A win but at what cost. AT WHAT COST?!?

Let's start with the most important thing - the Ramos injury. This is why I called him "hope to get 100 games out of him" Ramos. A lot (A LOT) about remaining injury free is luck. Some guys don't have it. Our favorite injury prone player, Nick Johnson, broke a leg colliding with another player going after a pop-up. He had a ball bounce up and hit him in the face. He had bad luck. So does Ramos. It doesn't mean you don't stick with them, because when they are healthy it's worthwhile (Nick Johnson was a Top 15 offensive player in 2006) but you have to plan for the injury that may not happen. That can be expensive but that's the deal you make.

What to do now?  Nothing really. Lobaton is a fine replacement and aren't we all glad Rizzo did that (though we all seemed to beg and plead for him to do that for a while before it got done). Solano is a pretty crappy back-up, but that's pretty much true of any back-up the Nats could bring in. Solano might be worse but if Ramos is really only going to be out five weeks, that's maybe 5 games (maybe not even that - there are a lot of off days early) for Solano. The team can handle that. If you are afraid the "not embarrassing" replacement catchers will be cheaper to get now than later, you're right, but why would the Nats need to get one of these? In case Lobaton goes down, too? Well if Lobaton goes down too I want to see Rizzo go out and get a real catcher, not Chris Snyder or Koyie Hill.

The game itself grew from a possible disappointing loss as Strasburg pitched just bad enough to lose and the Nats bats looked just quiet enough to make that happen, to one of those back and forth battles that would be deflating to lose, if just for a day. Thank the Mets for once again ignoring their bullpen. As if putting together a group where the 2nd best arm had a 3.71 ERA is going to work. That's in NL relief innings, someone other than your closer should be under 3.00, maybe two guys. Good to get the win. Now move on and get the next one Wednesday.

Other notes

• Strasburg looked bad, then good. Needed time to warm up? Maybe. I'd be watching him with men on though. He's been working on holding runners on and that may have distracted him just enough to leave that meatball out there for Brown. 
• Yes, Barrett looked good but I won't get excited about that just as I won't say Clippard's done. One game. 
• The lineup was kind of strange wasn't it? I don't really care overall but Span 1st and Bryce 5th just doesn't work for me. It's not the world I want to live in. 
• I do imagine with Lobaton in the C batting clean-up is over but I'd expect the change to be Desmond to 4th, Rendon to 6th, Lobaton 8th.
• Funny how all the sportscasters started the day saying CitiField would play even bigger because of the wind. End results : five homers.
• Storen is not bad. He is good.