Nationals Baseball: Adam LaRoche illustrates a point

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Adam LaRoche illustrates a point

Going into last night Adam LaRoche was "hitting" .000.  He had a walk so he didn't have the straight donut special but .000 / .071 / .000 had people worried. Shouldn't we have kept Morse!?!?!

Last night LaRoche hits two bombs crucial in winning a one-run game. His line goes up to .118 / .167 / .471.  Not great obviously but let's say tonight he has a good night and goes 3-4 (3 singles) and a walk.  Suddenly his line is .238 / .308 / .524.  Not only is no one talking about how "bad" LaRoche is, he is suddenly the best hitter in the infield.

LaRoche went 4 games without a hit. That happens all the time.  Everyone (except 30 game Ramos) had 3 game hit-less stretches last year. The few that didn't have 4 game stretches with no hits, had 4 game stretches with 1.  The timing of this makes it worse that it actually is.

We want to try to make something of this but we can't.  We can't make anything big of Soriano or Clippard's struggles.  We can't worry yet about Zimm's lack of homers.  But this works in reverse.  Werth's 3 homers doesn't mean he's hitting 30 this year. Span's .480 OBP doesn't mean he's suddenly the world's best leadoff man. Ramos and Suzuki aren't going to be platooning in the All-Star game.

This all makes blogging tough but it should make enjoying the game easier.  It's Opening Day every day. No worries.  No player expectations. Not this early.

5 comments:

Kenny B. said...

As a fan though, damn if all these dingers aren't fun to watch! Looks like they brought home the small park "swing for the fence" mentality. A team that can explode like that is a lot of fun to follow, and I sure wouldn't want to pitch to the Nats lineup.

They don't really seem to resemble the low-scoring, lights out pitching 2012 April Nats at this point. But hey, as the OP says, there's a long way to go before we really know what we're looking at this year.

blovy8 said...

It was hot enough last night for the ball to carry pretty well, too. I thought De Aza had a shot at that homer to CF. It's been a long time since I've seen that many guys thrown out at second.

blovy8 said...

My one-game sample observations from last night-maybe we can't expect 30 HR from Werth, but we can probably stop worrying about his wrist. Ramos bouncing throws to second and still dropping balls at the plate means that he will be splitting time with Suzuki for the foreseeable future. Gio's WBC zen lesson with Maddux may have already worn off. Damn that Harper - he's a bad influence on Gio's baserunning decisions!

Froggy said...

Harper,

I followed you until the last sentence in second paragraph: 'The timing of this makes it worse that it actually is.'(?)

Should we be more concerned or less concerned about LaRoche?

I thought he looked good at the plate tonight, but it was how he was digging every throw out of the dirt for DP's that made Rizzo look like a freaking genius for letting Dunn walk.

Actually, felt kind of bad for Dunn. It was like seeing that old ex-girlfriend you thought was soooo hot way back when and then you see her close up after a few years and realize she has got old and fat.

Sorry Adam Dunn, don't miss you anymore.

Harper said...

Kenny B - Great pitching, great hitting, all that matters is that the wins are the same, right?

blovy8 - I expected Dunn to try for 2 at some point. I agree that Werth's wrist looks good. I'll hold off on the other stuff

Froggy - SEXIST! ALL WOMEN ARE BEUATIFUL IN THEIR OWN WAY!1!

By the timing makes it worse I mean it makes it SEEM worse. Should have put that in there. Since it's all we have it really stands out more than the same stretch in say... Mid June.