Center Field Gate

If there were ever any doubts that starting pitching makes a huge difference in a team’s success, that doubt was put to rest during Washington’s recent three game visit to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. The Phillies “book-ended” the Nats by throwing two of baseball’s best starting pitchers against them, and taking two of three games from the still struggling Anacostia Nine. The one Nats win might have been predicted, as it came against Phillies’ hurler Kyle Kendrick (a young high-ERA righty who is still learning his trade), while the Nats’ losses came against two of the game’s best starters: Roy “Doc” Halladay (in a 1-0 squeaker on Friday) and Roy Oswalt — in a 6-0 blowout on Sunday. The Nats might have won on Friday, with successive runners in scoring position, but Halladay was the difference — lowering his ERA to 2.16 in seven innings of steady if unspectacular work — but the issue was never in doubt on Sunday, when Roy Oswalt sliced and diced the Nats line-up through seven innings of brilliant work.

And the Chicago Cubs? (If you have the music for 2001: A Space Odyssey, you might consider putting it on now.)

The Chicago Cubs are an entirely different story. The North Side Drama Queens, who open a series against the Nationals on Half Street on Monday night, have no one to compare with either Halladay or Oswalt — and the standings show it. The rotation that carried the Cubs into the post-season in 2008 is now past its prime, and the Chicago front office knows it. The once effective Carlos Zambrano (14-6 in 2008) is battling his anger as much as opposing batters, Ted Lilly has been shipped off to L.A. for a passel of minor league wannabes, Jason Marquis was rendered to Colorado (and then signed as a free agent here in D.C.), and Rich Harden (beset by arm problems) is struggling in Texas. The only appendage of note belongs to Ryan Dempster who, now into his mid-30s, is the staff “ace” — which means he’s won more than ten games. That Dempster stands out at all is due more to his rotation mates: a gaggle of Fisher-Price kids who look like they’d be more comfortable on the dance floor of the 9:30 Club than on the mound in Wrigleyville.

Chicago’s one young hurler of note is Randy Wells, a surprise-surprise arm who was drafted by the Slugs as a catcher in the 38th round of the 2002 amateur draft. Wells came to the show in 2009 as a fill-in for the then-injured Zambrano and pitched himself into a regular spot in the Chicago rotation — yielding a jaw-dropping 12-10 record. Tom Gorzelanny is the Cubs’ lefty, a former Buc who has had his tires recapped in Chicago after one good year in Pittsburgh. Gorzelanny “has battled injuries and inconsistency” — a Zen-like phrase for Cubs fans. Dempster, Wells and Gorzelanny are hardly the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance of the future Chicago rotation, but the Cubs have high hopes for rookie Casey Coleman, a young righty whose grandfather (Joe) and father (Joe) were both major leaguers. But let’s not get all gooey: Coleman (who will pitch against the Nationals tonight) is not only untried and untested, he’s been lit-up in the 12 innings he’s pitched.

That leaves Thomas Diamond, a former Texas Ranger fast-track product sidetracked by Tommy John surgery in 2007 (at least he’s gotten that out of the way), who’s “all up-side,” which means he doesn’t have a clue. The bottom line? While there’s no guarantee the Nats will have an easier time against the Cubs than they did against the Phillies, there will be no Halladay or Oswalt trooping to the mound to face them. The Phillies have built an elite staff. They are birds of prey. And the Cubs? The Cubs are crippled sparrows — they’re starting over.

Photos: Roy Oswalt (AP/H. Rumph Jr). Randy Wells (AP/Nam Y. Huh)

I thought it only appropriate that “the loyal opposition” should return at precisely the moment that my first date in Washington (here she is, and take a good look) arrived for our lovely evening. And if by “lovely evening” you mean watching the Washington Nationals and turning their victory into fake reporting then you’re right: but I have no choice but to do this in my current state. This CFG thing, this new-wave-inter-net “we’re down with the twitter blog,” is struggling, really struggling, so I just know that most of this blog’s readership revolves around my pen. And for the benefit of you all, here finally is a picture of me . . .

Tonight Roy Oswalt was out for a stroll with his new team –11 million dollars in tow — when, out of the blue: it’s a bird, it’s a plane . . . no, no, no — it’s the most interesting man in the world. Nyjer Morgan!  Nyjer who? In his first at bat, Morgan hit the ball 400 feet into the center-right gap, flipped off his helmet as he sped around second base, and went totally horizontal, belly first, into third. Nyjer Morgan? It was like watching lightning strike on a clear day. Former Astro Oswalt was so confused by the entire thing he had to pay someone to tell him who it was that just did that to him. “What the hell is going on! Who is that guy on third?” It’s Nyjer Morgan, channeling Ricky Henderson. “Naw, can’t be.”

Morgan wasn’t the only Nats superhero “lifting tall buildings” on Friday night. Adam Kennedy arrived in the clubhouse before the Phillies game to find Cristian Guzman’s assistant sitting (morose and weeping) in the Nationals’ locker room. Kennedy got the message — in the first inning (and with “Rickey” Morgan on third) he hit the ball hard enough to the right side (just as he was instructed) to allow Morgan to lope across the plate: Nats 1, Phillies 0. Oswalt was even more confused — “what the  . . .” But “The Miracle on Half Street” continued. Roger Bernadina began his night by gunning out a sprinting Oswalt at first. Oh, and Craig Stammen was lights out: hitting spots, keeping his pitch count low and quietly sauntering from the mound, as if he was Greg Maddux. Oswalt wasn’t the only one surprised. As I sat watching this team’s Friday night tidal wave I could only repeat Oswalt’s words — “Who the hell are these guys . . .”

Don’t misunderstand: I’ve been watching this team with vigor, knowing that on a good day they’re only mediocre. It’s a self-inflicted baseball passion. They lallygag, throw the ball over the dugout, crash into each other, slam into outfield walls, miss the cutoff man — and their “phenom” pitcher can’t go past the All Star break. It’s fantastic fun. I expected the same on Friday against the Citizens Bank Bullies. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the Nats showed up to play and made glue of the Ponies, embarrassing Oswalt and frustrating Rollins and Howard and the rest of them. So . . .  what happened? The answer is obvious: Mike Rizzo is a psycho. The proof is this photo of Rizzo sitting in Jim Riggleman’s office as players arrived for Friday’s game.

More specifically, on Friday afternoon (just hours before Miss Iowa and the Phillies showed up in Washington), Mike Rizzo decided he’d had enough of his team’s mediocre performance, and that it was time to play “duck, duck, goose.” In “Rizzo Land” the game is not as simple as it was when I was a kid, but it’s the same concept: you line up the players (in any old order) and you raise your right hand and go down the line — “in, in, traded . . . in, in, traded . . .” You only change your tune when you get to Morgan: “in, in . . . and if you don’t hit a triple Morgan, I swear to God you’ll be spending August in Oakland.” Message received. The only player not really frightened by this show of Rizzo passion was Ryan Zimmerman . . . and “the kid.” Even Adam Dunn was included. As for the rest of them. Well, we might have seen the fear in Morgan’s eyes: Rizzo’s antics was placing his bobblehead night in jeopardy. Rizzo didn’t care: “do something Nyjer, or I swear we’ll woodchip those things.”

The Mike “Corleone” Rizzo, “Duck, Duck, Goose” is more than just a cute kids’ game — it’s like rendering someone to Burma for “questioning.” It’s more like playing in the Olympics for Iraq. Okay, I admit. It could be that the appearance of Katie Conners helped to spark Friday night’s outbreak of unusual excellence, but I really doubt it. For as this mammoth publication goes to press, the Nationals are fast becoming a new team. And it’s because of their general manager. They’re getting better, a lot better, and they’re doing it quickly.

The word in baseball is that you can always get a closer and Rizzo showed that this week as he dealt Matt Capps to Minnesota. And you can always deal, at the very last minute, a slap-hitting veteran infielder for a handful of prospects, especially if the other team’s All Star second sacker ends up on the DL. As Cristian Guzman learned. Adam Dunn may be next: or maybe not. But the truth it, it doesn’t really matter. Mike Rizzo — the Washington Nationals’ true fearless leader — is playing “duck, duck, goose” in the clubhouse. And he’s made it clear to those who are staying with the team: “play hard and play hard now  – - – or you’ll be shaking your head somewhere else a year from now and wondering where it all went wrong.

Craig Stammen pitched batting practice to the Philadelphia Phillies last night, giving up seven hits and seven runs in less than two innings. The ponies eventually won the contest, 14-7. Washington has yet to solve the Phillies’ line-up, which has touched Nats’ pitching for 45 runs in five games. “I just didn’t throw quality strikes,” Stammen said, after the game. “I threw a lot of stuff in the zone and over the plate. [My offspeed stuff is] breaking good, but I can’t throw them for strikes. … It’s very disappointing to let a lead slip away real quickly. Then again, I’ve had many pitching coaches and even the one I have right now [Steve McCatty] said this happens.”

Nats relievers didn’t fare much better: Jason Bergmann, Sean Burnett and Brian Bruney were roughed up, with Bruney the most exploited victim — the former Yankee now has a 13.50 ERA in his time in Washington. The Phillies are now 7-1 on the season, which matches their best major league start since 1993. Washington used six pitchers during the contest. They gave up 14 runs on 14 hits, with 176 pitches thrown — a line that compares favorably with their pitching futility of 2009. The only reliever who pitched really well was rookie Jessie English, who gave up four hits but no runs in two-and-two-third innings. The Nationals finish their time in Philadelphia tonight, with a final match-up against the powerful Phillies’ line-up. The Nationals return home tomorrow to face the 3-5 Milwaukee Brewers.

It’s Jackie Robinson Day in Baseball: Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier 61 years ago today. The 1947 NL MVP and National League Rookie of the Year had a .311 lifetime batting average was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. The Nats will celebrate Jackie Robinson Day at Nationals Park on Friday.

The Nats must have one of the toughest early schedules in the major leagues: Phillies, Mets, Phillies (that’s six games against the Phillies in the first month), then the Brewers, Rockies, Dodgers and Cubs. With the exception of the Mets — and a single end-of-month game against the Marlins — the Nats will face-off against a top team every single day until May. Of course (as some fans will note), when you finish with 103 losses, every team looks tough. Even so. There’s two ways to look at this: Nats fans can say it’s “not fair” (a phrase popularized by four-year-olds), or we can look at these games as tests of just how good the Nats are against the league’s best. In the case of the Phillies, at least, the results seem clear. It’s not simply that the Nats are not as good as the Phillies (that’s obvious), to complete with them the Nats will need more pitching — and lots of it.

The Nats fell to the Ponies in Philadelphia yesterday and played them even, until “the killer P’s” unloosed their hitters. For Jason Marquis, who must have come up short when the staff drew straws before heading north, the second outing against the Phillies was only marginally better than his first. Frankly, it’s doubtful that Livan, who dominated the Mets on Sunday, could have done much better. The line-up of Polanco, Utley, Howard, Werth and Ibanez constitutes a latter-day murders’ row of lumber that would be daunting for an elite team — let alone the Nats. Even so, as a guy like Jim Riggleman will tell you, a competitive squad should be expected to play the Phillies tough. But so far that hasn’t happened. The lesson seems to be that once you have your boot on their neck, you don’t dare give in. “They are a balanced lineup,” Nats reliever Walker said. “They have some free swingers and have guys that will grind it out. The balance is what gets you, because they are going to be consistent every day. You give them an inch, they are going to take a mile. You give them an extra out, that’s when they really gear up. They know they can break your back.”

Andy MacPhail’s renovation project in Baltimore is making progress, though the pieces he’s added over the winter (signing Garrett Atkins was a great idea) aren’t likely to make a difference for the Orioles in the standings. At least not this year. It doesn’t help that steady-as-she-goes second sacker Brian Roberts pulled an abdominal muscle last night — and will be out for the next fifteen days. But the Orioles are coming back, if slowly, in part because MacPhail has cobbled together one of the best outfields in baseball: Adam Jones might be the best centerfielder in the game, Nolan Reimold is a surprise addition in left and Nick Markakis is becoming an established star. Even Felix Pie (above), the Cubs cast-off (you could say the same about MacPhail, come to think of it), is starting to hit, though his dinger last night against the Tampa Bay Whatevers didn’t keep the Orioles from losing — or falling to1-6 on the season.

“Overall, our pitching is doing a great job,” Markakis said after last night’s tilt. Really? You could have fooled me.The starting four of Kevin Millwood, Jeremy Guthrie, Brad Bergesen and Brian Matusz are just so-so, and closer Michael Gonzalez (brought in from the Braves as the real deal) looks terrified on the mound. The Orioles’ front office is hoping that semi-rookie Brian Matusz is the answer to the Orioles’ annual pitching woes, but he’s inexperienced. Matusz was an elite college pitcher (at the University of San Diego) with good velocity, and his trip through the minors was impressive. Signed by the Orioles in the same year that Washington failed to land Aaron Crow, Matusz is Baltimore’s  hope for the future, even if the future has yet to arrive. If there’s any good news at all, it’s not only that Matusz is unlikely to fail, but that rotation-mate Brad Bergesen has been a surprise. Drafted in the fourth round in 2004, Bergesen was 7-5 last year with a stellar 3.43 ERA. That’s two solid pitchers for the future. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the future will come only after Baltimore gets past a season with the savvy, but aging Millwood, and a bound-to-be-average Jeremy Guthrie.

None of this is cause to despair. While the future might take several years to arrive, Markakis, Jones, Reimold and Pie are fun to watch. If only they could pitch.

The 1950 Phillies were one of baseball’s memorable teams: a great pitching staff and heavy long-bomb hitters. And they arrived at the Fall Classic in a similar fashion to their 2009 version: having humbled the Brooklyn version of the Dodgers in the season’s final game. Then, as now, their nemesis was the Yankees, as memorable a team as the Phillies — packed with prodigious power and strong arms.  Del Ennis, Dick Sisler and Richie Ashburn were the keys to the Phillies’ line up: Ennis because of his towering bombs (31 in all in 1950) and Sisler and Ashburn because of their nose-in-the-dirt style of play. We’ve forgotten just how good Ennis was — playing for sixteen years, eleven of them with Philadelphia. In 1950 he had 126 RBIs to lead the team. Ashburn didn’t have Ennis’s power, but his career ended in the Hall of Fame: with a lifetime batting average of .308, three different years with over 200 hits – and a skyscraping OBP. There’s a statue of him now, outside of Citizens Bank Park, in Philadelphia. But 1950 was far from Ashburn’s best year and the team needed the likes of Ennis to get into the series.

“The Whiz Kids” took the N.L. by surprise. No one even knew who they were. The left side of their infield was under 25 and their two best players were kids — Ashburn was 23 and Ennis was 24. Even so, if you knew only a little bit about baseball, you’d have easily picked the Phillies to best the Yankees in the ’50 Series. Their pitching was the class of the National League. The starting rotation was led by Robin Roberts, then in his third year in Philadelphia. He’d gone 20-11 with a 3.02 ERA and he’d thrown 21 complete games. Roberts threw the last game of the season against the Trolleys, and it was a gem: he pitched ten innings of one run ball before Philly won it all in the 10th. Curt Simmon followed Roberts in the rotation — and he looked (at 20) like he was eleven. Like Ennis, he is remembered best by baseball afficiandos. He had very good, but not great years. 1950 was one of his best: he was 17-8 with a 3.40 ERA. The third arm in the rotation belonged to Bob Miller, whose 11-6 record was a surprise to everyone (including Miller). It was the best year he ever had, but Philly needed him desperately — as the war in Korea was culling the N.L. of some of their best pitchers. By the time the series rolled around, the Phillies had lost stalwart Simmons and fireballer Bubba Church to the service.

The Yankees had won the series in ’49, but they knew the Phillies would be tough. To win, they had to get past their pitching. Their line-up was good, even very good, but these were not the Bronx Bombers of the 1920s. Yogi Berra and Joe DiMaggio were their power hitters, with Phil Rizutto the sparkplug in the middle of the order. Still, Phillies’ fans would be right to wonder why Phil is in the Hall of Fame and not Ennis. “I never thought I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame,” Rizutto once said. “The Hall of Fame is for the big guys.” That’s right, Scooter. The Yankees’ strength was their pitching staff. Vic Raschi (The Springfield Rifle) was the Yanks best starter (he was 21-8 that year), followed by Allie Reynolds and Eddie Lopat. Formidable, sure, but against the Roberts and Ashburn-led Phillies the Yankees knew they were in for a tussle.

Sadly for Phillies’ fans, that’s not how it turned out. In what has to be considered one of the best-pitched and closest World Series ever, the Phillies lost in four — by a combined 11–5 run total. The first game was the surprise, with Phillie closer Jim Konstanty pitching eight innings of one run ball. That how it ended: 1-0. Game 2 was a Robin Roberts’ gem, but he lost the game in the 10th on a DiMaggio home run. The pattern for the series was now well-established, with the Yankees matching the Phillies pitch-for-pitch. The third game ended 3-2, with the Yankees scoring their third run in a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth. The only game that wasn’t close was the fourth — with the Phillie’s nose-diving, 5-2. The Phillies should have won that fourth game: they were up against a young Yankee hurler by the name of Whitey Ford who’d had only a so-so year.

It seems unlikely that 2009 will see a repeat of the head-to-head pitchers’ duels of 1950. Philadelphia doesn’t have a Robin Roberts or Richie Ashburn or Curt Simmons. In fact, they’re better: with a loaded line-up that makes Ennis and Sisler and Ashburn look like spray hitters (which is, in fact, what they were). Then too, while the current Bronx crew lacks the power and presence of “The Yankee Clipper,” Jeter, Rodriguez and Teixeira hit more like Murderers’ Row than their 1950 ancestors. It will be a real surprise if this is a four-and-out series: and it seems very unlikely to be won by 1-0, 2-1 or 3-2 scores. That said, the 2009 Fall Classic has this one thing in common with the Whiz Kids vs. Empire match-up of 1950: in order for Philly to win, they have to hit Yankee pitching.