Proving Day for Da Kine

Somewhere in the bowels of the Nationals war room, James Carville wrote on the whiteboard, "It's the Pitching, Stupid." At least for the first couple of weeks of Spring Training, that's what everybody is watching. A bat inning or two now can spell disaster for any one of the 21,500 potential starters surged into camp. Which is why this was a bad weekend to be Joel Hanrahan. Yeah, it's Spring Training and all, and sure, the other team is wearing orange clown suits, but even so the Nationals expect a pitcher to get more than 14 percent of all batters faced out.

But it was a good weekend for Long John Patterson, who managed to get through two innings without severing his throwing arm, the only thing that would stop him from being our number-one starter, and for Matt Chico, who probably just earned himself the number-three spot just on account of being a lefty who can throw a ball more than sixty-one feet. And how about that Billy Traber putting his breaking ball down and in against righties? Second prettiest thing BallWonk saw all weekend.

Today, then, is proving day for Jerome Williams and his Hawaiian punch. Sure, Da Kine will probably get a second look if he flops in today's start, but maybe not much more than that. Call him irrational, but BW is really hoping Williams can pull it back together this season and make the Nationals rotation. Not that BallWonk needs an excuse to mix up a batch of Dave & Anna's mai tais, but Da Kine pitching every fifth day would be a pretty good justification.