Nats won. Olsen looked good. Great.
WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE?!
God, I hate this man's writing. Ok, not the real writing, like the words chosen or the phrasing or all that. The man can write. But the ideas behind it are just sooooo dumb. Please someone from DC explain to me again how great he once was, since I wasn't there and didn't read it. I'm like a 15 year-old and he's Michael Jackson. That freak? He was once the most popular man in music?
If you don't feel like reading it here's the gist.
If you win, you care. If you lose, you don't care.
The Nats team in 2005? Cared like a prison team. The team the last few years? Didn't care just like all those losing teams from the Redskins and Wizards the last few decades. Which ones didn't care? The losing ones. Which ones did care? The winning ones. OF COURSE.
Here is a list of teams that Boswell believes have players that care:
Tampa, Yankees, Toronto, Minnesota, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, Florida, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, and Colorado
Here is a list of team that Boswell believes have players that wash off losses like loose dirt and then get in their fancy cars and drive away without a care in the world:
Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, White Sox, Kansas City, Seattle, Texas, Mets, Atlanta, Cubs, Houston, Milaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Arizona, and Los Angeles
(What's the big deal about the Nats streak? The teams the beat up on don't even care about winning!)
You are writing about a baseball team, Boswell, not a 25-man club of American legends. John Henry isn't batting cleanup. Paul Bunyan isn't robbing homeruns. You can come up with actual reasons they've won more games this year without resorting to the hackneyed beliefs of a 1940's beat man calling in game reports to KL5-3000.
(and no it's not depth. If it were depth that would mean guys coming off the bench, or replacing injured teammates, or the last reliever or starter was doing well. That's not the case. Capps and Clippard are the only relievers doing well. Livan is the 3rd starter. Pudge is the starting catcher. It's something, but it's not depth.)
They are better than last year. They have also been a bit lucky. Why can't fans be happy with just that?
Boswell is just like the rest of the people "reporting" and writing for The Post--they've been coasting on their reputations for about 20 years now. He's the David Broder of sportswriters, someone who peaked back when disco was popular and then got invited to too many insider cocktail parties to remain relevant.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of the people at the Post like Shenin, who just wrote a top-notch feature on Strasburg this weekend and Kilgore, who seems to be a pretty promising young beatwriter so far?
ReplyDeleteYeesh.
I fully believe that Paul Bunyan would in fact be playing RF for us, if not for the fact that he never learned to hit the curveball.
ReplyDeleteYou should cut the guy a break though: That is one pretty large strike zone to have to defend.
Barry S. continues to be the bar to measure the Nats beat writers. And He's doing a pretty good job on some sports features. I like his work.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with these columns is that you look to who that Nats jettisoned...Is it another way of saying thank goodness Dukes is gone? I do think that Belliard, F-lop and LaDuca were awful for chemistry over the last few years.
And of course it's impossible to read this without thinking of Acta as a loser/acceptance. For better or worse, the team really likes Riggs in your face, argumentative style as compared to Acta. I also think that Riggs has gone out of his way to say how accepting he is of aggressive mistakes like Morgan's blunder on Saturday (somewhere Dukes is taking this as the green light to freelance on the basepaths and run the Nats out of an inning).
It does seem like there are less jerks on the team, but what do we know? Even the reporters - the Nats catch a couple of breaks, win a few, and the team seems loose and happy. The past few years the Nats struggled so fast and hard that the season's were done by May. Of course some guys are going to react bad to that.
ReplyDeleteThe Acta situation... I don't know. I think that the one thing that Riggleman has done that Acta might not have, is already settle on riding Clippard/Capps fast and hard. That's good now, but what about later?
Harper: See my comment on the previous post on Rigs riding Clippard/Capps like we're in the Derby backstretch. Clippard was a starter so he's use to multiple innings, but still....
ReplyDeleteI don't blame Rigs for going all in so early. Team needed to start well for confidence factor and maybe getting some fan interest after Caps are done in NHL.
I'll have a post about it tomorrow - but I agree with the Clippard thought. I think he can handle a heavy workload at least for this year.
ReplyDeleteIt's horrible to say - but since relievers are generally fungible and pitching so injury prone to begin with, I say just burn them out and get a new one. There's very little to be gained by trying to coddle a reliever.
I kind of agree. Unless you have a young guy you think can be a closer long term or a long-term option as a reliever, you should beat the hell out of a guy like Capps, knowing he's probably a one-year wonder.
ReplyDeleteThat means we probably shouldn't be killing Clippard, but whatever.
Again, just catching up (note to self, must check this blog more often), but this is so right. It's like Dibble last night saying the biggest difference between this year and last year was they got rid of guys who were ok with losing. What garbage. Who is he talking about? Belliard? He only went on to shine in the post season with a playoff team. Josh Bard? Come on. If it's all a way of blaming
ReplyDeleteDukes, I'm just not buying it. Even if he were a clubhouse cancer, which there's really no evidence he was, he wasn't responsible for two 100 loss seasons. He just wasn't.
The Nats have caught some breaks. Livo is pitching and Pudge is hitting like it was 1999, Clip and Save have been amazing. That's basically it. This "now the team cares about winning" BS is just that. BS.
clip and save - like it
ReplyDelete