It’s probably just a coincidence, but on the day that Tom Boswell pummeled the Lerners and Mike Rizzo for refusing to spend money (or take chances), the team pulled off a major trade with the Oakland A’s. Maybe Mikey was feeling the heat. Maybe not. Either way, the deal brings uber-talented lefty Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals to head up what is now one of baseball’s best rotations, but ships out four talented prospects, including Brad Peacock, whose as close to a “can’t miss” as the Nationals have. So: was it worth it?
Amanda Comack over at the Washington Times says that Gonzalez “fits precisely what Washington wants,” and gives the team a top-of-the-rotation innings eater. Comack points out that Gonzalez’s numbers translate well into the National League, though he walks a lot of hitters (91, to lead the AL last year). John Heyman over at Baseball Insider gives the Nats an attaboy, saying the team improved its rotation to the point where it may be a contender. Keith Law, meanwhile, says he’s not that impressed with Gonzalez (you have to wonder why, but it’s Keith Law), while Buster “Blind Dog” Olney (who actually sometimes finds a bone) says that Gonzalez reminds him of Twinkies starter Brad Radke — which is to say that Buster doesn’t know what to think.
We prefer to issue our judgments over a glass of scotch, which is where (last night) we received this opinion from one of the team’s season ticket holders. “The price is high,” this fan said, “maybe too high.” The fan then pointed out that “Rizzo would not have done this had he landed [Mark] Buehrle.” True. Which is not only to point out that scotch is a powerful truth serum (not always a good thing, mind you), but to suggest that if Rizzo & Company had bid higher for the former Pale Hose veteran, the team would not only have a front-of-the-rotation arm that is (arguably) better than Gonzalez, but they would have been able to hang on to both Peacock and Milone — whose arms will now be tested in the cavernous confines of the Oakland Coliseum.
Sometimes the most obvious conclusions are the ones you stick with — that Boswell’s criticism remains on target precisely because when Rizzo couldn’t pony up the bucks for Buehrle he had no choice but to part with four prospects for a front line pitcher. Gonzalez is a great addition and we applaud it, but spending the money on Buehrle and hanging on to Peacock, Milone, Norris and Cole would have been the wiser move. Yeah. True. But we’ll take it and hope that the Lerners are so irritated by what Boswell wrote that they’ll be determined to prove him wrong.
For Phillies Phans this is the apocalypse. Chris Carpenter held the “can’t miss” Ashburns to just three hits, and the upstart Cardinals went on to take the NLDS three games to two in a sparkling 1-0 win in Philadelphia, ending the Phillies post-season dream of another October World Series appearance. Phillies fans were so disappointed, they didn’t even boo.
The Philadelphia loss was as surprising as the poor performance of Charlie Manuel’s team, which couldn’t put together enough hits to cage the Redbirds. “Actually, I don’t know what to say,” Manuel said, following the loss. “I just got through talking to our team, and basically when I look at it, we played 162 games, and definitely we had the best record in baseball.”
But the best record (and the best pitching staff), wasn’t enough to carry the Phillies into the NLCS — with Phillies’ fans describing their team’s elimination as “a crushing disappointment.” The depth of the loss is reflected in the Philadelphia blogosphere: “Thud” was the headline of The Good Phight, while Beerleaguer led its coverage with “Failure In Philly.”
But while baseball’s blogworld focuses on “the Phailure in Philadelphia,” Friday’s loss was more the result of Chris Carpenter’s pitching performance than the poor hitting of Ryan Howard & Company. Carpenter walked none and struck out three, taming Halladay in what Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa called “a dream match-up” of Cy Young winners. Carpenter threw 110 pitches, 70 of them for strikes. It was a Phorgettable night in Philly, but not in St. Louis.
Of course, there are teams in baseball that would love to have bragging rights to a 102 win season — including the one right here in Washington. But expectations were so high in Philadelphia that what will follow now is an off-season of recriminations, and an effort to find that one missing piece that Phillies’ fans think they need. It might be ugly. “There are no two ways around it: 2011 is a failure for the Phillies,” Crashburn Alley said. Oh, boo-hoo . . .
You would think that if anyone knows the history of the Washington Nationals, it must be Davey Johnson. And yet, immediately after the Nationals clinched a 3-1 last game victory against the Marlins, Johnson told the press that finishing third was not his idea of a great season. He’s right of course, but for many of the rest of us, the 2011 season is accounted a spectacular success — especially when you compare it to where we’ve been.
The best example of the Nats’ improvement came on Wednesday, with rehabbed righty Stephen Strasburg pitching six more-than-solid innings (he held the Marlins to a single hit, while striking out ten), and the Nationals scoring just enough to get their 80th win. That’s eleven more than last year, when the Nats were dead last. If third is “no great shakes,” then just imagine what fifth feels like.
Of course, Nationals’s fans don’t have to imagine it — they’ve lived it. But now, it seems, the era of blanket franchise apologies and the constant talk of building the bankrupt farm system (it’s built), are history. Third place? We’ll take it. Two years ago, at a CFG confab in Houston, we proudly wore our Curly W hats into a local bar, plunging into the midst of a group of Astros fans, who tittered away at our expense. “What does it feel like to root for the worst team in baseball?”
No more. Now that particular honor belongs to the Houston nine, who finished the year with 106 losses. The Nationals are, finally, a good team — even a very good team. They are better than the Marlins or Mets, better than Colorado, or Pittsburgh or Cincinnati or Chicago. You never compare yourselves to losers, the pundits say, but to the best. Yeah, okay. But if 2011 is any indication (and it is), being the best is not that far off.
Let’s Not Get Carried Away: The Nationals need hitting, and in the worst way. Their close-out 3-1 victory came against a last place team that looked like they didn’t wanna be there. How many hits did these “no great shakes” Nats get? Five. That’s the same as the night before. There are free agents to be had, with big bats, but the solution is at home . . .
In the aftermath of Chien-Ming Wang’s steady and powerful outing against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday, Davey Johnson faced the Washington baseball press. In light of Wang’s performance against the Braves, he was asked, would he recommend that the righty be offered a contract for 2012? Johnson didn’t hesitate: “No doubt about it,” he said, and then repeated it. “No doubt about it.”
Washington fans might rise to applaud this statement, particularly in light of Wang’s recent outings. The righty, signed by Mike Rizzo while still recovering from a blown out shoulder, has proven to be a good gamble. Wang has pitched no fewer than five innings in each of his last ten starts, and has pitched six complete in his last two — which includes today’s four hit 4-1 spectacular against Atlanta.
Johnson made it clear — he would have left Wang in to complete the game, but the bullpen needed work, and performed to their usual standards, with Gorzelanny, Clippard and Storen combining to hold the Braves to two hits in three complete innings of work. Drew Storen notched his 41st save on the season, and it’s probably not his last.
Wang made it look ho-hum-easy. He threw 85 pitches, 51 of them for strikes. His sinker looked as good as, or even better than, normal — a fact mentioned by Johnson, who said that the more Wang’s pitched, the more progress he’s made. His teammates in the infield agree. “He works quickly and he knows what he is going to do,” second sacker Danny Espinosa said. “When he has such a good plan like that, you stay active in case a ground ball [comes your way]. It keeps you in the game.”
Wang was even able to help his own cause at the plate. In the bottom of the 4th, he singled past first base into right field — scoring Espinosa. It was his first hit as a National, and his first in the majors. The crowd stood and roared its approval. “I had a bad record before,” Wang said of his hit. “All I wanted to do was just swing the bat, make contact, and I was kind of lucky. It was a line drive.
In notching their 77th win of the season, the Nationals put the Tomahawks in a squeeze — the Bravos needed a victory in their race for the Wild Card, and are now just two games ahead of the Musials. “We’ve got to win ballgames,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. “It’s nice to watch the scoreboard and all of that. But we’ve got to win the games that are in front of us.”
The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: There was an ovation for Chien-Ming Wang among the section’s regulars — and for Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, who might have been making his last start (or his last appearance) in a Nationals uniform. That fact was not lost on Davey Johnson, who noted that the Hall-of-Fame bound catcher has remained a positive force in the clubhouse. “He’s just fun to watch,” a section-mate added . . .
Arizona Diamondbacks’ pitcher Daniel Hudson is the one who got away: back at the trade deadline in 2010, it was Hudson (then with the White Sox),who was dangled before Mike Rizzo in exchange for Adam Dunn, but the Nationals’ G.M. took a pass. Hudson ended up in Arizona, where he’s blossomed into a top flight starter.
It’s easy to see now what everyone saw in the righty — Hudson was brilliant on Wednesday, spinning a near shutout as the Nationals could not catch the D-Backs in the ninth, and dropped their second in a row to the Snakes, 4-2. Hudson scattered nine hits in a game that he exited with two outs in the ninth.
“He was pretty good, man, and I was surprised,” Arizona catcher Miguel Montero said of Hudson’s outing. “I was a little surprised, because in the bullpen, he looked like he had a little bit of a control problem. He got into the game and he was painting those corners, man. It was a shame he couldn’t get the shutout.”
The loss was notched by Livan Hernandez, who dueled Hudson all night. The crafty Washington righty threw 7.1 innings and gave up four — but he pitched much better than his numbers indicate. Two of those runs came with men on base and reliever Henry Rodriguez on the mound.
Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson blamed himself for leaving Livo in too long. “I take responsibility for that one,” Johnson said. “He was really pitching a great game and when he’s good, he’s really good. I had it in my mind that if he gives me seven, I’m getting him out of there. I balked. He got into trouble and couldn’t get out of it.”
Aaron Boone and the BBTN crowd over at ESPN were asked the three things they would do now, if they were the Cubs, and they talked of clubhouse character and finding good talent — all of it good advice. But transforming the Cubs will take more than adding good players at reasonable prices, and saying that the team needs to “change the culture of losing” doesn’t help. What exactly does that mean? So here, unbidden, are our three simple ideas of what the Cubs can do.
First, show some patience. The best pitcher in the Cubs system is now in Tampa Bay — and his name is Chris Archer. The 6-3 righty was traded, with a packet of prospects, for Matt Garza last winter. Garza is plenty good, but Archer could be a lot better. The Cubs will never know, because they got impatient, and Garza looked attractive. This is an almost genetic habit of the North Side Drama Queens. Enough already: develop players and hang on to them. Like they have done (finally, blessedly) with Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney. Listen (you stupid jerks), instead of shipping out Josh Vitters (he can play third, for Aramis Ramirez — who’s going to get injured again, any minute now) and Tyler Colvin, play them. And when they don’t play well, play them anyway . . .
Jesus Flores homered and Jonny Gomes drove in two runs with a clutch single to left to lead the Washington Nationals over the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 at Nationals Park on Thursday. The Flores homer was his first since May of 2009, while the Gomes hit came against his former team. “Against the Reds or not against the Reds, it would bring a smile to my face,” Gomes said.
The Flores-Gomes tandem helped righty starter Jordan Zimmermann to his eighth win of the season. Zimmermann, who will apparently be shut down after his next start (or the one after), did not have his best stuff, but gutted out an impressive 5.2 innings while giving up six hits. Zimmermann’s ERA now stands at 3.11 — and his 2011 campaign has to be considered a success, which sets him up as a major contributor (and likely #2 starter) in 2012.
Gomes two run single in the sixth was the difference in the game, but Zimmermann’s outing was saved by a quartet of Nationals’ relievers. Ryan Mattheus, Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen threw a combined 3.1 innings, while giving up just two hits. Clippard notched his 32nd hold, while Storen added his 33rd save. Storen continued to build on his steady reputation — if he wasn’t before, he must now be considered to be one of the best closers in the game.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: It seems like old news now, but it’s good to note, if just for the record. Former Nats’ veteran righty Jason Marquis was supposed to provide another needed starter to help the Diamondbacks overcome the Giants in the N.L. West, but he’s out for the season with a fractured leg . . . the Marquis injury (as we remember) came against the Mets, after the former Nats’ starter had two rocky outings with his new club . . .
Now it appears, that other semi-big name for the Nationals at the trade deadline, Denard Span, continues to suffer the effects of a concussion that has sidelined him for much of the 2011 campaign. Span had returned to the Twins’ line-up, but yesterday he was put back on the disabled list after suffering from migraines. Which is only to say — sometimes it’s the trades you don’t make that matter. If Mike Rizzo had pulled the trigger on a Span trade, the needed centerfielder would have been spending time on the D.L. in D.C. . . . and the Nationals would have been without one of their key (Drew Storen or Tyler Clippard) bullpen arms . . .
