Center Field Gate

J.D. Martin pitched six solid innings, giving up just five hits and two earned runs, but the Nationals dropped their fifth game in a row as the Padres defeated them at the dog bowl in San Diego 4-1. Martin had the game well in hand until the top of the seventh, when pinch hitter Oscar Salazar put a Martin offering into Petco’s left field stands, sealing the victory. With the Anacostia Nine’s bats asleep, four runs were all that starter Clayton Richard needed to wrap up the victory. The Nats’ lone run came off the bat of Josh Bard, who homered in the seventh. The Padres played tough defense against the Nationals, especially in the outfield, where two line drives that might have been hits by Nats players were snagged on near-spectacular plays. Interim manager Jim Riggleman admitted that the Nats needed to find a way to start hitting. “We’re either hitting, or we’re not, and right now, we’re not hitting,” he said. ”You’ve got to find another way to win a ballgame. Part of it is that they played really well. They made plays all over the field again tonight. They robbed our guys of hits all night and stopped rallies.”

The Chicago Fire: Emerging Friars’ ace Clayton Richard took the win over the Nats on Tuesday, throwing 6.2 innings of four hit ball. His win was not a masterpiece, by any means, but part of a steady progression that has won him a regular place in a starting rotation for a team that is not that far away from featuring one of baseball’s better young staffs. Richard walked two and struck out six and is now 8-4 on the season. The tall (6-5) lefty is a former White Sox eighth round draft choice in 2005 who moved up through the Sox system. A midwesterner, Richard came to the Pale Hose out of the University of Michigan, where he played football and baseball. He expected to be a part of the White Sox for many years to come. But all of that changed at the trade deadline, when Richard was shipped to San Diego for Padres ace Jake Peavy. Richard isn’t the only young hurler the Sox gave up in the hopes of getting better. The second part of the Peavy deal was Aaron Poreda, a fireballing lefty and strikeout artist that will probably be featured, at least initially, in the Padres bullpen. Along with Dexter Carter and Adam Russell (four pitchers in all) the Sox banked a lot on Peavy. Maybe too much.

But all of this is old news. The new news is that the White Sox made the trade in the belief that Peavy would not only help them next year, and the next, but that he could be a factor in the stretch run for this season. That hasn’t exactly worked out. Peavy’s ankle is apparently healed, but not his elbow, and no one is quite sure when he’ll be back. He seems bit somehow by bad luck, or an injury bug — or something: in a rehab start before returning to Chicago, he was hit by a scroched line-drive through the box and left the game. When will he return? Will he return? Who knows.

So with the Pale Hose fading in their division, White Sox G.M. Kenny Williams decided enough is enough — and just before midnight on Monday he dumped salary and players, waving the white flag in Chicago: Jim Thome went to the Dodgers, Jose Contreras to the Rockies. While he can’t do much else this year, it’s not likely that “Crazy” Kenny is done shaking things up in the Windy City: the talk in Chicago is that Paul Konerko and A.J. Pierzynski will be gone soon after the end of the season and that super prospect Tyler Flowers (called up after the Thome trade) will be given every opportunity to win the catching job. Konerko and Pierzynski won’t be the only ones headed out of town. Anyone need an aging hitter? Jermaine Dye (who was rumored to be headed to the Giants at the end of August) is available. 

The Chicago Fire was occasioned by “the road trip of death” as some Chicago blogs are calling it, a breathtaking end-of-August 1-7 death spiral that saw the Pale Hose drop out of contention in a baseball division called — get this — the A.L. Central. The best analysis came from South Six Sox: “With the Sox sinking out of the race, facing a September of disappointing turnstile numbers, and little to no hope of the significant influx of cash a playoff appearance provides, Kenny Williams’ hand was forced. Well maybe not forced, but certainly coerced.” Sox Machine, meanwhile, headlined the moves with the description: “Go West, Old Men” — a sign perhaps of just how alienated the Sox faithful have become. Oddly, Clayton Richard’s performance against the Nats puts an exclamation point to the White Sox latest moves. There’s no question — and absolutely no doubt — that Jake Peavy is a master and one of the best pitchers in baseball. But let’s be blunt. Maybe the problem isn’t Thome and Contreras, maybe the problem is Kenny Williams. After all, wouldn’t Sox fans rather have Clayton Richard on the mound in Chicago than Jake Peavy rehabbing somewhere in Alabama?

The Nats skid now stands at four, with three losses in St. Louis, followed by last night’s loss in San Diego to the Padres — a 3-1 affair in which Livan Hernandez was his usual steady self, pitching a winnable game (eight innings, 90 pitches, 54 strikes, fourteen groundouts) and holding the Friars to all of seven hits. Nor does it seem that the Nats bats need any fine tuning: the Anacostia Nine outhit the Padres, eight to seven, regularly pushing baserunners into scoring position. So what’s the problem? A study of this mini-losing streak (as the Nats on-line article on the subject describes it) is that the Nats are not getting key hits when they most need them — and are leaving too many men on base. This isn’t rocket science. Let’s check the numbers.

Starting with the first game in St. Louis – a 3-2 loss to the Redbirds — the Nats collected seven hits, but left 12 runners on base. The Cardinals, on the other hand, were a symbol of consistency, pushing home three runs while leaving only eight on base and only two of those in scoring position. The next day (another loss) the Nationals collected eleven hits, while leaving 16 men on base. Oddly (or perhaps not) the Cardinals had the same number of hits, but were more efficient: their elevin hits scored nine runs — the Nats’ eleven hits scored only four. The final loss in St. Louis looked like the previous two; the Nats hit well, but not when it counted: the Mock-Wainwright pitchers’ duel was even-up in terms of hits at four apiece, but not in terms of scoring. And the Nats left 14 men on base, the Cardinals nine. By now  the pattern ought to be clear — but was repeated in San Diego, where Nats’ batters left sixteen men on base, while the Padres left seven. In order for the Nats to break their current losing streak they not only need to hit (the numbers show that they’ve actually been doing that), they need to do it when it counts.

Matt Holliday loves St. Louis. Since coming to the Cardinals, the former Colorado Rockies-Oakland Athletics outfielder is hitting .376 with a .438 OBP for the Redbirds. On Saturday, his three run homer all but decided the 9-4 contest, giving the loss to Nats’ starter Craig Stammen. And so after taking two of three from the struggling Cubs in Chicago, the Nats have now dropped two in St. Louis, but with hopes that the team can recover on Sunday in the final game of a three game set. On Sunday night, the Nats will travel to San Diego to take on the resurgent Friars, who are riding a  miraculous three game winning streak against the sinking Florida Marlins. Holliday’s homer came in the first, and while it did not seal the game for the Redbirds, it cast a bright light on the Cardinals’ strength since the trading deadline, when Holliday arrived: a team that could break out the big bats and score a slew of runs in backing what is one of the N.L. strongest starting staffs.

A disappointed Elijah Dukes struck out with the bases loaded in the 7th (AP/To Gannam)

“That’s what makes their lineup good,” Stammen said. “They’ve got multiple guys that can hurt you, back-to-back-to-back,” Craig Stammen admitted after the game. “When I went out there, I was like, ‘You know what? Have fun. Have fun trying to get the best hitters in the game out.’ And for the most part, it was kind of fun, except when they got me.” Stammen was not only victimized by Holliday. A key error by Cristian Guzman in the fifth inning helped the Cards score four unearned runs after two outs. Stammen defended his shortstop. Guzman has made enough plays for me this year that I’m not really worried about the one mistake that he makes,” said starter Craig Stammen. Adam Dunn provided Washington’s power, hitting his 35th home run in the 6th.

Down On Half Street: It seems the only time anyone in the N.L. Least can win a game is when they play each other. At least that’s the way it’s been lately. The Mets, reeling from a raft of injuries and the effects of age, were pummeled by the Cubs on national television on Saturday, 11-4, with Cubs supersub Jake Fox hitting a grand slam off of Mets youngster Bobby Parnell. Parnell is the hope of the future, but he’s had a rocky August. Nevertheless, the team pledges that “The Bobby Parnell Project” as they call it, will continue. Parnell is fairly philosophical about it all, admitting that his last outings have been “up and down.” Mostly down, actually . . .

It’s not possible for things to be worse in Florida, but they (nearly) are. You get the feeling that this is a ballclub that is on the verge of taking itself apart. On Friday, versus the little brown priests, Chris Volstad barely made it to the top of the dugout steps before he was shipped out to New Orleans.  Volstad, all 6-8 of him, lasted 1.2 innings (but just barely) and gave up six earned runs. He had a 5.08 ERA in the show. (We’ll take him.) On Saturday, the Marlins (hoping to catch the Phillies) sent out their ace, Ricky Nalasco. But they forgot to bring their bats. In six innings they mustered four hits against no-name Friars’ hurler Wade LeBlanc. Don’t underestimate Wade — he has an ERA of 9.58. Either Wade looked like Roger McDowell, or the Phish looked like the Bad News Bears. One guess . . .

Up in Philadelphia, things are proceeding apace for the Phuzzies, who are breezing their way to a division crown. Out in South Philly, the guys who stand around on the corner and talk tough are even trying to figure out the dimensions of the statue to Cliff Lee that will grace the front of the Philadelphia Art Museum — where they never go. Right next to the one of that other great Philly cultural icon, Rocky Balboa. But the Cliff Lee Express was derailed on Saturday, when the Chops decapitated Lee in front of a sold out crowd at Citizens Bank Park. The Chops barrage of homers (Diaz, Escobar, Anderson, Jones) reached such a din that it was like listening to the 1812 Overture. “It’s hard to get good results when you’re throwing pitches belt high and down the middle of the plate,” Lee said after the game. ”That’s basically what happened. I feel good about throwing strikes, working ahead and not walking people, but I put myself in positions to put them away and I missed up and down the middle. If you consistently do that, that’s what’s going to happen.” The final butcher’s bill? 9-1 Atlanta.

Austin Kearns’ tenth inning rightfield gapper scored Nyjer Morgan from second and the Washington Nationals sealed a two of three series victory over the San Diego Padres at Nationals Park on Sunday. Kearns, who has been struggling all year, was mobbed by his teammates after the victory and was emotional, if soft-spoken, in a MASN post-game interview. Lefty John Lannan was brilliant through eight innings of five hit baseball, but the Nationals could not hold the lead, as closer Mike MacDougal gave up the tying run in the bottom of the ninth. Lannan was the Nats’ star, even to the point of outhitting his teammates — no one in the line-up was able to register more than one hit, excepting the lefty hurler, who recorded two. Lannan must now be considered one of the premier lefthanded pitchers in the NL: he threw 81 pitches, 59 for strikes in attempting to notch his eighth win. With the GWRBI, Kearns raised his season batting average to .201. Kearns was brought into right field as a defensive replacement by Nats interim-manager Jim Riggleman in the ninth.

Kearns Mobbed At Nats Park Sunday

 Down On Half Street: The Nats travel to Milwaukee for four against the Brewers, who are 7-14 in July while attempting to claw their way to the top of the NL Central standings. There’s no doubt the Beer Makers can hit, the question is whether their starting pitching can stand up over the stretch run. Yovani Gallardo, Jeff Suppan, Braden Looper and Manny Parra (6.42) have been struggling, though the best among them (Gallardo) sports a 3.09 ERA . . . Anderson Hernandez was a surprise starter for the Nats at second on Sunday, perhaps a purposeful vote of confidence from Jim Riggleman after Washington Post reporter Bill Orem reported that Riggleman had said that Hernandez was not the team’s future at second base. “We’ve kind of come to the conclusion, whether we’re right or wrong, that Anderson is best going to help this organization as a utility player,” Riggleman told Orem . . .

Nats first baseman Dmitri Young tore his left quad in a game at Harrisburg on July 18, Nationals Journal is reporting, and “is likely finished as a Nat” . . . In what was probably Roy Halladay’s last start in Toronto, on Friday, the Blue Jays drew 24,161 fans. The Blue Jays were playing Tampa Bay. That same day, the worst team in baseball (that would be the Nats) drew only 3,000 fewer. They were playing the Padres, the second worst team in the National League. Earlier this year, Baseball Tonight’s Tim Kurkjian questioned whether Washington could support a major league franchise. Do you suppose Tim will ask the same question about Toronto? After all, the Nats are outdrawing the Blue Jays, who are three games under .500. The Nats, meanwhile, are 39 games under .500 . . . First round draft pick Drew Storen is burning up the minor leagues and has been promoted from low-A Hagerstown to high-A Potomac . . .

The San Diego Padres have had a volatile, if often unsuccessful, history. Founded in 1969 as an expansion franchise, “the Friars” spent their first six years in last place, before future Hall of Famer Dave Winfield (22 seasons, 3110 hits, 465 home runs) was signed out of Minnesota as a first round draft choice in 1973. The Padres finished first in the NL West in 1978 and went to the World Series in 1984, where they lost to the Detroit Tigers in five games. Tony Gwynn was just 24 in 1984, but he became the face of the franchise after Winfield was signed by the Yankees. The Winfield-Gwynn “switch off” seems emblamatic of the franchise: the Friars seem always to have one future hall of famer and face-of-the-franchise in tow: in the 1970s it was Winfield, in the 1980s and 1990s it was Gwynn, now it’s San Diego native and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

Padres’ fans will undoubtedly take issue with that description, arguing that the Padres are a successful franchise that is deeply rooted in the San Diego community. That’s true now, but it wasn’t for many years. In 1974, the Padres were on the verge of coming to Washington — baseball card companies had even changed their card design to reflect the move. Instead, the team was sold to McDonald’s mogul Ray Kroc who, the next year, apologized to fans for his teams’ play over the team’s public address system: “I’ve never seen such stupid playing in my life,” he said. Padres’ fans will also point out that the team’s front office has a reputation for savvy trades: landing Gonzalez from Texas in 2006 for minor leaguer Billy Killian and pitchers Adam Eaton (now with Baltimore) and Akinori Otsuka. True enough. But for every Killian-for-Gonzalez trade there is an offsetting and haunting swap: like the 1981 trade that sent superstar Ozzie Smith to St. Louis in exchange for Sixto Lezcano and Gary Templeton. Padres’ fans are also quick to note that perhaps baseball’s best all-time reliever, Trevor Hoffman, was a Friars’ mainstay before moving onto Milwaukee at the beginning of the year. That’s true, but it’s also irrelevant. That was then, this is now.

The 2009 San Diego Padres bear no resemblance to the 1984 NL champs, nor the 1998 Gwynn-Hoffman nine (which lost the series in four to the Yankees) nor even to the 2006 Western Division winners. While the team has gained a cadre of dedicated fans (and committed themselves to San Diego with the building of Petco Park in 2004) last year’s cash-strapped Padres finished the season with 99 losses and have been in rebuilding mode since: attempting to off-load all star pitcher Jake Peavy for prospects and dangling Gonzalez to teams in lieu of paying him added millions when his contract is up in 2010. The club was also victimized by an off-season divorce of primary owner John Moores’ and his wife Rebecca, who fought for custody of their lavish houses — and the Padres. This is the team’s story: not of on-the-field heroes, but off-the-field eccentrics who have been undercapitalized (first owner C. Arnholdt Smith), weird (Ray Kroc), parsimonious (TV producer Tom Werner) and absent (Moores, who rarely attends Padres’ game).

Still, it is hardly the place of Nats’ fans to scoff at such a history. The Padres boast one of the games best pitchers (in Peavy, who is now on the DL) and one of its potential greats (in Gonzalez). An all star pitcher? One of baseball’s potential greats? The Nats have neither. The Nats take on the Padres in a three-game set beginning at Nationals’ Park tonight, with Garrett Mock (0-3) facing off against Matt Latos (0-1). The two teams will face-off again tomorrow (Tim Staufer is scheduled to go against J.D. Martin) and then on Sunday (with Chad Gaudin slated to face John Lannan).