Following his shutout performance against the Nationals on Tuesday, it’s easy to understand why Arizona righty Ian Kennedy (16-4, with a sparkling 3.09 ERA), is being mentioned so prominently as a candidate for the N.L. Cy Young Award. Kennedy threw seven innings of six hit ball while striking out eight, to lead the Diamondbacks in a 2-0 skunking of the Nationals. While facing a revived Washington line-up known for stunning last minute wins, Kennedy was never really in danger — and added a single and a double of his own to the victory.

While the D-Backs win was hardly seizmic, the Snakes are suffering through the aftershocks of a six game losing streak — and we can hardly fault them for being concerned about losing their fragile lead in the N.L. West to the San Francisco Giants. Kennedy’s performance outshone that of Nationals’ lefty Jordan Zimmermann, who was nearly as good — giving up a home run to Sean Burroughs (with a man on) that proved the difference.

Zimmermann — who must be accounted as the Nationals most effective pitcher this season — lasted into the seventh, but could not complete the inning, taking his eleventh loss against eight wins. It is likely that Washington fans have seen the last of Zimmermann for the year, as he will probably be making only one more start for the season, and that one will probably come on the road.

For a time on Tuesday, it appeared that the Nationals and D-Backs would pick up where they left off in Arizona, the last time the two teams met, back in early June. That knock-down contest came close to sparking a donnybrook, and the same thing nearly happened on Tuesday — when Justin Upton (knocked down in Arizona) was hit by Zimmermann in the top of the fourth. In the bottom of that frame, Ian Kennedy seemed to retaliate, hitting Morse. Both benches were warned.

Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: Speaking of earthquakes, the ground is opening up under the St. Louis Cardinals. St. Louis fans rarely boo their hometown boys, but they did last night when the Redbirds gave up two runs to the Trolleys in the top of the ninth, losing 2-1. The catcalls came down as the Cardinals then went quietly in their half of the inning . . .

(more…)

The Washington Nationals showed that they can win tough one-run games on Friday — with Jason Marquis providing an epic one man stand in the 6th inning to lift the Nationals to a 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres. The pitching heroics took place after a double, a single and a walk loaded the bases with one out. Marquis then walked in a run.

But just as the Nationals were expected to collapse, Marquis showed what a veteran pitcher can do, striking out uber phenom Anthony Rizzo and inducing veteran Jorge Cantu to ground out. The tough sixth inning proved enough to lift the Nationals, as Tyler Clippard came in to throw two get-em-out innings and Drew Storen provided the save. The victory was badly needed — giving the Nationals a possibility of splitting (or winning) the series. (more…)

It’s not that the Washington Nationals have slipped back into their old 2009 ways (they haven’t, at least not completely — and at least not yet), it’s that their sloppy defensive play of the last two days (and their successive losses to the forlorn Houston Astros), are a cautionary note for the future. The Nats are a poor defensive team and will need to improve their fielding performance if they hope to contend this year. We begin this sad tale on Tuesday, when the Nats blew a one-run seemingly in-the-bag win against the Astros, with an unusual error by Nats third sacker Ryan Zimmerman. The error put the Astros back in the game and led to a Matt Capps blown save that gave the Astros a 8-7 win. That Lance Berkman, whose checked swing on a Matt Capps offering should have been called a strike notwithstanding — the simple fact is that if the Pedro Feliz grounder had been fielded cleanly, Berkman (an intimidator, and Nats slayer) would not have come to the plate.

The Nats’ defensive woes were even more evident on Wednesday. In the midst of a sixth inning in-the-MASN-booth love fest between Bob Carpenter and Ray Knight over how Ian Desmond reminded them of the young Derek Jeter (Holy Cow!), the rangy rookie Nats shortstop committed two errors on one play: failing to step on second on a force and then throwing wide to first. The otherwise impressive Desmond (and it’s true, he’s a work in progress) bobbled a grounder from Berkman in the seventh. It was an unusually poor play, as Desmond seemed unsure whether to charge the ball, or play it back. “Berkman doesn’t really run that well,” Desmond explained. “I figured if I stayed back on it, I’d still be able to turn the double play. It kind of took a bad hop on me. Ate me up a little bit. I trust myself as a player. Tomorrow will be a new day, bounce back and everything will be fine.” Okay. But the defensive failures and the team’s high strikeout total (thirteen, against so-so Astros’ pitching) led to an indifferently played and disappointing 5-1 loss.

All of baseball was abuzz on Wednesday with the blown call of umpire Jim Joyce that cost Detroit Tigers starter Armando Galarraga a perfect game. The call came with two out in the ninth inning: an infield roller was scooped up and served to Galarraga covering first. The ball and Galarraga clearly beat a sprinting Indians hitter Jason Donald to the bag, but Joyce called Donald safe. Joyce maintained his stance — the infield hit was a single, transforming a perfect game into a one-hit shutout. But after the game, Joyce saw the replay and admitted that he’d made a mistake. “It was the biggest call of my career,” Joyce told reporters, “and I kicked it. I just cost that kid a perfect game.” The admission set off an explosion of commentary about the use of instant replay — but that debate isn’t likely to be resolved soon.

I was hoping that Tim Kurkjian (who seems to know this kind of stuff) could have added some perspective to the Joyce call, by citing the number of calls that had gone the other way; that is, that gave pitchers no-hitters and perfect games when they didn’t deserve them. There must have been at least some small numbers of such incidents, which is not to mention the widened strike zone that recently (and in at least two cases) gave Roy Halladay strike outs instead of walks. So it is: no perfect game is possible without such calls, just as no no-hitter can go into the books without some kind of fantastic play somewhere. It’s a given. Then too, as we might remember, Milt Pappas was one pitch away from a perfect game (on September 2, 1964) when umpire Bruce Froemming, after calling two strikes on the last batter, called the next four pitches (all strikes) balls. Pappas never forgave Froemming and told him, the next day, that he’d blown a chance to call a perfect game. Froemming — who, like Pappas, could be a nasty piece of work — just smiled. “Show me an umpire who ever called a game without making a mistake,” he said.