who signed a $52 million deal with the Red Sox two years ago.

The Nats have until August 17 to sign Strasburg and Nats officials are making positive noises that a deal can get done. Former GM Jim Bowden recently told an XM radio interviewer that Strasburg would be signed at the last minute and that he would sign for somewhere around $15 million. Bowden may be right, but the money for Strasburg may go much higher — because Boras might be calculating that he has the Nats where he wants them. They need to sign Strasburg after failing to sign Aaron Crow last year, and the team’s poor play this season has put pressure on the Lerners to show that they are willing to spend money to build a contender.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig was all smiles during the draft last night, but he’s watching the negotiations closely. Major League Baseball does not have a salary cap like other professional sports, but Selig has been trying to hold down signing bonuses, confidentially assigning each team a suggested bonus and salary level for a team’s “slot.” Selig’s suggestions are just that and many teams ignore them. Even so, Selig’s strategy is transparent: he wants to establish major league baseball’s position on compensation for first year players prior to the opening of negotiations on the collective bargaining agreement in 2011. Selig has toughened baseball’s position on the issue; the Commissioner has reportedly recommended that teams cut their cap by ten percent because of the economy. If the Nats sign Strasburg for close to what Boras wants it would drive up signing bonuses and salaries for future draft picks, which could put Selig and baseball in a tough spot in 2011. “Privately, baseball has already said the draft is a major priority in the next collective bargaining. Signing bonuses have gotten out of hand,” an MLB executive told the Toronto Star.

That may be true, but MLB executives who’s job it is to watch their team’s pocketbooks had to be pleased that the bottom fell out on Aaron Crow, who the Nats picked at #9 last year. But the Nats could not sign Crow and the former Mizzou righthander has been pitching for the Independent League Fort Worth Cats. Crow fell to the Kansas City Royals at #12 this year — and will  command a lot less money than he would have gotten from the Nats in 2008. Drafting an unsigned player from a previous draft is a Royals habit — they did that with right-hander Luke Hochevar in ’06, after he failed to sign with the Dodgers in 2005. It’s a clever strategy; it saves money and it dampens first year bonuses: while Strasburg has leverage on the Nats, the Royals have leverage on Crow. ”What’s he going to do, go back and pitch for Ft. Worth?” a commentator on MLB Network asked.