Back to the edge

The Nats won last night. The Nats have the best record in the NL. The Nats are playing arguably their best baseball of the year.

But...

Zimmerman went down yesterday.

In of itself this doesn't stop the Nats from taking the NL East. Assuming it's something bad (and it seems like everyone does) Rendon takes 3rd, Espy takes 2nd, and the Nats end up with their best defensive group on the field. The offense takes a hit but if the Nats can't compensate for having one guy out of the lineup then they don't deserve to take the division.

The problem is what it sets the Nats up for, which is a scenario where one more injury cripples the offense. It may not - 60 games left you could get a decent run from a McLouth or even a Frandsen (it's not impossible!) - but one more injury would likely leave the Nats with the dreaded "easy inning" where Espy/?/pitcher gives the opposing starter time to relax and regroup. The offense never really clicked before whenever two guys (or more) were out. I don't see a reason why it would now.

It would also, in my mind, demote Zimmerman to Ramos status when it comes to injury, which is "hope to get 100 games out of him". That's probably not fair, he's played at least 142 games four of the last 5 years, but it's how I feel.  The every third year massive missed time due to injury has to catch up with a body, especially one a couple months from 30 years old who has spent the last year and a half dealing with an arm issue. Next year the Nats will have to plan around this. (Don't ask me how just now)

Do the Nats make a play for someone now?  Headley would have been the obvious choice, excellent defense, history, recent play, and home/road splits suggest he's due to hit better (and that he can hit righties - which could allow the Nats to do a platoon of sorts with Espinosa).  He's off the table now. With Luis Valbuena is crashing, the Nats are left with probably Martin Prado or Trevor Plouffe if they want guys that can play everyday. Both are better versus lefties.

My guess is that they don't make a play. Again - the Nats don't NEED to do something and Rizzo has shown a strong proclivity to ride the horses he brought to the dance (something like that) the past few years in that situation (hell, he's done it when they do need someone). So I don't see him making a move unless Zimm is out for the rest of the year.

Still, there's a chance it isn't too bad. Just keep repeating to yourself. 15-day DL.  15-Day DL. 15-Day DL. 

Best team in baseball?

It's a legit question.  On May 28th the Nats lost to Miami and dropped to 25-27.  Since then they've gone 29-16 or the pace of a 104 win team. Normally I hate the "since May 9th" type of things, but in this case it's clear that the Nats have become a better team over time.

Pre-season : Fister out
March 31st : Ramos out
April 12th : Zimmerman out
April 25th : Bryce out

Three weeks into the season they lost a Top 3 starter and starters at 3 positions. That's tough to overcome.

May 7th : Ramos back
May 9th : Fister back
May 9th : LaRoche out

Early May looked like it might be the turning point but as soon as they got a couple guys back they lost another bat. It felt like they might never be healthy and it showed in their play.

May 25th : LaRoche back
June 3rd : Zimmerman back
June 10th : Ramos out again
June 26th : Ramos back
June 30th : Bryce back

But from the end of May until the end of June the team has finally come together mostly on a straight path with the exception of Ramos being out again for a couple weeks.

The gist is, I'm not saying the Nats are a 100+ win team, but the month+ long run they've been on is no mirage and the 2 month stretch prior to that is almost irrelevant. That team, from Mid April to the end of May was a different team and only serves to show how things could fall if there is another run of injuries.  If not, like we've said before, like everyone said before except the Braviest of Braves fans, the Nats should take the East.

Are they the best team in the NL? I think so. The run differential (which they lead) highlights the Nats' lack of flaws. They are a half-run better than league average when it comes to runs allowed per game, 2nd only to San Diego who plays in a run-depressing park. They are 3rd in the NL in runs per game and while that's not close to being as impressive as the pitching* it still means you are talking about a squad that's better than average now and likely has room to improve as guys get healthy and round into form.

In baseball? That's tougher. Both Detroit and Oakland have teams that are doing well both offensively and defensively. I'm not quite ready to say this. Let's see where the Nats are in a month though.

Looking at this, screw 5-4, road or not. I'm going for that 7-2 run. Let's start putting the East away.

*they are less than a quarter run better than average.  Or let's put it another way - the difference between the Nats offense and the 2nd to worst offense in the NL is 0.48 runs. That's equal to the gap between the Nats pitching and the average. The same kind of stretch comparison - we'll compare to the 3rd worst since the D-backs are a step worse than everyone else and the Rockies are the Rockies - get the Nats pitching to a 0.92 run difference.

Monday Quickie - Rested Roark

There isn't that much to say.  The weekend was almost a loser for the Nats. As a good team playing another good team the Nats should take 2 of 3 at home. They did, but they almost didn't. Weeks doesn't get caught stealing, Braun catches a little bit more of that ball...

But that's sports. There's a lot of wins that you could have lost and a lot of losses you could have won. No reason to dwell on it. The Nats did what they needed and now move on to what should be a relatively easy stretch of away games, Colorado, Cincy, and Miami. You'd love to see the Nats shift gears and run over these teams with a 7-2, 6-3 stretch. But 5-4 will do. They may lose a game in the standings to the Braves who are finishing out their last easy stretch of games for 3 weeks, but you'd expect them to make it up in August.

The most interesting thing from the weekend for me is Tanner Roark's game. Prior to the 13th Roark had taken a noticeable turn south. His outings were short, he was giving up a lot of hits, and it seemed like only providence was keeping him from having a terrible blow-up game. A 1.500 WHIP should show worse than a 3.68 ERA. But this looks to be "that year" for Roark and things didn't go as bad as they should have. Now his last two outings have been much better.

While there are a lot of things it could be, rest seems the most likely reason for the turn around. He had been pitching every 5th game all-season and from May 16th through June 27th he pitched on the 5th calendar day (4 days of rest) for 6 out of 8 starts. While Roark had always been a starter, he's never racked up a season close to 200IP, which is what he was pacing. The most innings he had pitched in a season since starting in the minors was 158, and that was last year. It's not crazy to think he was tiring of the pace, the effort, and the constant major league goal of getting deep into games. Then, just when he needed it, two days off in a short time frame (thanks to the Cubs DH) gave him six days between starts. He didn't do great that game but it set the stage. He'd next be schedule to pitch on Wed the 9th, but after a rainout took away Fister's start, the Nats decided to push Fister, skip Roark, and keep the rest of the rotation on track. Roark wouldn't pitch again until the 13th. That's eight days of rest for Roark. Then the All-Star break intervened and while the Nats threw Roark in early in part to give ZNN a longer rest, it was still five days of rest, another day longer than he might sit than during a long stretch of uninterrupted games.

The end result is that when Roark next takes the mound, with another day off in between now and then, will have pitched 5 times in 29 days. If you were keeping on a strict schedule you'd make your 5th start on Day 21. Granted it's rare that you have 21 days without a break, but more a than a week longer than expected is a lot more rest than you'd usually luck into.

If it is rest the question will be what happens in mid August. The Nats will go from July 25th through August 10th without a scheduled day off thanks to the Oriole make-up. Roark would be pencilled in for that first game and then pitch 4 straight games on normal rest, the last one being a potentially huge one in Atlanta. Will the arm, then around 140 IP be tired again? Or is this time off in mid July enough to recharge his arm for the season? Was a tired arm even the issue? A lot can happen between now and then - rainouts, injuries, etc. but it's something to keep an eye on.

Up, Down, All around

Occasionally we like to peruse the fancy stats and try to pick up on things that are unsustainable. The truth is though, there is enough variation in these stats, their relationship to each other, and the number of events in a single baseball season is small enough, that a lot of what we say is little better than coin-flipping.

Span has a .299 BABIP but usually has a .315? So he should get better... unless he's just getting older. But his LD% is up a little which is better... But his GB% is up a lot, which could be worse, and LD% is the flukiest of those... His HR/FB% is down too, so should that bounce back or is it aging as well... but like from 3.5% to 1%... He's slightly more selective O-Swing rate down, a better eye maybe... but he's making more contact on these pitches and less on pitches in the zone...   Conclusion? We shouldn't be making conclusions here.

I like to look at these fancy stats to try to explain things that have happened, but as a predictor of things to happen it gets dicier. I prefer, especially with less than half the games left to only focus on those things that seem truly out of whack.  Here's what I think have a good shot to be true for the rest of the season

Adam LaRoche continues to see his numbers fall. LaRoche started out so hot that this is kind of an inevitable, but what I don't like is that .315 BABIP.  It's not far enough off his career numbers (.306) to be even glanced at, but his numbers the last two years are .298 and .277.  That jives with what I would expect from an aging, occasionally injured, slow player. It also matches what I've seen - he's not getting faster. His range numbers, kind of an independent way to judge speed/quickness, are getting worse. Really I can't see any reason for the high BABIP other than "getting lucky".  I'd expect numbers more based off a base .240 average going forward.  He won't be bad, but he'll be decidedly shruggable.

Ryan Zimmerman will hit homers at a better rate. Ryan's 7.4% HR rate is way out of line with his past numbers, almost half his average. It may be a legit drop in power (flyball distance is down) or a bat speed issues (spray charts show a lack of deep balls pulled) but I'm going to chalk it up to injury recovery. Ryan in the past has shown a tendency to recover slow and be a totally different hitter when feeling good as opposed to a little off (remember those cortisone shots). I don't think he'll go on a tear but he could end up with 15 or so, a decent ending considering he has 4 now.

Rafeal Soriano will have a rougher end to the season, so will Fister. Rafeal Soriano is floating with a .207 BABIP well below his average of around .252, his LOB% is the highest of his career, his HR/FB% a ridiculously low 2.2%.  Soriano has had a past year where he produced a lot of poor contact fly balls so I could forgive a single out of line number, but all three? He doesn't have to collapse or anything, just not an ERA under 2.00, let alone 1.00. Fister's BABIP is also below normal - part of that is the switch to the Nats from the Tigers, but the Nats D is actually seasonally trending in the wrong direction. Most of the staff are seeing BABIP rises, Fister's .263 stands out as unusual in comparison. His ERA should rise.

Strasburg and Zimmermann should see their ERA dip. First I want to note that while the Nats defense did improve over the course of the year, that's really only because it was oddly bad at the beginning. Guys like Span, who has shown himself consistently to be a good defender, and Rendon, who everyone likes as a defender, had oddly poor stats. Such is the way when looking over a few months at stats that need combined years to find consistency.  Are the Nats suddenly great in the field*? I doubt it.  I see the Nats as an average defensive team at best. Which means that I don't like a sudden drop in the BABIP the team is putting out for the pitcher. That's bad news for guys over achieving but for ZNN and Stras, who are putting up higher BABIP than normal they should see a drop which should show up in their ERA. It doesn't have to be huge, just lower.

Those are the bets I'd make for the last 70 games

LaRoche's BA drops
Zimm HR rate goes up
Soriano's ERA jumps
Fister's ERA climbs a bit, Strasburg and ZNN's drop a bit.

All in all a mixed bag, so no big push in either direction that would boost or serve as a detriment to the belief we all have that this is a good Nats team that should win most of these games coming up.

*Did you know a significant part of DRS that Kilgore cites is something called rGFP? Which is a "good fielding play" as observed from someone watching film. That potentially has its own issues but it's an interesting way to try to encapsulate things that don't show in your typical or even fancy stats. The thing is the majority of these good plays came from Frandsen, Moore and Lobaton (7 of 12). Not that they didn't happen - these guys could be "smart" if not they are not good. Doesn't matter. They aren't playing

Avoiding this mistakes of last year

The 2013 Nats season has been boiled down to a simple set of statements. The Nats suffered important injuries early in the year. In the starters' places, the bench, questionably remaining the same from an over-their-heads 2012, produced hideously. Rizzo was too slow to make any changes. When the team finally got healthy and made a push at season's end, it was too late. End of story.

However, this convenient cliff notes version leaves out something important. From game 115 on the Nats went on a 32-16 run, playing better than anyone in baseball, but the team was back together healthy at game 85.  What happened from game 85 through game 114?

After Bryce came back on July 1st, Ramos would return to the team on July 4th, game 85. The Nats would immediately win 4 in a row and pull within 4 of the Braves and 4 of the 2nd Wild Card. Here come the Nats, right?

Wrong. The Nats would then go 2-5 leading up to the All-Star break and would follow that up coming out of the All-Star break 6-13. That 8-18 stretch culminated in a sweep by Atlanta that left the Nats 15 1/2 games out of the NL East lead, 9 1/2 out of the 2nd Wild Card and unofficially ended the season.

Stories tended to focus on this period as if it was simply a continuation of the earlier season and whatever conclusions that they had drawn from those first three months were re-inforced by the poor record. But this was with the full team, it had to be different and it was. The starters, as good as one would expect every other month, had their worst month of the year in July, putting up a 4.53 ERA. ZNN (7.18,  next worse month 3.86), Gio (5.34), Stras (4.62, next worse month 3.24) - blame went across the board. The relievers put up their 2nd worst month by ERA (0.01 better than March/Apr) and probably their worst pitched month (1.438 WHIP, next worse was 1.328), with Stammen, Soriano, Mattheus and Storen all putting up ERAs over 4.50.

The bad pitching hurt, but it could have been mitigated by some timely hitting now that the band was back together. But while Wertth and Ramos hit well, they were cancelled out by Rendon (.556) and LaRoche (.511) completely crapping out. The remainder of the team, Bryce, Desmond, Span and Zimmerman, all produced at a average level (OPS from .732 to .786). End result a very average month hitting (7th in NL in runs scored).  The hitting wasn't the problem, but it wouldn't be the solution either.

What's the point?  The point is even though the Nats are healthy they aren't immune to long periods of bad play. If you are just assuming the Nats will take over first and coast to the playoffs, you are getting ahead of yourself.  They should do it. For one thing, you can argue that the team is slightly better with Fister, Roark, a head on straight Storen, a more seasoned Rendon. For another, they are starting from a better spot. 51-42 and tied for first rather than 47-48 and 6 games out. But should isn't will. Even without a major injury the Nats could see 30-45 days of poor play for no other reason than "it happens". Don't take anything for granted.

It's a message for the fans, but it's a message for the team too. They should make those minor improvements. They should try to maximize the team's potential, even if by just a game or so. Remember last year at this time they traded for Scott Hairston... and that's it. They did nothing for three months leading up to the Nats being healthy again, and they did next to nothing when they were healthy but struggling. They assumed when healthy the Nats would win and that would be enough. They waited... and waited... and waited for the cream to rise and quite possibly waited the team out of the playoffs. You don't know if those games will matter, even for a healthy team capable of winning 2/3rd of their games for long periods of time. It happens.

Still no baseball

Well some - but Clippard looked good didn't he?
 
So why not delve into some various blog topics brought up by yesterday's celebration of a decade of destruction? But first - some All-Star thoughts.

• The All-Star game "hat tip" to Jeter actually didn't bother me. As fan service in game form it's the proper venue for such things. What makes far less sense to me is the city by city shows of love. Why does Kansas City need to give Jeter a present?
• I am totally in favor of one player per team. I remember when the Yankees weren't good and I watched the game to see if Roberto Kelly would do anything. As a kid, it matters. Thus I can see trying to work these "singles" into the game. But I don't think you need to work in as many players as possible. If there's already a guy on the team who's played (say Alfredo Simon for some reason) than there's no reason to bring the game to a halt to bring in Aroldis Chapman. I mean, for example. 
• I also think the first two SP used on each side should go at least 2 IP each, and every offensive starter voted in should get at least 2 ABs. That's how I'd manage it. 
• If managers managed like the above it's far easier to avoid the extra-innings no players left tie game situation and thus we can get rid of the ridiculous no one cares about home field advantage stipulation. Still want a safety valve for it? Have an honorary All-Star that's a recently retired pitcher who can pitch for his league if the game goes past the 13th or whatever.
• The game should be moved to Sunday night. Teams won't like the lost weekend revenue but it would be better for the sport and you could start the ceremonies, etc. earlier without worrying about the West Coast getting home from work. 8:19 is too late for first pitch. 
• I tweeted it but MLB should totally play up the Futures Game more than it does. Essentially it's baseball's "draft", in that it's a showcase for players that are likely to be helping their teams this year or next.

 Ok enough of that - some blog history now!

So if I've been posting since 2004 why does the archive only seem to start in Dec 2009?  Here's the story:

Back in the mid 2000's guys in the sports blog world were trying to create aggregated blog sites (think SBNation) that they could turn into successful money-making ventures. All-baseball.com was one (here's what it looked like at the time). It collected some of the best baseball writers on the internet (and also OOPS Carroll), but then there was some disagreement and a bunch of the talent (and also Carroll) went off to form their own site (baseball toaster - which I believe runs the sports internet now, right?) and all-baseball was sold to some guys. Those guys ran a site called "The most valuable network" and started recruiting other blogs to cover more teams. After probably a half-dozen other Nats blogs turned them down (no joke), I said sure. I was going to write anyway.

I didn't mind being on all-baseball. The site was pretty clean and ad-limited, and even though they had a co-writer on the blog (Needham called him JP LaFrogge) he was more... writerly (he was the one that had a blog named "Oleanders and Morning Glories" that was kept hence where the subtitle to this blog comes from), so it didn't clash with what I was doing. But these owner guys, remember, are looking to make something they can sell so eventually they consolidated all-baseball into the new mvn.

MVN.com was terrible. It looked like this. That doesn't look too bad now, but with 2007 download speeds and stuffed with ads thankfully gone from the archived version it was awful to visit. I hated it. I also didn't love working with a partner. Thought about stopping a bunch. Didn't. Eventually mvn.com folded as most "Idea -> ? -> PROFIT!" sites do and I went back to the blogspot site and haven't left. All those posts on MVN? Lost to time.

For those that don't know, I am ESPN's Sweet Spot's official Nats blogger, which means that a few years ago after a couple other Nats blogs turned them down (progress!) I said ok. It's basically been links on their site in exchange for a banner on mine, so in other words a pretty perfect arrangement for me.  Oh - I don't get paid from them. I could have been paid by MVN (they did cut checks for the ads on site) but I just let them keep the small amount of money because I fear the taxman.

There you go! History! 

Other things

Pay no attention to the time stamps. They are wrong and I can't be bothered to fix them because what does it matter. I currently live in Chapel Hill, NC, not the West coast.

Wally summed up what makes this work for me for 10 years "Just post when you want, on whatever topics you want". Yep. Early on I equated blogging to running a race. If you go at your own pace for your own goals you'll be fine. It's when you start comparing yourself to everyone else that you run into problems. For those of you that don't run... I don't know compare it to a hot dog eating contest.

Wired HK wrote that I would say -"Thanks for the supportive comments, but I honestly didn't write this post to receive kudos. It was more just to remark at how easily something that started on a lark can turn into a much larger project."  and he was dead on. I was writing that initially but couldn't make it sound right. You know me too well.

Has my attitude toward the Nats shifted? Yes it has, as many of you have noticed. I like them more now than I did. Before it was more player based and honestly I barely cared if they won or lost. Now they really are my NL team (though I still don't hate any other NL East team and carry some fondness for the Braves). Overall as I've aged my baseball fandom has waned ever so slightly, just enough to notice. It's still far less a drop than my football fandom (even though in NC you can still pretty much catch 10-12 Giants games a year thanks to one regional team and all their primetime appearances) 

Most of you get this but don't compare me to beat writers. Different jobs, different realities. They have to be far more... diplomatic than I do because they have to cover the team everyday and get those quotes. And they have to cover the team everyday. Win or lose. Interesting or not. From like mid March to October. Ugh. I actually think Nats fans have been extraordinarily lucky starting with Svrluga and now having Kilgore and Zuckerman. Sites like MASN or MLB can't really be objective because of the business partnerships, and sites like ESPN don't have any incentive to have specific team writers outside the super-fandom based teams like the Yanks and Sox. I guess what I'm saying is there's a reason things are different here beyond me somehow magically being better than other people. In fact I like to think of myself as the constantly 2nd best Nats blog, first to Capitol Punishment, then FJB, and now NatsEnquirer (who himself will hit 10 years pretty soon)

Absurd

Forgive the diversion away from the Nats... 

Ten years ago on this day I wrote my first blog post about this franchise.  You can see it here at expos baseball DOT blogspot DOT com (I prefer to pronounce it emphasizing the dots).  Impressive, right? By my accounts this means that I've been writing about this team longer than anyone save "Rocket" Bill Ladson.  When I think about that it strikes me as completely and utterly absurd.

It's absurd because as most of you know, I don't live and die with the Nats. I live and die with the Yankees. It's nothing personal. I grew up in New York (state) and I've never lived in or even near DC (or Montreal for that matter). But if that's the case, why write about the Expos and then the Nats? Well because when I started I was afraid that by writing about a team everyday it would change how I viewed the team. I kind of think now that was a stupid thought but maybe it would have, I don't know. 

It's absurd because I didn't start blogging because of some goal of being a sports reporter, or media liaison, or sabermetrician. I didn't start because I was bursting with things to say either. Why did I start? Spite. I started because I wanted to prove to a friend how easy it was to blog about something on a semi-daily basis because he wasn't updating his blog enough for my taste. Really once I proved him wrong, (IN YOUR FACE DAN) I should have stopped. Say... September 2004? Early 2005?

It's absurd because 10 years is a long time to do anything. A decade! That's like a third of my cognizant life! Wasted! Why am I still doing it though? Because I found that I really like to do it. I like digging into stats to find something interesting. I like following a team on a crazy level. I like writing stuff, having people read it, and interacting with them (on some level - it was easier when there were fewer of you). At one point I was responding to a comment and I was writing something like "I'm not writing this for anyone to read" which I realized was not true, because if that were the case all this would be scribbled notes in a row of journals in my house, not online.

Anyway, I didn't want this moment to pass without recognizing it.

Return to baseball tomorro, maybe.

Monday Quickie - Margin call

I like the All-Star break where it is. It separates the baseball season not into exact halves but into "don't worry there's plenty of time" and "uh oh, you need to start winning like, now" time periods. It starts with two weeks of "do we need to deal for someone now or not" where every at bat or start from a marginal player is picked apart. After that it's August and the stretch run begins getting increasingly tense as the number of games left gets smaller and smaller. 

If the All-Star game were half-way through the season, you'd come out of it with a full 3 months left to the season. Even though it's only about 2 extra weeks of baseball we're talking about, you'd lose that a sense of immediate urgency.

Anyway where do the Nats stand now? Depends on Zimmermann.

If Zimmermann is not healthy then a starter becomes an obvious priority.  The Nats wouldn't actually NEED a starter at that point to continue to contend for a play-off spot with Stras, Fister, and Gio slotted 1-3. But not getting one would leave their playoff chances to the mercies of fate. A ZNN injury would kill what little depth the Nats have (no one in AAA is pitching particularly well recently) so one would think one more pitching injury would probably cripple them.

But all signs are that Zimmerman are healthy so let's leave the SP discussion out for a few days. What other areas of improvement do the Nats have? Well whether they start Span or they start Espinosa they have a spot in their lineup that could be improved. Span is the better offensive player so the question really is can you find a OF or 2B that will improve on Span's bat by alot. Two remote possibilities (Stanton and Daniel Murphy) are non-starters as those are intradivisional rivals who expect to challenge the Nats in the next couple of years. They aren't trading good players to the Nats.

As far as the OF is concerned there is no one straight up good enough to be a slam-dunk replacement of Span. A couple guys can hit, like Willingham, Byrd, or Alex Rios, but they are more corner outfielders, which means you'd have to bet on Bryce to carry CF with questionable talent at the corner spots. I don't feel good about that unless the bat you are bringing in is a game changer and those guys aren't.

Oddly 2b gives you a few more options, along with Murphy, Chase Utley would be a great fit, and the Phillies would be waving a white flag to the next couple years by dealing him. But it's a tough trade to see happen unless the Nats wow the Phillies and the Nats aren't the type of dealer that gives up a lot in prospects.  Plus, Chase has no interest in being traded.

So the only starter type-deal that would make sense for the Nats is one for Ben Zobrist who can play 2B and OF. This would be ideal. Zobrist is patient (his OBP would immediately be 3rd on the team), hits at the top of the line-up (could take that spot from the ill-suited Span), and plays good defense. He could play 2B float most of the time allowing Rendon to play 3B and Zimmerman to play OF and if that isn't working out he could play OF with Bryce shifting to CF without missing a beat. Plus, the Rays and Nats have trade history together with the Karns/Lobaton deal happening just this offseason. However, Zobrist is a starter and will cost a lot if he's up for trade. The Nats have yet shown they are ever going to be "all in" and I don't think they'll start with a mid-season trade. 

So that leaves back-ups. The Nats could use an IF replacement that can hit and a late inning defensive replacement in the OF or 1B.

The former is nigh-impossible to get. Maybe a Luis Valbuena or a Sean Rodriguez? They would provide pop that Frandsen does not, while admittedly providing the low average Frandsen does give. In the minors if you don't like Zach Walters (and I don't - I think he's useful only in HR or nothing scenarios) then the cupboard is bare.

As far as the OF would go, there isn't an obvious defensive replacement out there.  They could probably pick up a Cameron Maybin for cheap. Gerardo Parra or Ryan Sweeney... maybe Emilio Bonaficio (not my choice)? Of course this would only be worth it if the manager would pull Werth or Bryce late in the game, and I don't know if Matt Williams is that kind of thinker. A more interesting solution, if the Nats weren't inclined to worry about "starting clocks", would be bringing up Michael Taylor. He looks good enough at the plate in AA to maybe hang in the majors. True at first he'd probably be a lot like Walters but we're talking D not O for the OF, and Taylor is supposedly one of the best in the minors.

That's about where the Nats stand now. They are waiting on ZNN to see if he's really ok like they say. If so they could maybe make a big splash and grab a Zobrist, but more likey (for a number of reasons) will go small. The question is does that mean grabbing a Valbuena or Rodriguez and calling up Taylor to better round out the bench? Or does that mean doing nothing because nothing is easier, cheaper and hey- they aren't pressed to do something right now? We'll see.

Either way the likely move is playing at the margins for a team that should make their push in July to the top of the heap. 

RRRRRRRendon

Before I get into this I would just like to say - Anthony Rendon would be a fine All-Star. Anyway you look at him, fancy stats or traditional, 2B or 3B, you can make a good argument that he should be on the squad. Of course when it comes to the All-Star team, good arguments aren't always enough. The one-per-team rule (which I wholeheartedly agree with), the veteran/star skewing perceptions of the fans and players, and the manager's desire to pick his own players all work to make only the most standout players sure things. But good arguments are worth putting out there and fun to discuss, which is why I'm dismayed that perhaps the worst argument for why Rendon is a better player than the ones selected, is the one most frequently cited.

By this I mean the focus on Rendon's Runs scored and RBI totals. As far as ranking the absolute talents of a player, these are very questionable stats to use* because they rely on two factors, the talent of the player himself and the talent of those around him. For example a player that gets on base at a .400 clip would be likely to score a lot of runs. But if he's followed in the lineup by Danny Espinosa and the pitcher he's going to score a lot fewer times that you'd think. Conversely .320 OBP guys shouldn't score that many runs, but put him ahead of Miggy and Trout and he's going to score more than you'd expect.

One way to see if Rendon is outperforming in these categories because of things beyond his control is to compare his rankings.  OPS correlates very well with runs scored. This should be obvious. You get on base, you have a good chance to score. You get a XBH, you have a better chance to score. OPS factors in both and the correlation is high. Rendon ranks 4th in the NL in Runs Scored. He ranks 20th in OPS.

It's easy to see why there's this discrepency though. Rendon is followed in the line-up by two hitters having good years in Werth and LaRoche.

Werth  .279 / .364 / .421,  .321 / .427 / .556 with RISP
LaRoche .289 / .393 / .470,  .302 / .467 / .476 with RISP

They are hitting well in general and better with men in scoring position. (After a total non-clutch year, Werth is doing the opposite this year. .315 / .402 / .490 with men on, .251 / .333 / .369  with no one on) Not every player is going to have this following him.

RBI is slightly different in its correlation. Factoring in OBP is not great for RBI because walks rarely drive in runs. Instead you are better looking at SLG alone (other fancier stats would be better but SLG works well enough for this - there's not that much variation for Rendon).  Rendon ranks 8th in RBI and 17th in SLG. He's outperforming here too.

But why? This one is harder to make sense of. The easiest answer would be that he's hitting better with RISP but that's not the case. He's hitting ok, but a bit worse than overall. (.284 / .340 / .491 to .259 / .330 / .482 with RISP). Hitting 2nd helps as it means more at bats, but that alone can't explain it. As you know Span is not particularly adept at getting on base and before him would be the 8th spot and the pitcher. Despite all that though Rendon is driving in more runs than expected and is seeing a fair amount of opportunities with RISP (20th in the NL). So I dug further and here is what I found.

(1) Rendon is hitting well and hitting a lot of HRs with men on.  RISP hits matter but so do hits with men on first and Rendon is killing it there. With men just on first he's slugging an amazing .702. Even though those only account for roughly 15% of his PAs, his hit 2 of his 5 triples (40%) and 4 of his 13 homers (30%) in these instances. Doesn't matter if they aren't in scoring position if you can hit well enough to knock them in from first. This is all him.

(2) The Nats 8th place hitters haven't been all that bad.  No a .235 / 304 / 349  line isn't good but compared to the rest of the league this combined OPS is 3rd out of all teams. I assumed the Nats 8th place hitters would have been among the worst. It isn't helping Rendon but it also isn't hurting Rendon as much as I thought,

(3) Matt Williams loves to bunt with his pitchers.  The Nats 9th place spot is 2nd in sacrifice hits with 28 and when we look at pitchers specifically they lead the NL (with 28 - not sure how Cincy pulled off 5 SH from non-pitchers in the 9th spot in their lineup but there you go).  Obviously this gives Rendon more shots with a RISP assuming they are still there after Span gets his turn.

(4) Span is really good at getting himself in scoring position for the players behind him - If we look simply at the number of times Span has put himself in scoring position (and not run himself out of it) we find that Span ranks very high in the NL. Third in fact. I estimate this by using this formula 2B+3B+SB-CS.  Obviously that's imperfect (some of those SBs could be of third, you can hit a double and get thrown out trying to stretch it) but I think it works well enough.  The only players who have done this more times are Dee Gordon and Billy Hamilton. This is a big reason why Rendon is seeing a lot of PAs with RISP**.

Rendon is good enough to be an All-Star, and he is better than some of the players selected. But let's not say he's better because of his high RBI and R totals, because a big part of that is the team around him. There are better ways of saying it.

*I actually don't mind using these stats at all for determining All-Star appearances or awards, etc. That's because I frame these things as asking the public "who had the better year" as opposed to "who is the better player". The former includes things like luck and the team around you and I think it's totally fair because THEY ARE JUST SILLY AWARDS. But I do have issue if you are going to use these stats to say the latter, which is how I interpret most of the Rendon push.

**Note: Please do not confuse this with "Span is really good". Part of this is that Span is incapable of hitting home runs and hitting home runs is the best thing you can do at the plate. Another part of this is that OBP matters less in this stat so Span's failing there barely matters here. We just told you OPS correlates well with runs scored. I'm sure better than my "get in scoring position" stat. Span's OPS is blah. Plus, we just mentioned how well Rendon has been hitting with men on 1st, and he's a natural doubles hitter. Imagine if Span was getting on base like a good leadoff hitter should.***  

***Remember, I'm also not saying Span is bad though. Just meh at the plate. Fields well, runs well, worth starting, just not batting first. Although you can probably also figure out how that really doesn't matter too much. Put Werth first and maybe he scores a couple more runs because he gets on base a lot and hits more home runs and now he has more PAs, and he drives in a couple more of those 8th and 9th guys. But there's a tradeoff from however else the lineup is adjusted.Overall it's a small difference which is why optimal lineup for a season is not a deal breaker. But you do want to see your team giving itself the absolute best chance to win and in a single game do you want Span up one more time or LaRoche or Desmond?

Shhh! Don't wake up Baltimore/DC!

I love talking about attendance. No really, I do. It the kind of tangental topic that can be bandied about easily between opposing parties because honestly - we don't know why things are the way they are and there are a lot of facts that can be thrown around without exactly knowing the magnitude of their effect.  Schools still in!  Weather!  Economy!

Boz tackles the current strong attendance of Baltimore and DC in a weird way. He gloats. He compares this area to other areas with two teams that currently have lower attendance figures. (Unfairly, I might add since those areas have a total of 0 winning teams. Then he excuses the fact that SF/Oak outdraws DC/Balt by saying those teams are powerhouses but (1) No SF isn't (2) Oakland has a notoriously awful stadium.)  He says MLB told him baseball wouldn't work here. He acts like he was the only one who said baseball wouldn't work in Florida (If I recall correctly that was an idea held by roughly 132% of all people)

Is he right?  Is the DC/Baltimore area a sleeping giant when it comes to baseball?

The easy thing to say, and something generally verified by looking at attendance figures is that attendance follows record.  You win you draw fans. You lose you don't. The effect is somewhat staggered, which is why a 98 win Nats team, after a long stretch of bad baseball, couldn't break the top half of the NL in attendance, and a 73 win Phillies team, after a long stretch of good baseball, can be 4th. You also need consistency - one good season followed by a downturn (or vice versa) will simply dent attendance trends. The Nats and O's are working on their 3rd seasons of above .500 ball and both are fighting for 1st place in their division.  Logic tells you fans will come to see that.

So the area is normal, right? Well Boz sets his own "this is when attendance goes up" rules which make the area look as good as he can make it. He states that winning a playoff series drives attendance up. Since the Nats and O's haven't done that - their rise in attendance is more impressive. This is a harder thing to prove.  What team has three years of good baseball and fails to win a series? But baseball has a lot of teams and a long history so let's see what we can find relatively recently.

2006-2008 Blue Jays : The Blue Jays led the league in attendance in the early 90s then the Jays slowly fell to mediocrity with average years puncutated by decent ones and poor ones. After a low point of 67 wins they bottomed out at 11th in 2005, despite a record near .500. From 2006-2008 the Blue Jays put up 3 consecutive 83+ win seasons without making the playoffs. Attendance by the last season? 6th.

2000-2004 White Sox : Prior to winning it all in 2005 the White Sox put up 4 consecutive winning seasons (well non-losing seasons - there's an 81-81 in there). The attendance in '99 was 13th. In 2004 was 8th. It's a bumpy rise because the Sox' best year was 2000 but it's a rise.

1999-2001 A's : The mid 90s A's were bad after dominating the late 80s time frame. By 1999 though they were back in business. They won 87, 91, 102 games and the attendance increased from 13th in 1998 to 7th in 2001.
 
2009-2011 Braves : But the Braves were always good! Nope. After losing 4 consecutive DSs the Braves missed the playoffs from 2006-2009, so by the time they put up these three winning years it had been almost a decade since they won a series. Far enough away? I think so. Anyway. 2008 10th. 2011 8th. (the Braves actually haven't drawn well since the newness of Turner Field wore off)

1997-1999 Mets : Mets really bottomed out from late 80s success and... I'm getting tired, let's wrap this up. 1996 12th (out of 14) 1999 7th.

That's about all I could find. I skipped a couple teams who might be draws in of themselves regardless of record and a couple other teams might have qualified but the time frame overlapped with a new stadium being introduced making attendance figures fuzzy to interpret. It's actually kind of rare to put up three above .500 seasons in a row and not win a series in the first two years, at least since the WC was introduced. Looking at the small data we see here - we see that DC/Balt is not special*. When you win consistently, division series win or not, attendance goes up.

(*In fact I think a stronger case could be made that DC is actually still kind of disappointing, given the quality of the team and the population to draw from. But I say give the fanbase another 10 years to build before judging them as if they are on an even playing field)

Monday quickie - Who is the Nats ace?

As the Nats merrily roll along... 

I think in the past week I've heard each pitcher on the Nats staff described as the "ace".  It's a completely arbitrary and unimportant distinction that might have been settled for the time being by another completely arbitrary and unimportant distinction. Jordan Zimmermann got named to the All-Star team, no one else did - so he's the ace! Right?

Well I don't really care but hey, it's a Monday the Nats are rolling. Werth, Zimmerman, Ramos, and Desmond are all hitting. Even Span isn't doing bad. So unless you want to focus on a slow start by Bryce back from injury (which is completely expected) we've really got no issues to discuss right now. So let's delve into the mind of the John Q Fan. Who should be the Nats "ace"?

If you're looking at who is the best pitcher - just flat out who has the best stuff - of course that falls to Strasburg. Leads the starters in K/9 by more than a strikeout over #2 Gio and is 2nd in the majors. Leads in K/BB too and is 5th in the majors in that. xFIP is 3rd lowest in the majors which suggests (but doesn't verify - let's not confuse the two) that if everything broke fairly for Stephen he'd be among the best pitchers in baseball. Unfortunately the results don't line up with this. It may be unfair to pin the W/L record on him, but we're not talking about being fair, we're talking about calling a guy an "ace". An ace is still supposed to produce wins and Stephen hasn't done anything special. Everyone on the Nats has 7 or 6 wins and is over .500.

So what about the All-Star Jordan Zimmermann? Best ERA on the team, good fancy stats (xFIP good, 2nd out of starters in K%-BB% (17th in MLB to Stras's 2nd)). Plus fans love him for reasons I can't really explain. I mean come on, it's not like he's brimming with personality and he pretty openly has talked about leaving the team when his time is up. Another thing about Zimmermann is that his "ace-ness" is based more on consistency than electric performance. By the Game Score metric ZNN only 3 of the Top 20 performances (though all in the Top 10). 7IP and 2 runs is nice but "ace"?

Who is the shut-down guy? Well that's probably Gio. He owns 7 of the Top 20 performances and 2 of the Top 5. If you asked me which Nats pitcher is most likely to go 8 innings, strikeout 10, and give up no runs, I'd bet on Gio. Of course the flipside is that Gio gives you the stinker more often than any other guy (3 of the bottom 10 performances).  An ace is someone you can count on to shut down the other team not someone who might bomb out.

Fister is the guy least likely to give you a bad performance. Since that Oakland game to start out the season, he's given two mediocre outings and the rest have been good to very good. He's got the best results, too with a 7-2 record, tied for most wins on staff despite missing a month. For nonsense like this, that matters. But he lacks the great performance and he may not have the stuff to get it. Fister's stuff makes ZNN look like Nolan Ryan. Working that no-walk, GB thing to the extreme he's a very good pitcher that no one is afraid of because they can get the bat on the ball. Plus he's new.

Roark? It's not Roark. He is tied for the team lead in wins and has two of the best three starts for the team. But really you are going to hang the "ace" title on someone who is 7-6, is easily the 5th most accomplished pitcher for his career on the staff, and even this year ranks maybe 3rd out of the starters? A guy who in his last two starts (both vs the Cubs mind you) have given up 19 hits and 8 runs in 13 innings? That's your "ace"?

So again "who cares" is going to win out if you are asking my honest opinion, but let's finish this exercise. I'm ruling out Roark because he's Roark. I don't trust him and he's either gone out early or been hit hard in his last 5 starts. He may be a good pitcher but he's no one's ace. I'm going to cut Gio next because like I said Gio can very easily go out there and give up 8 runs in 3 innings and no one would be surprised. In fact I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen again by August. That's not an ace. I'll pull Strasburg off the table now. If this was a "best pitcher" argument, he could win, but it isn't. This is about feelings and even though it makes no sense Strasburg giving up 3 runs in 7IP feels like a failure while ZNN or Fister doing it would feel like a success. Your ace doesn't constantly disappoint if you have a choice.

So Fister or ZNN? Despite the nearly perfect post-Oakland run, I'm going to go with ZNN, mainly because he won 19 games last year, and he made the All-Star game which are big things when it comes to nonsense like calling someone an "ace".

Now would he be an "elite" NFL QB?

Don't worry about the Braves

This is almost certainly at least 33% "easy schedule.  They've won mostly low scoring affairs - which shouldn't be a surprise given the Phillies and Mets are below average hitting teams and the Astros are the worst. They still can't score a ton of runs and all these teams can't pitch so that says those issues are real and will continue. Their schedule is so easy that I wouldn't be surprised if they passed the Nats before the All-Star break.  That's ok.  Just don't collapse here and fall into a 5 game hole and you'd expect an even-ing of opponents to put the Nats back on top. 

Meanwhile back at the Nat Cave...

...

...

What is there to say?  Here are your 2014 (and 2013 for the most part) Nats as you expected them.  They are good. They have no obvious holes. None. OK the defense might need a little sprucing up and it wouldn't hurt them to fix up the bench while they are healthy rather than waiting for a need but as long as they are healthy...

It's a holiday weekend.  Just sit back and enjoy for a few days

The other punching bag is back!

The Nats have finally gotten the band back together.  It took them exactly half the season to do it but they've done it. Now they should do what they did last night. Score runs, pitch well, win easy. It won't happen every night - that's not baseball. But it should happen more often than it does not. The Nats should start to pull away from the division

Of course should is an important word.  They should right now be in a position where they are chasing a better team, but the Braves injuries have kept them down and the Marlins haven't really blossomed. They should have caught up last year getting healthy at roughly the same time as they have this year. But instead they slumped through the end of July and couldn't catch up after that. Should is should. It's not will.

It's important to remember that because of what's being set-up right now.  If the Nats were to struggle for a month now the blame could very likely fall on Bryce. He's a disruptive force! He won't just shut up and do what he's told!  George Brett only said "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" until his 4th year in the bigs!!! Willie Mays carried everyone's bags every day until he retired, AND THEN DID IT FOR TWO MORE YEARS!!!

Because Bryce craves the spotlight and is a potentially game changing player he's held to a higher standard than other players, even at the tender age of 21. But think about it:

Ryan Zimmerman said he didn't want to play 3rd.  He was asked to and he did it. HERO
Bryce Harper said he didn't want to play LF or bat 6th. He was asked to and he did it. MALCONTENT

Both are right.  (though as I said last night - Bryce's promoting the best offensive lineup for the team.  the most winning lineup? Might be sitting Werth.  Just a thought). Both shouldn't do it in public. There done. Thoughts complete until I both see that the team is struggling and I hear players complaining about it.

There's really no reason to make this an issue right now unless you are inclined to make it an issue to start. (which is likely because you've reached the "old fart" stage of your life) It hasn't effected the team - it's been a single game. The team has bigger problems with Bryce not in the lineup (witness the 10 game stretch when they couldn't get to 5 runs even spotted an extra 7 innings). They weren't some sort of "We Are Family" team winning at a 100 game clip when he was gone. They have bigger problems with Bryce in the lineup (let's see... Desmond, Werth, Zimm, Span come to mind).  To bring up this after one game just shows your biases.

Lets calm down, let a little nonsense wash over you, and move on with the goal at hand.

The offense - Part 2

I hate duplicating work. It's such a time waster. Turns out James O'Hara at Citizens of Natstown did an Ian analysis not to long ago (I bet other places have too, but this is what was noted to me).  So go read that. 

Ok for those of you too lazy to read that the gist is - as of early June Ian is swinging wildly, but is walking more and is still hitting for power. All in all he's not the elite player from the last couple of years but he's still good. Let's see how things have progressed since the article.

Ian walks more! 

BB% :  7.9% in early June -> 6.5%
Outside Zone Swing % : 33.3% -> 33.9%

Turns out that since that analysis Ian has walked one, count 'em one, time in the past 18 games. The walk rate is now more in line with this career numbers - which is a big "eh". The swing rate isn't as bad but it's trending away from the "he can really ID those pitches" area. I'm thinking that it was a nice two months of an Ian willing to take a walk, but that's it. He's back to his old self.

Ian's got pop! 

ISO : .188 -> .189

Was there a question in your mind? Shouldn't have been if there was. Ian still has good power, especially for a shortstop.

Ian is missing those pitches he does swing at!

K% : 27.4% -> 28.7%
Contact% : 71.3% -> 70.0%
Swinging Strike% : 14.1% -> 14.8%

Everything here has gone from worse to worser. He is having trouble making contact which is giving him all sorts of problems

Ian is getting a little unlucky, but also he's not hitting the ball well!

BABIP : .268 -> .298
GB/FB : 1.23 -> 1.30
LD% : 11.1% -> 13.7%
IFFB% : 16.4% -> 13.0%

Everything else here is getting better. If you look at the last set of games he's hitting a bunch more line drives and ground balls which helps with all these numbers except the last one. What helps with that is the fact he hasn't popped up in the last 18 games.

OK! So that's a lot of fancy stats! What's the take away? Well, it looks like Ian has reverted to his old ways in the fact that he is no longer even faking trying to walk off the island. Not only have his walk numbers died a quick and painful death, he's taken those crazy swing and strikeout numbers and made them even worse. BUT this wild swinging is helping Ian hit more like he used to.  He's hitting .280 and slugging .467 in the past 18 games. That's right in line with 2013.

Unfortunately that's not great news. Before, Ian could hit like he wanted to striking out a little over 20% of the time and walking rarely. Now it's drifting into a scenario where he has to strikeout almost 30% of the time and walk once a month. His OBP during the past 18 games is .286. Remember to think of OBP as "not getting out" and that getting out is literally the worst thing you can do as a batter. Ian is getting out a lot more.

Is this Ian more useful than the Ian that walked a little bit more but couldn't hit? Of course. Is this Ian more useful than 2013 Ian? Nope.

Of course it's just 18 games, perhaps once comfortable he'll start walking again. Even at a level he had the past couple years that would be something. But I'm not betting on it. That K% continuing to rise shows me a guy wanting to hit his way out of a mediocre couple months and the average and slugging numbers tells me he can do it. I'd be surprised if his K-rate drops under 25% and I'll bet his BB-rate drops under 6% before the All-Star break. Think Alfonso Soriano-lite at the plate. A few more singles, a few fewer home runs. 


OK so Ian is getting out a bunch more and Werth maybe can't hit for power anymore. Can Ramos and Bryce ride to the rescue?

Probably, but with a but.

The "but" is the fact we have no idea how long it will take them to get back into the swing of things at the major league level. LaRoche picked up where he left off. Zimm is still struggling. A few off weeks is probably the best expectation with a month or so off not being out of the question. If it takes a while this does nothing for the offense. You have to play them to get them right.

The "probably" is the fact that they weren't doing all that well before going out. Bryce was pulling a Desmond - walking at a lower rate than he ever had and striking out more. More concerning, he was hitting with far less power than he had the past two years. His ISO dropped from .286 to .133, from slugger to singles hitter. To start Bryce was walking a lot and not striking out too much, and he's just a better hitter, so even all this didn't make him a bad hitter, but it was making him a mere above average guy when the Nats are looking for a star.  Ramos is even more worrying - older, playing a tougher position, more injury prone, not as good a hitter. His ISO dropping to .109 is even more important to him because he wont' put up the average or walk as much as Bryce probably will.

Still I like Bryce to get his act together at some point this year and Ramos isn't going to be worse than your average back-up catcher. By August at the latest we'd expect them to help the offense. Is that soon enough to avoid a major playoff missing let down? This year, in this division, probably so. Will they add enough to make the Nats a playoff favorite like we would have thought a healthy Nats team would be? We'll have to see.

Stats in order of use 
BB% : walks per PA, Outside Swing % : how often you swing at pitches that are outside the strike zone, ISO : same as isoSLG, SLG taking away your singles to see "true power", K% : strikeouts per PA, Contact% : how often you make contact when you swing, Swinging Strike % : How often a pitch to you is a swing and miss, BABIP : you know this, GB/FB : groundball to flyball ratio, LD% : percent of your balls in play that are line drives. IFFB% : how many of your FBs are pop-ups.

The offense - Part 1

Great win this morning! First place!

But I said I would get on the hitting and dammit if I won't just do that.

As I said before the season, this offense was built with the idea that you had potentially 7 above average bats, with only Denard Span not fitting that definition. There wasn't exactly a proven star among these players, some were too injury-prone to count on, others too young, but that's ok. Chances are with that many above average bats, that someone would have a big year and even if they didn't an offense without any real holes can still be potent. That is a perfectly good line-up plan... assuming everyone stays healthy. Of course they didn't and hence the Nats are at a point where they are scoring 3 or 4 runs on a good day and that's probably not good enough to win it all.

(Yes, it will change - we'll get to that though) First, let's just mention the obvious issues.

Denard Span hits first - We can argue how good a hitter Denard Span is. Is he bad? Is he average? (No and No - something in between) but what we can't argue about is that having Denard hit first, especially when the team is mostly healthy, is sub optimal. At best he's the 7th most potent bat in the line-up, he does not get on base (58th out of 83 qualified NL batters), he does not take pitches (75th). He does nothing but give the Nats an extra out or two a week than they might not have had if he was batting at the bottom of the order. 

Danny Espinosa is no longer a major league hitter - Some people think Danny's defense makes it worthwhile for him to play everyday. I'd love to believe that. But since a quick first 20 games, Danny has hit an ice-cold .201 / .262 / .324 in his next 51. That's an OPS of .586 which is basically the bottom of the NL. That's just not good enough to play every day. Can he hit better? I don't know and I certainly can't depend on it. The numbers I just mentioned are actually better than last year.

Jose Lobaton is not a starter - It's not his fault. He's just not. But he wasn't meant to be. What he is, is someone that shouldn't embarrass you at the plate in case your catcher has to miss some time. That worked out at first, but not so much now. His line as a starter is down to .211 / .284 / .305.  Should it get better with more time? I'd think so, but it could still be well below average. So it goes when you are depending on bench players.

Right now, the Nats are rocking a 7-8-9-1 that is among the worst in the NL. There's not too much the Nats can do about the latter two. Injuries have forced their hand. Moving Span will help, but very little, and it's certainly not a cure-all. It would be hard to cover this with great bats 2-6.  And the Nats don't have that.

The good news is that Rendon and LaRoche look fine, even better than that at times, but Rendon is not quite great yet and LaRoche is falling back to his level in fits and starts. I wouldn't expect them to carry the team. We all know Zimmerman is struggling coming back from injury and there are two more "secret" issues that the Nats are dealing with.

One is Jayson Werth's lack of power. Jayson Werth hitting .271 with an OBP at .352 is only very mildly disappointing to anyone that looks at his history. He never was a .320 type hitter and last year stood out as an anomaly. No, .270s is more his style - maybe into the .290s in a good year, years which at 35 most assume are coming to an end relatively soon. He always could take a walk but that skill is fading too as pitchers realize they don't have to walk him. His isoOBP (how much he gets on base taking out the hits) has trended down for a while now and at .081 is almost the lowest he's posted in his career. It's still a good number though and it's a slow decline.

What's really the issue with Werth is his lack of power. The HR issue is obvious as he's on pace for under 15 homers for the year. But he's also hitting doubles at a lower rate than he has since that terrible first year in DC. Combined he has the lowest isoSLG (slugging taking out the singles) in his career.  More disturbing though is the trend.

2010  0.236
2011  0.157
2012  0.140
2013  0.214
2014  0.110

Nats fans wanted to believe that his power issues were all injury related and that once the wrist healed he'd be slugging again. Maybe they even were mostly that. But some part of it is simply the aging process and you can't look at the above and not think 2013 stands out as a fluke. As Werth has gotten older he's having trouble slugging. 

You could blame a big drop in HR/FB rate (at 6.1% now) but that could be explained by getting older. You see the same general downward trend in that stat when you exclude 2013. You could blame it on big drop in LD% leading to fewer gap hits, but last year's 26% was high for him and this year's 19% is right on target with most of his career. BABIP is fine. He's hitting like he always has hit - he just isn't getting the same results off the bat.

You may be able to look positively at his HR distance (401). That's in line with LaRoche and Rendon. But I can explain that away (Rendon is less a HR hitter than a LD masher - LaRoche has a 336 ft HR that drags his numbers way down) and Werth has yet to crush one (414 is his longest which struggles to make the Top 20% of homers in distance). If I were to guess I would say he should hit a homers at a slightly better pace, but only slightly better. 

This is an issue that injury returns won't help. Jayson is still a guy you want out there. He does a lot of things right and overall should still be better than average this year. But he's 35. Anyone in your mid 30s can tell you it's hard to do things you could do with ease in your mid 20s. Don't expect a big comeback, instead hope for a small bump in power, enough to keep his head above water.

You know, this is getting long so we'll tackle Ian Desmond and the injury returnees tomorrow.

Monday Quickie - Away we go?

Hidden behind the World Cup and Strasburg* is the fact the Nats finally broke their long Braves nightmare, taking the final two games of the series, splitting the series as a whole, and remaining a game and a half in first place.

Hidden behind that is the fact that the offense has some serious issues but hey - you win 2 games to hold onto first and you get a reprieve. Until tomorrow.

Fister and Roark came up big.  Fister, as far as I'm concerned, is the ace of the staff now. If he can avoid giving up the long ball it's nearly impossible to put up a big inning. Roark has pitched like an ace as well up until this point. Though I still worry about the guy.  Maybe that's unfounded but it seems to me he's laboring a bit recently and the Nats are starting to cut on him early in recent outings. This could be part of a plan. Roark has maxed out at about 160 IP in his career. If he kept going deep into games the entirity of September (and the playoffs) would be a big question mark. Pull him on the early side now and save him for later? That's the hope anyway.

For those of you saying - come on Harper your fears are unfounded. Roark will pitch this well forever... forever... forever... I have two words for you Zimmermann Jordan. (you could probably reverse them to make more sense).

Last year Jordan brought a 2.28 ERA into July and people were talking about him as if he was one of the best pitchers in the NL.  Jordan is great, but he doesn't belong in that class. Over the next three months he put up a 4.38 ERA and ended up with an ERA around what you'd expect. Water finds it's level. The thing on Roark's side is we don't really know his level. I suspect it's not this good - but hey - I can be wrong.

Milwaukee tonight. Another chance for the Nats to prove something or the opposite as the Brewers are the new "best team in the NL". It is the only hard set for a while so come out of here doing well and they should be able to hold onto first for the time being. Of course nothing has gone exactly as we thought so they'll probably sweep Milwaukee and then lose 9 of 10 to the Cubs and Rockies just because.

*Seriously I think the Nats could make the World Series. Lose 4 games to none while scoring all of 2 runs and if Strasburg gives up 3 runs in the first inning of the first game (despite going 7 and giving up 4) THAT would be what some fans will take away from the series.

I don't want to hear it

Every loss matters and losses versus division rivals doubly so because you are guaranteeing them a win. But there are others thing to consider that determine how much you should concern yourself with them, like where the teams are, where they are headed, and how much time is left.

The Nats are in first and getting healthy with Bryce Harper coming back soon. The Braves are trailing and just lost another pitcher in this "God doesn't want you to win" year for them. With 90 to go, the Nats could lose all four games and still be in good position.  No one wants it to happen. It's obviously better if it doesn't happen, but it's not going to kill this team to lose these games.

If this division was different, if the Braves were healthy or the Marlins ready, then you can go overboard with these losses because they are probably putting the Nats 5, 7 9 games back. Instead the Nats might lose the series and fall... a half game out of first. The reality of the season in front of us lessens the impact of these losses where they really matter - in the standings. 

Where they remain large is in the nebulous realm of reporting about the team. The losses to the Braves are a story. The Braves are in Nats fans heads, possibly in the Nats heads. Nevermind two years ago the Nats did beat the Braves more than they lost and won the division, so it isn't an epic years long domination. Nevermind the fact that last years team finished 10 games out of first and that they would have had to win 12 games over the Braves to make that up and take the division, so you can't single out those games for the failures of 2013. Nevermind they just were in first place despite getting beat up by the Braves earlier in the year, so you have to admit winning the NL East this year, under these conditions, can be done regardless if they win 6 games or 13 versus the Braves*. Nats fans should be able to look past these losses right now, but things like this, they have a way of getting to you.

It's insidious. It gets eyes on the page. It makes for an easy joke, which I'll admit, I'll go after. I'm not above that. It matters, but circumstances have made it not as impactful as it was last year. That's the truth. This year it's really just a battle, not the war.

Tonight is Strasburg. Tony crushed the best Braves. Now it's your turn.

*Now if they win like 1 game - ok talk to me.

What the next month will be about could start here.

What did you think about the Nats and the NL East when the seasons began? That the Nats were slightly better than the Braves and that there was enough talent in the division that someone might surprise, but you also wouldn't be surprised if at least one of those other teams tanked?  Well Seventy games in (43% or so) and here we are.The Nats are a game and a half better than the Braves. The Marlins have surprised and kept pace while the Mets and Phillies take turns going after the worst record in the league. I'd argue that the whole division is about a half-step behind where I'd thought they'd be, but in comparison to eachother they are right on target.

Why are the Nats a half-step behind?  Injuries are a big part of it. Offensively, the Nats were equipped to handle two big injuries, OF & C, and they've had three (OF, C, and 3B) and one important minor one (1B). The injury replacements have offered no surprises, and for each "success" (Lobaton, Espinosa) there is a no quote needed failure (McLouth, Frandsen). But injuries aren't all of it. While Adam LaRoche has performed shocking well, Ian Desmond has fallen off his pace of the past two years and Jayson Werth has seen a dramatic loss of power with no wrist injury to blame. The sum of these parts is an offense that has struggled to be average. That would normally be big trouble for a team looking to win a division, but the Nats have been bouyed by a remarkable performance by the pitching staff, which the majority of staff sporting ERAs in the low 3.00s or lower. A combination of one big surprise (Roark) and nearly everyone else performing at the high end of expectations has made this the best staff in the NL. The net effect has been to pull the Nats a few games over .500.

Why are the Braves an half-step behind? A somewhat similar scenario. Injuries bit the Braves hard too, but for them it was in the rotation. Unlike the Nats they did get some surprising injury replacement help in the form of an amazing start from Aaron Harang.  The rest of the staff has been a mixed bag of performance but it's a talented staff and going forward like the Nats offense, they are expecting health to help this aspect of the team perform at a high level. Outside of a minor injury to Gattis the Braves offense has been relatively healthy, but mostly disappointing. Dan Uggla played his way out of a starting job while BJ Upton remains a lineup hole. Last season's miracle, Chris Johnson, is underperforming, while Jason Heyward remains unable to live up to his potential, and Simmons works through what they hope are growing pains. Even though Freeman, Justin Upton and Gattis have hit well, the total sum of the above is a team lucky to be .500.

Where does this leave these two teams? Well now that they are about as healthy as you can expect a team to be from their Opening Day rosters you have two teams trying desperately to prove they are who we thought they are. The Nats are trying to prove they belong in the "best team" discussion and looked to be trending in that direction with their impressive winning streak, but the St. Louis sweep keeps the old demons in play, the biggest one being their recent lack of success vs the Braves. The Braves want to show that despite the pre-season staff injuries they can compete for a playoff spot, but they are struggling to go anywhere flailing over the last 3+ weeks despite beginning to waive white flags on some expensive offensive pieces.

In short, this series could determine the Nats/Braves stories for the remainder of the pre-All-Star break season. Nats win 3+ games? They are looking to be crowned again with the Braves likely searching for external and internal answers to their offensive (and possibly pitching) issues. Braves win 3+ games? Atlanta probably feels confident enough to hope regression to mean cures most of their ills, while the Nats get caught up in silly off-field talk of leadership and heart and look to Bryce's return for another new starting point. Both teams need this series to go well for them or else the issues become ISSUES.

THUD

"The only question for me is how much of this offense is a mirage and how much is a reality."

Here are Nats fans, standing in the middle of the desert with mouths full of sand.

The Cardinals and the Braves are the Nats two biggest hurdles to climb. Since the Cardinals eked out that NLDS victory the Nats have gone a combined 9-29 versus these two teams. How terrible is that? The Nats have played like an 85 win team since the start of 2013.  Take away the games versus STL/ATL and the Nats play like a 95 win team. If they played even ball versus these guys they'd be a 93 win team.  They are likely to face one of these two teams if they make the playoffs. They need to get over whatever mental block they have.  "Luckily" they have another chance to do it in just a few days.

The offense was garbage over the series, but really it extends back to the Bumgarner game. In the past 6 games (or 54 innings) the Nats have managed 33 hits and 18 walks, (opposing WHIP 0.94) so they aren't getting on base. (And really 8 of those walks came in the Matt Cain game) Worse they are combining that with an inability to hit for power. Only 5 XBH in the past 6 games and only 1 home run.

I had wondered why the Nats had been able to score so many runs while hitting for a fairly pedestrian pace. (.263 / .333 / .448). That's not a bad hitting line. In fact, for a team that's pretty good. You are throwing in all those pitcher at bats and stuff. Certainly good enough for 2nd in the NL if you extend it out for the season (behind Colorado who, as you know, play in Colorado). But you look at a team OPS of .781 and you are probably averaging somewhere between 4.5 and 5.0 runs a game. The Nats were scoring almost 6 a game. Short of it - the offense was hitting well but it was also catching some breaks and making Nats fans a little too confident that they have a top offense without Bryce around. (Note : They don't)

Who's the biggest offenders in the recent slide?

Denard Span is 0-18 with 2 walks. For all you Span defenders who complain when I don't talk about how hot he is, THIS IS WHY. He's not good at the plate and I don't want to give the impression that he is. Should he play? Yes. His defense is good and the Nats have questionable players on the corners. But he's a below average bat - the vast majority of his career has shown this. Don't pretend he's anything else.

Zimmerman is 3-23 with 1 XBH.  This isn't too surprising. Ramos started the same way post-injury and Zimm was probably rushed back a little. It's more surprising to me that LaRoche came back on fire. Give it time

Desmond 4-23, 0 XBH. I'm not sure what to think of Ian. He had a very nice 24 game stretch starting in Arizon and ending with his 3-5 game in San Fran. He hit .272, walked 9 times (alot for him) and was a slugging machine - 14 XBH with 9 of them being HRs. Problem is the Nats haven't played 24 games, they've played 68 and in the other 44 he's been hideous - only 9 XBH, hitting close to .200 and not walking at any rate you'd like. I'm hoping that he did get on track and this is just an off week, which happens, and he'll start hitting again. We'll check back after this week.

Espinosa 3-16, 0XBH. Danny is Danny. Should have gotten that surgery.

Rendon 5-23, 0 XBH. Probably nothing to worry about - but it is his second slump in a row where the power has gone completely (from May 7th-28th hit hit .147 and slugged .191). You don't want players to be on-off switches like this. You want more his slump from April 11th-24th.  Hit .193, but slugged .368.  Rendon is a good bat, whether he'll be a great one depends on if his slumps are the former or the latter.

LaRoche (.235 / .381 / .294) is slumping but still getting on base. Werth (.227 / .320 / .409) isn't really slumping perse - because when you get on base AND hit for power... well .230 isn't terrible. We're talking a week here - one more ball finds a hole and he's hitting .265. 

This slide should even out even if you don't trust Span and Espy (and I don't). You only have one guy hitting well (Lobaton) and one guy holding up (Werth). The rest are on some level of slump. That combination will stop sometime soon. Of course with the Braves series coming Nats fans need it to stop now.

Under the radar

It's a very busy weekend for sports. The World Cup is starting. Both the NBA and NHL finals are potentially coming to a close. And for non-poor white people, the US Open is happening. Even with all that I felt that a Nats win last night with another great pitching performance would have forced them into the news. Winners of 9 of 10 and sweeping what was the best team in baseball at their place, with their like 13th great start in a row? Heading into St. Louis to play the defending NL Champs? It may not get talked about first, or even before the first commercial break, but it would be the first baseball story.

Now for a few more days at least the Nats get to fly under the radar, probably until the Braves series starts. Basketball and Hockey will likely be over by then (fun fact : If the NBA finals reaches Game 7 they play it next Friday. Stretch it out will ya?)  Golf definitely will. If it's just the World Cup and baseball, the Nats will be prime to get their due.

Now of course there are 5 games standing in the way of that attention, the three versus the Cardinals being the ones you worry about.

The Nats finally lost a no-doubter. So we can go back and look at the amazing run they just put up. Over the previous 12 games the Nats went 10-2. Scored 70 runs (Almost 6 a game) and gave up 21 runs (less than 2 a game).  They trailed at the end of 9 of 110 innings, which makes you wonder how they lost. (If you forget there was the Yu Darvish gem where the Rangers broke through late and the Padres game that Soriano blew.) They didn't actually blow the doors off with their hitting (.263 / .333 / .448) the hits were imtely and pitching wise they did dominate - 1.52 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 11 walks and 92 strikeouts. I mean that is freaking amazing pitching by a staff for a 2 week stretch. Take the best pitching season by a pitcher you ever saw. Now assume that pitcher pitched for your team for 12 straight games and never lost anything on his stuff. That kind of gives you an idea of how well this team has pitched.

The Cardinals are next, the Braves in the hole (Astros on deck - It's like an All-Star game at an NL park and the pitcher is hitting).  Who wouldn't love to see the Nats exercise some demons, if only for a week.

2014 is 2014

You can feel a sentiment rising as the Nats go through this dominant run. This team is special. The clubhouse feels different. When this happens you start to get the explicative stories that are meant to be silly and are, like Matt LeCroy's eating habits, and ones that are meant to be serious but aren't, like Werth getting a text from a friend saying "Feels like 2012". 

Why is the latter silly? Well not two weeks ago, as the Nats exited a stretch of play where it felt like they rolled over and died in the face of adversity, everyone was asking "Why does this feel so much like 2013?" Well which is it? The team today is pretty much the team of two weeks ago. Is it a 2013 or a 2012 team? Are they filled with a special camaraderie that will carry them to the best record in baseball or are they chokers who can't handle the pressure of being a target?  I'm not sure - let me see if they won last night.

Yes, they've added two players, but are we to assume the clubhouse is so fragile that losing LaRoche and Zimmerman sent Werth, Desmond, Zimmermann, etc. into a tailspin where they could no longer rally the spirit of the team to win games they should win? Is that what you are telling me? That the alchemy of a clubhouse full of grown men is so delicate that the loss of one particular reagent makes sure lead stays lead?

The truth is 2014 is 2014. It's not 2012 and it's not 2013 and looking for off the field answers for what 2014 is silly, just as it was in 2012 and 2013.

2012 was 2012 because the Nats had awesome pitching (thanks to guys in their prime years) and their mild injuries were covered by great bench play.

2013 was 2013 because the Nats had very good, but not awesome, pitching and their normal injuries were made worse by terrible bench play.

There is no need to look off-the-field here. The numbers pretty much explain all. The pitching going from awesome to very good, you have to understand that is just variance. A guy might hit .340 and follow it up with a .310. There's no reason to drag off-the-field things into that. The only place where it might have been applicable is if one was looking for a reason why the bench was so good in 2012 and so bad in 2013. I prefer random variation and crappy players, but the swing was so wild that I admit I'm just guessing. I suppose if a Werth said "we lifted the bench up with our fantastic spirit" at least that would be trying to explain something that isn't clear as day.

What's going on in 2014? A combination of things (obviously). They've had awesome pitching again - thanks to a combination of the Fister acquisition and the Roark revelation. They took a very good rotation and tried to make it better and hey! It is! Not exactly how they expected it but it'll happen more often if you try. They've had more than their share of injuries and mixed results from the replacements. Lobaton was ok when replacing Ramos. McClouth was terrible but picking up. Espinosa was great but is trending down. It has been a very normal bench-like performance.

Awesome pitching + lots of injuries + normal bench = 88/89 win pace so far. Makes sense to me. No reason to look in the clubhouse for something that's obvious on the field.

The story of 2014 will write itself on the field, just like the the ones for 2012 and 2013 did. If the pitching keeps going at about this rate but the Nats keep losing offensive players for big chunks of time on the edge of the playoff race is exactly where'd I'd expect them to be.  If the pitching keeps going and the team remains healthy they should play much better, like they have recently, and win the division. No mayonnaise and banana explanations needed.

See! It's ok!

The offense didn't come through last night but the pitching was so good it didn't matter.

The team has an ERA under 3.00 now. That hasn't been done since 1989, or if you prefer, before Bryce Harper. (Oakland also has an ERA under 3.00 right now)

The Nats team ERA in the past two weeks is 1.34.  Let me repeat that.

The Nats TEAM Era in the past two weeks is 1.34.

Two days ago it was crazy that "Roaznnburster" (Name modified to bring out more Zimmermann) had an ERA of 1.42 in their last 2 weeks of starts.  Add in the past two games they've LOWERED it. It would now be 1.30 including those.

Yesterday we talked about the offense just being hot all at the same time. It's only fair that we look at the pitching staff to see if we can see anything that might suggest they are just hot as well and due for a cooldown. I hope it's obvious that the relief core isn't 1.00 ERA good or whatever it is those crazy kids are posting now. But they are really good and pitch so few innings who can say what they'll end up with. Let's focus on the starters. Casually, I can see two places where a very mild concern exists. Fister's HRs and Roarks BABIP.

Fister has given up 6 homers in only 43 IP.  That's a lot. Now three were in that same disastrous first outing so you can forgive that a little, but Oakland is also a place historically hard to hit HRs. After that he's been giving up a HR every other game or so. It's not bad, that rate will probably end up under league average, but as a GB pitcher I'd like to see him further away from league average. That's usually where he's been in the past. It's never going to kill Fister because he doesn't put men on, but it might rear it's head in close games in HR heavy parks, and given that his walk rate should go up (he's never been THIS good with his control) it's likely to bring his ERA back over 3.00 at some point. (1.83 since first game)

Roark's BABIP sits at .255 right now. It's a number that pitchers hit every year but the numbers that hit it are very very few. He's basically skirting the area where you can accept his talent put him there. Now, in his defense, last year he also put up similar numbers in both the majors and minors so maybe he has developed into this elite pitcher. But if he hasn't then he doesn't have the peripherals to keep him among the elite pitchers in baseball. He's good at a bunch of things, but not really great. He needs those hit balls to be fielded to keep that ERA as low as it is.

There you go - there's your concerns. You might have to watch Fister in low-scoring games and Roark is possibly (I'd say probably) not elite. It's a salsa only containing boiled tomoates it's so mild.

1.34

Offensive explosion

In the 14 games without LaRoche/Zimmerman/Bryce the Nats averaged 3.42 runs a game. Extrapolated to the season as a whole that would put the Nats 15th out of 16 NL teams.

In the 13 games since LaRoche has come back (still without Zimmerman for 6 games/Bryce) the Nats have averaged 5.69 runs a game. Extrapolated to the season as a whole that would put the Nats 1st out of 16 NL teams.

In the 7 games since Zimmerman has come back (still without Bryce) the Nats have averaged 6.14 runs a game. Extrapolated to the season as a whole... you should be able to figure that out.

The Nats are red-hot. Is part of it small sample size? Definitely. The Nats aren't going to score about 6 runs a game. They aren't the 1931 Yankees (who averaged 6.88 R/G for a season - in a higher offensive scoring time of course, but the average was still 5.14 R/G.  They scored 1.7 more runs per game than averge. Amazing. Even more amazing they don't get talked about in "best all-time" team discussion because the pitching was only slightly better than average. But I digress).

Offensive runs like the one the Nats are having are usually built on unsustainable hot streaks.  Those times of year when everyone gets hot at the same time. Is that what we are seeing here? Well, here has been going on in the past two weeks.

Rendon .371/ .405 / .714
Desmond .250 / .372 / .694
LaRoche .282 / .420 / .513
Span .365 / .389 / .538
Ramos .344 / .400 / .500

Roughly - the Nats have 5 regulars hitting like Top 20 offensive players. I'd argue that alone would suffice but wait!  There's more!

Werth .349 / .364 / .442
Espinosa .306 / .375 / .417

Not quite "team-carrying" level like the other 5, but it can't be argued that they aren't hitting well.

So what you have is 7 out of 8 regular hitters hitting somewhere between very good and OMFG XOXO GOSSIP GIRL. (McLouth is also FINALLY hitting ok). I think we're safe calling this unsustainable.  (And I haven't even talked about the pitching side of this run)

But the good news is - it doesn't have to be sustainable. 62-18 in RS and RA in the past 10 games - that works out to be a .922 expected winning percentage or roughly 149-13 record for the season. Let's cool the offense way down, take 30 runs from the offense so it's averaging 3.2 runs a game. That's terrible. If the pitching still pitched this well (32-18 in RS and RA) the Nats would still be expected to win 3/4 of their games. Or let's let the pitching come back up. 48 runs or 4.8 runs a game. Not good at all. If the offense is this hot though (62-48 in RS and RA) - that's still a team you'd expect to bash their way to 100 wins.

The Nats, when healthy, could have an offense that might be the best in the NL. The Nats when healthy have a pitching staff that might be best in the NL. Healthy, a team like that can weather a slump by either side of the game and still be a winning team, and if one side is hot when the other is cold they could still be a force.

The only question for me is how much of this offense is a mirage and how much is a reality. We know they aren't "best ever". Are guys like Rendon/Ramos very good or just good on crazy hot streaks (which happen)? How long can Span/Espinosa, who aren't this good, keep something like this up?   When LaRoche cools down (and he will) how far will that cool down go? The more questions answered in the positive, the more the Nats are a team that can only be stopped by the combination of injuries, slumps and bad luck.

Cusp-ed-ed!

Dominant.

There isn't another word to use to describe the Nats starting pitching right now. In the past 2 weeks, Strasburg has allowed 2 earned runs in 2 games, struck out 20 and issued 1 walk.  You could pretty easily argue he's been the WORST (Top 4) starter on the Nats during this time frame. Fister probably takes the title with his "shield your eyes" ERA of 2.77 (THE HORROR!) but he leads the starters in WHIP at 0.692.  Roark Leads in ERA (0.60), Zimmermann doesn't lead in anything but is 2nd in much of everything and has thrown one more start.

All in all here's how Roazburster has done over the past 2 weeks

 63 IP, 46 H, 6BB, 65K, 10ER

which leads to

• 0.825 WHIP
• 1.42 ERA
• 9.28 K/9 ratio
• 0.85 BB/9 ratio
• 10.833 K/BB ratio

If that was a single pitcher they would be just a few innings from qualifying for league titles. They would lead the lead in ERA, lead in BB/9, be 2nd in WHIP (to Johnny Cueto), be 2nd in K/BB (to David Price), and 13th in K/9.  With a respectable 7 wins, you're looking at an early favorite for the Cy Young. 

The key to the complete turn around has been Zimmermann seemingly righting himself. Don't let the smiley joes tell you different, there was reason to be worried. Prior to the last 2 starts Zimm hadn't had a good start since April and had thrown up four straight bad ones. A month of bad pitching is certainly enough to raise an eyebrow. Especially since the competition was lacking and the other starters were showing that. Doug Fister had a bad start on May the 9th. The next bad one that wasn't ZNN or the injured Gio? We're still waiting on it.

Of course, now's the time for a little bit of cold water. There are 6 teams other than the Nats over .500 in the NL and they'll play four of them in the next few weeks.The Nats are at the Giants for four, then the Cards for three, after a day off and two more days off (Astros at home), they host the Braves for four, then head to Milwaukee for three.  They haven't been off for a week now so fatigue may set in right as they start this important stretch.

Rememeber last year 6-13 vs ATL, 1-5 vs LA, 0-6 vs STL. This year vs teams above .500?  1-5 vs ATL, 5-3 vs MIA, 2-1 vs LAD, 2-2 vs STL, 0-3 vs OAK, 1-2 vs Angels.  No one will truly buy into the Nats unless they can beat good teams. Now's the time to prove they can.

On the cusp

The Nats are finally coming together... maybe.  The Rangers are beat up.  The Phillies stink.  The Padres, who the Nats play next, are also kindly referred to as flawed. (Remember that "team of Frandsens" I called the Nats during their slump a while back? - Meet the reality of that statement) So you take the current (and possibly future) winning with a grain of salt. But the plan is coming together.

The pitching is beginning to be the dominant force that we expected it to be.  No team in the NL has allowed fewer runs in the past month.  And they've been consistently good. No team in the NL has allowed fewer runs in the past 2 weeks or 1 week either.

The hitting is on a nice little roll as well. The past two weeks, with first LaRoche and now Zimm back, they've been a Top 3 force in the NL (let's not look before that). The combination of those two has lead to a 6-3 stretch and the Nats being back to 1 game out of first.

It's here that we notice how important it is that the Braves (or Marlins, I guess) didn't run away during that early stretch. If the Nats had a 6-3 game stretch and found themselves 5 or 6 games out the feeling would be a lot different. Less "Here we come" and more "What do we have to do?"  Given the peaks and valleys of a usual season coming back from a big deficit (8 games or so) can take a couple months, even if you are the better team. You gain 3 games over 10 games, then lose one in the next five. Rinse repeat...  the fact that they never fell further than 3.5 out is huge.

Last year the Nats were in a similar situation at the end of May - 4.5 out rather than 3.5, but rather than climb back up they dropped back and hit that 8 game deficit on June 5th. They would claw their way back to 4 games over and 4 games out over the next month but a 6 game losing streak after the All-Star break would end the season. They would follow that with a 11-7 run and would LOSE 5 games in the standings.

This should serve as two points going forward.  One - that plunge in July this took place with the full team in place. These things can happen even with everyone here so it's important to maintain strong play all year long. The Nats spent the first two months screwing around, half dealing with injuries. It hasn't cost them, but it could. Two - they have a tough stretch coming up after the Padres series but if they can make it out of that within 3-4 games out, they should be in good enough position for the rest of the year. We (or I really - I can't speak for you) didn't think they'd be here if they didn't take charge during their weak stretch, but sometimes things work out for you.  Didn't in 2013, but looking like it might in 2014.

OOB

Out of Blogfice

The offense kept scoring runs AND ZNN pitched great?  Why do I get a picture in my head of a bloodied and battered player in a Nationals uniform pointing a bat at the Braves and saying "You made one mistake. You didn't finish me off when you had the chance"

Comment away.  Should be able to post tomorrow something more substantial. Or, you know, relatively so.

Monday Quickie - The Starting Pitching is peaking

What?  You expected talk about the offense? It's going to take more than a couple of fluke high-scoring games to get me praising those guys again.  I did like what I see and you can't blame them for struggling against Darvish, who is that good, but the story of the weekend for me was the starters.

19IP 17H 3ER 4BB 19K

That's an ERA*of 1.42 and a WHIP of 1.11

*I asterick the ERA because honestly if it's YOUR error that causes runs to score I think it should be counted against you. Didn't do it - but if you wanted to the ERA jumps to 2.37

Strasburg, Fister, and Roark have been as good as any three pitchers in baseball recently.

• After his disastorous first start, Fister has put up an 2.13 ERA in 4 starts, with a .585 OPS against and all of 2 walks. 
• Since getting beat up by Philly, Tanner Roark has put up a 2.20 ERA in 5 starts with a .590 OPS against and a WHIP under 1.00 (24H, 8BB in 32.2 IP) 
• In his last 7 starts, Strasburg has gone 7 IP or more 5 times. (pulled for needed PH in the other two) He's put up an ERA of 1.90, a .639 OPS against, and has struck out 48 batters in 47IP. 

Given Blake Treinen's successful outing there were only two things keeping the Nats from making a nice little run here : the ineffectiveness of Zimmermann and the terrible offense. (Which, yes is like saying a car can brake fine and only thing keeping it from running correctly is that it won't go.) Prior to the 9 run outburst, the Nats had scored 14 runs in Strasburg's last 5 games. They scored 13 for Roark in that same time frame and instead of a nine, just backed him up with a big fat zero in the most recent game.

But was that just Darvish being dominating? Is the offense better now? We'll see. If they are ok, they should score some runs against the Phillies with Lee out. A rookie, Burnett who hasn't been sharp, and Kendrick who has struggled lately and let's face it - isn't anything special.