Game Report: April 2007 Archives

Washington at Atlanta. Nationals 2, Tomahawks 0. About Freaking Time.

Thursday, April 5. Dear Diary,

Ever since I heard Don Imus yesterday I've been so mad and kind of ashamed. I was up all night on the alumni listserv. The whole Rutgers community is taking this personally. And we should. Crimson Knights stand together. Insult one of us, insult us all. I feel so bad for the women b-ball players. Worked so hard, finished second in the country, only to get called horrible names on national radio.

Problem though. Tired, angry, upset. Both arms shaking badly. Both "cannon" and "ballast." LOL. Not funny, really. Having trouble gripping ball, couldn't find slot, release point in warmups. First start of the season couple hours away. I'll hate Imus even more if he messes with my pitching. Concentration a pitcher's foundation. Here goes.

Friday, April 6. Dear Diary,

Disaster. Six walks, got hook in fourth. No concentration, no control. Total blowout.

Worse, Bowden just chewed me out in front of whole team and the press. Even Manny. Feel terrible for Manny; must be embarrassed to have GM go around him. Bowden: "Too many walks." No duh. Thanks, Sherlock, I guess I didn't notice at all. Geez, I thought last night went great, but now you point it out, I guess maybe I could stand to walk fewer guys. What a tard. Figures, though: Came to team from being morning jock on Cold Pizza. Like Imus, but for sports. Probably laughed at Rutgers insult.

Wonder where Bowden went to school. SMU? Amherst? LOL. Probably manager for basketball team. How'd he like it if his alma was made national laughinstock? Let's see him try to pitch then.

Wednesday, April 11. Dear Diary,

Celebration! Alum listserv says Imus fired from MSNBC. Petitions working! Yay! Halfway to victory. Next stop: CBS. Totally psyched, though. Texted Tom we're coming to NY; volunteered to join alum pickets mornings before games.

Dropped down to fifth in rotation, though, by Imus pal Bowden. Should have started tonight; Jerome going instead. Wish him luck, but still.

Thursday, April 12. Dear Diary,

Warming up for tonight's start. (Against Smoltz. WTF? Thanks Bowden!) So Ronnie comes up and he's like, "Did you hear the good news?" I'm thinking he's started some sort of new clubhouse ministry, but no. He's like, "CBS fired Imus. Upstream, red team, am I right?" Patted me on the back. I was speechless. Asked how he knew what was bugging me, and how he knew Rutgers fight song.

Said it was pretty obvious why I was so down. Plus I talked in my sleep on the flight down here! LOL - embarrassing. Said whole team behind me. Then get this: Ronnie goes, "Besides, have you seen my hair? You think I didn't take that old fool's insult personally too?" Hadn't thought of that; wrapped up in Rutgers alum stuff this last week. OK, so then Ronnie says, "Imus may think I'm 'nappy-headed,' but tonight I'm going to prove that I'm a 'ho.' Ho lotta trouble for fools like him, that is." OMG. Laughed ass off. Going to share that line with alum listserv.

Warmup throws felt much better after. Finding slot, release point comfortable. In BP, Ronnie hit line drive KRK! looked like laser beam to the wall. Absolutely flat the whole way. Thumped against padding like a bullet. Then he winked at me. Feeling good about game tonight. This one's for you, Scarlet Knights. Rutgers colors to the fore!

Washington at Atlanta. Tomahawks 8, Nationals 3.

Da Kine was alone on the mound, ready to throw his first pitch.

"Hey, Jerome," a voice said behind him. "You need a hand out here?"

Da Kine looked back over his shoulder, seeing nothing but the rosin bag behind the mound. Not wanting to look crazy, he kept his lips still as he whispered, "Who is there?"

"It's me, Coyote. I like to play tricks on these so-called Braves from the start of the Trail of Tears. And brah, you look like you could use some help."

Glancing around him, Da Kine saw no one else reacting to any loud, scratchy voice. Officer Schneider patted his glove and put his signals down.

"Go with the breaking ball, brah, and nibble the edges. Trust coyote on this," the voice said.

"You're just a voice in my head. Why should I trust you?"

"Didn't I pull your island home up from the sea with my bone hook Manaiakalani? Didn't I use a rope made from my sister's hair to lasso the sun to make the days long and the winters short in Hawaii? I see the shells around your neck and I see that you believe."

"Maui-a-kalena did those things, not Coyote," Jerome said as he prepared to throw.

"Maui, Coyote, Raven, call me Loki if you want. But trust me, and I'll give you the chance to beat these false Braves. Now throw your breaking pitches around the plate."

It's easy to dismiss ancient mythology as so many foolish old stories. Until you're standing all alone at the center of a stadium with your struggling team's hopes riding on your shoulders and you hear a loud, scratching voice that makes your nerves shiver. So Jerome tried to work the edges of the strike zone.

Ball one.

"Trust me. Just do as I say and you'll have the chance to win the game," Coyote said.

So Jerome tried again. Ball two. And again. Ball three. And again. Ball four. A leadoff walk to Kelly Johnson.

"No offense, Coyote, but I've followed your advice and now the leadoff man is on first."

"Ha ha ha!" Coyote laughed. "And he's gonna score, too. But don't worry. I like you, kid, and I'm gonna look after you. You just stick with me and you'll have a chance to win the game. Come on, you guys are gonna keep losing until May left to yourselves. What have you got to lose accepting help from a powerful demigod?"

Which made sense to Da Kine. So when Larry Wayne Jones Jr. homered to put the Tomahawks up 2-0, Da Kine didn't panic. He bore down, kept working his breaking balls around the edges and up in the zone and struck out the mighty Francoeur to end the first.

Then, in the second, the Nationals got two quick outs before Ryan Church singled and then advanced to third on Ronnie's single. Officer Schneider came up with a chance to tie the game with a hit. And, in true Nationals fashion, he worked the count with a beautiful at-bat and drew a walk.

Which brought the pitcher to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. "Well done Nationals," BallWonk said 650 miles north.

"OK, brah, here's your chance to win the game," Coyote said.

"What? No can, brah! I'm a pitcher, not a hitter!"

"You're a ballplayer. I can't do everything myself, you know. I don't even have a body here. You've gotta hold up your end and use the chances I give you. Any child in America would kill to come up to bat with the bases loaded, two outs, and the game in his hands like this. Now go up there and win this game!"

What choice did Da Kine have? So he went up and swung his cute little JV swing until he'd missed three balls and the Nationals ended the inning with three runners stranded and still down two runs.

"Maybe that wasn't fair," Coyote said.

"No, it wasn't," Da Kine replied.

"You didn't know what you were agreeing to. So to make things even, I'll give you one more chance to win the game. You start throwing your offspeed pitch down here and I'll make sure these false Braves don't score any more."

So Da Kine was not fazed when he walked Thorman, the number six batter, gave up a single, and then walked the opposing pitcher to load the bases with no outs in the second.

"Perfect," said Coyote. "This is what I do best. Watch this, brah. Just keep the ball down."

Which Da Kine did, leading Kelly Johnson to slap the ball hard up the line, where Dmitri Lawrencovich stood perfectly positioned to field the ball, step on first, and throw home to Office Schneider for a clean tag up the line for a double play to stop the run.

"Stick with me, kid," Coyote said. "No one gets out of a jam like Coyote."

And so it went, until the fourth. Again, the Nationals batted into two quick outs. Then Ronnie singled, and Officer Schneider worked a beautiful at-bat for another perfectly ill-timed walk.

"Here it is, Brah, your second chance. Just hit a home run here and you'll win the game," Coyote said. "Guaranteed."

"What?!" Da Kine asked.

Felopez was coming up from the dugout to the on-deck circle. "You OK there, man?" he asked Da Kine.

"Ah!" The startled pitcher jumped. "Nah, I'm fine. Gonna go hit me a home run," he said.

"You go get 'em, man!" Felopez laughed.

But again, Da Kine's adorable little JV swings availed him nothing, and he struck out swinging. Again.

"I've had about enough of your trickster help, Coyote," Da Kine said.

But there was no answer. Suddenly, the southern night air was cold on Da Kine's face, and goosebumps raced down his arms. The shadows looked darker, too, Officer Schneider's fingers nearly invisible behind the plate. Da Kine felt suddenly very alone, and very far from home. But he had a job to do, a job he loved, and the truth is you don't become a pitcher unless you get a rush from standing alone in the center of a crowd, sixty feet from any teammate, with the weight of thousands on your shoulders. He hit three home runs in a game once, the same day he threw a no-hitter, and like any of the best young athletes he could have gone either way, one of nine men with a bat or one man alone on a hill. He chose the hill, and here he was, and he certainly didn't need the help of some half-forgotten demigod.

Basides. Da Kine didn't know abut Coyote, but he knew how things ended for Maui-a-kalena: grasping beyond his reach to steal the fruit of immortality from the gods, he was caught and his brains bashed out with a rock on the beach. Stick with what you can do, Jerome thought, and trust your batters to score some runs. You do your part, and you go home happy.

Which he did, pitching the fifth skillfully, not letting his own mental and throwing errors get to him, and giving his bullpen a winnable game after five, which was the plan for the Nationals rotation all along.

Washington at Atlanta. Tomahawks 8, Nationals 0.

ATLANTA - Nationals President Stan W. Kasten celebrated Tuesday's defeat against Atlanta as proof that his efforts to rebuild the franchise are beginning to succeed.

"As recently as last week, this team went 0-13 with runners in scoring position in a single game," Kasten said. "No team can succeed when it strands so many runners, and this team will never be a contender until it reduces the number of runners stranded on second or third. Tuesday night in Atlanta, this team took a giant step forward, stranding only one runner on second base. That represents a 92 percent reduction in just five days."

Kasten described the steep reduction in runner strandings as a "benchmark" in The Plan, his new strategy to field a contending team by 2009, or maybe 2010. "Now that we've met this important benchmark, it will be up to manager Manny Acta to maintain Tuesday's low level of runner strandings."

Some critical fans questioned whether the reduction was a sign of real progress and threatened to withhold funding for continued baseball operations in Washington.

"I would hope fans will keep showing up and not undermine the players with non-attendance," Kasten said. "The Plan is just starting to show signs of real success, but we need to be patient and resolute to see this team through to victory in 2009, or maybe 2010. Until then, it would be counterproductive to set any timetables for winning another game."

Arizona at Washington. Weekend Roundup.
Snakes 7, Nationals 1.
Snakes 7, Nationals 1.
Snakes 3, Nationals 1. Sweep.

Bowden

The WaPo reported Saturday that general manager P.T. Bowden started the weekend by chewing out starter Jason Bergmann on the field, in front of the press, his teammates, and his manager. The paper called the conversation "animated," which is newspaper-speak for "I thought for sure one of them was about to draw a knife and gut the other from belly to sternum, assuming neither one suffered a rage-induced stroke first, but I couldn't exactly make out the words they were saying, and my editor won't let me make this sort of subjective judgment in print." Sort of like how "frank exchange" is newspaper-speak for "took one step closer to declaring war."

Fortunately, the Nixon administration had a tape-recording system installed in RFK -- Tricky Dick was pretty obsessed with anything related to the Kennedys -- and BallWonk has the transcript.

Bowden: Jason, do you have a sec?

JB: Um, sure, Mr. Bowden. What can I do for you?

Bowden: I wanted to talk to you about those six walks you issued last night.

JB: Aw, geez, I'm sorry about that. I just wasn't hitting my spots. I'm working with Randy to --

Bowden: Yeah, yeah, whatever. Goddammit, Jason, you don't [expletive]ing walk six [expletive]ing batters in the first four innings. [Expletive], Bergman, are you trying to make me look like an [expletive]?

JB:

Bowden: Yeah, that's right. You've got nothing to say for yourself, you [expletive] punk. You're talking to one GM who will not be made a fool of. I've [expletive] out better players than you. I ought to option you to Little League so you only have to throw 45 [expletive] feet. Nobody makes Bowden look like a [expletive]ing [expletive]!

JB: No, I really don't think it's me making you look like a [expletive]ing [expletive].

Bowden: WHAT! DID! YOU! SAY! TO! ME!

JB: I didn't try to walk those guys!

Bowden: I'm dropping you to fifth in the rotation. If you so much as throw three balls to the same batter your next time out, I'm sending you to Potomac and going with a four-man rotation.

JB: Isn't it Manny's job to set the rotation and deal with players?

Bowden: Are you telling me my job?

JB: Someone needs to.

Bowden: YOU! LITTLE! [EXPLETIVE]!

JB: I mean, it's not like the rotation you assembled has a great track record. You got rid of all your starters and signed a bunch of nobodies, not me. We all have the talent we have. I started six games last year -- six! And I averaged twice as many strikeouts as walks, but I have one bad day and you're jumping down my throat. [Expletive]. You hire a bunch of crummy pitchers, and then you blame us when the team doesn't win?

Bowden:

JB: And while we're at it, how's that Guzman situation working out? And have any other GMs been returning your calls lately?

Bowden:

JB: Yeah, I thought so. So tell you what. You get out of my face and go back to playing with your blackberry or whatever and let Manny do his job.

Bowden: This isn't over, Bergmann.

Is P.T. Bowden evil, or just the worst boss ever? BW will put up with a lot from the team's management in the next couple of years, but this kind of abuse of the players by the GM goes too far. Drunk driving, bad-faith dealing with peers and employees, general management that has made the team worse each year he's been on board, profligate signings of crappy players and stingy offers to useful players, but the worst is how he constantly tries to blame the players he's hired for his team's poor performance.

###

A lament for the Nationals:

Where has all the hitting gone?
Long time passing.
Where has all the hitting gone?
Long time ago.
Where has all the hitting gone?
Easy fly balls every one,
When will they ever hit?

Where have all the runners gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the runners gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the runners gone?
Left on base every one,
When will they ever score?

###

Overheard in Section 501 on Sunday afternoon:

Little boy to his father: "The team in red is the Redskins."

Truly, wise are the babes. The boy's father tried to explain that, yes, the Redskins are also the home team, this is a different home team called the Nationals.

But after a week in which this home team has been outscored 45-18, fans of any age could be forgiven for assuming that the Redskins are still playing.

And the thing is, the Nationals are actually underperforming. If you just take their 1-6 record, they project to a 23-139 record on the season. But if you ask the old Greek baseball stathead Pythagoras, the runs-scored/runs-allowed ratio projects to a 26-136 season, fully three wins better than their win-loss ratio suggests. That means that once every other month, we can expect the Nationals to win two games per week, instead of just one.

Which puts the Nationals far ahead of the Redskins, who average more like zero wins per week.

###

Silver lining: We're done with Florida and Arizona for now. Man, those are some great teams. Like the '27 Yankees, but with better hitting, pitching, and defense. Good thing we get to go on the road now to face those chumps in Atlanta and Philly. It's like some kind of plot against the Nationals by Emperor Selig and his dark minions, scheduling the Nationals to start against the mighty Fish and Snakes -- at home no less! Might as well just throw the Pirates and the Royals at us too while they're at it. Do other teams face this kind of killer schedule so early in the season?

Arizona at Washington. Snakes 4, Nationals 3.

With the Nationals playing like dogs, BallWonk has decided to unleash the doggerel for Poetry Friday.

Nationals go 0-13 with runners on second or third.

With runners in scoring position,
"Bring 'em home!" is the batter's true mission.
Any RBI drought
Should all average out,
But it's getting to be a tradition.

Nationals extend scoreless relief streak to 10 innings.

Our starters have all been shellacked;
To the seats, their pitches are smacked.
When we put in relievers
They look like Tom Seavers.
Start the 'pen may be Manny's next act.

Nationals drop to 1-3, have yet to lead a game.

The Nats give up runs willy-nilly
They've taken away Hard Times chili.
As the bad news sets in,
DC fans can grin:
At least we're still leading Philly.

Florida at Washington. Nationals 7, Florida 6.

Maybe it would be better if Dick Cheney avoided watching the Nationals this season. In fact, maybe no one with a history of heart problems should do so. Because Nationals fans need to get used to two things this year: heartbreaking blowouts, and heart-attack-inducing nailbiters.

Three-fifths of the way through the rotation, we've seen what our starters can do. "Establish an early five-run deficit" being pretty much the extent of things. (Actually, BallWonk sees much reason to expect better things soon from Hill and Chico, and Long John is either much better than he looked on Monday, or he's playing hurt and will soon be back on the DL, but it's always safer to stick with observed results.)

So we should assume we're going to be down 4-0 or 6-1 early a lot of the time. So either we'll fall behind and stay there, or the Nationals will spend most of the time in most of the games climbing back into things. From about the fourth inning on, every pitch the Nationals face will feel to fans like it's a 3-2 count in the bottom of the ninth of a scoreless game seven in the World Series.

Pass the beer and Cracker Jacks, and brother can you spare a lidocaine?

As witness to the pulmonary dangers the 2007 Nationals pose to their fans, note that despite winning his first game as a big-league manager thanks to Dmitri Lawrencovich's ninth inning bases-loaded sac fly single, Manny Acta has not yet managed a team that has held a lead in a ballgame. The instant the Nationals scored the go-ahead run Wednesday, the game ended. And the way this team is likely to spend even its winning games climbing up out of an early hole, Mannyger might have several notches on his clipboard before he actually experiences what it's like to manage a team with more runs than its opponent.

So maybe, for the sake of maintaining the security of the line of executive succession, Dick Cheney should watch the Orioles this season.

If you want to follow the Nationals this season, better get a check-up, and make sure you have an adequate supply of nitroglycerine just in case.

You know what sends BW's heart racing even faster than sixteen Nationals hits, even faster than five innings of two-hit, shutout relief from the bullpen? Opening the morning paper to find the Nationals in fourth place, half a game ahead of the winless Phillies.

Florida at Washington. Fish 9, Nationals 3.

BallWonk bets that Stan W. Kasten is thinking to himself now that maybe contracting the Spring Training foodservice out to Menu Foods wasn't such a good idea. It's widely known that adulturated wheat gluten can carry the e. sucki bacteria, which has dangerous side effects, like being a worse shortstop than Guzman and giving up five runs in the first inning and two-thirds and getting only as many hits off a non-All Star pitcher as he personally gets off you.

"But that food is good enough for our lovely bichon, Tiffie," Ted Lerner said on that fateful day in January. "We can save a few bucks down in Florida if we buy canned food from Menu Foods. They even have specialized recipes. See, this one is for joint pain, and this one for youngsters, but most of our guys would want the 'maintenance' blend. Besides, it's what we serve in our mall food courts. What could possibly go wrong?"

That was before the recall, though. Even in late March, the players were noticing something wasn't right with the food. For one thing, they weren't used to clubhouse lunches being served in plastic bowls with no silverware. "Smells like Dinty Moore," Power Austin sniffed.

"Yeah, right. Dinty Moore. Exactly," the cafeteria server said.

Yet nobody associated the food with the odd symptoms befalling the team.

The more Patterson ate, the slower his fastball became. Guzman, oddly, was batting like he'd never batted before. Which isn't true; he just hasn't batted since 2004. Nick's leg just wouldn't get better. The whole bullpen came down with a bad case of the bleeding earned runs.

"Say, it sure is quiet tonight," Officer Schneider noticed late one night in the team dormitory.

"Yeah, shouldn't the guard dogs be barking?" the Chief asked.

"Come to think of it, I haven't seen the guard dogs in a couple of weeks," the good Officer said.

"Huh. Me either."

The good news for Nationals fans is that the food has been recalled, and though it may take a while for the e. sucki bacteria to work its way out of the players' systems, improved diet should help in time. And, at the present rate of improvement from game to game, the Nationals should finally win their first game on the 11th in Atlanta, by a score of 10-9. Something to look forward to.

Florida at Washington (Opening Day). Fish 9, Nationals 2.

Imagine if instead of the Justice League, Superman joined the Three Stooges. He'd be all, "Good heavens! Lex Luthor and Gorilla Grodd are using stolen alien technology to vaporize the Atlantic Ocean!"

And the Three Stooges would be hitting one another with two-by-fours and poking one another in the eyes, saying "nyuk" and fake-screaming.

"Sigh," Superman would sigh, "I guess I'll go take care of this one too. See you guys, um, later."

Or don't imagine it: Just think about Z-Man realizing that he plays for the Nationals. "All right, I'll do it" could be his motto. Put it on his family crest.

The surprising thing on Opening Day wasn't the loss, or the fact that neither our "ace" starter nor our much-vaunted bullpen could have found the strike zone if you'd given them a map, a flashlight, and a GPS receiver. No, the surprise was that when Nookular went down and Church shifted to center and when Guzman went down, Mannyger bothered putting replacements in at all.

Because you could just see Z-Man thinking, "Sigh. All right. I'll cover left field and shortstop, too." Which you know he could have done.

Still, even though he gave us nothing but good at-bats, well except maybe that DP in the third, but it was a well-hit ball that would have gone through against, say, Guzman, even though he led off the Nationals offensive season with a triple, BallWonk's very favorite thing in all of baseball, even though he made two defensive plays that would qualify as "play of the year" for most guys, BallWonk would give honors to Power Austin Monday. First, he ran out the passed-ball strikeout to reach first and put himself in position to prevent the Nationals from losing by a forfeitian score of 9-0. Then, in the sixth, he threw a bullet from the right-field wall to Z-Man's glove at third -- in the air all the way! -- on a Ramirez double. Frankly, BallWonk didn't know Power Austin had that kind of an arm. At the start of the game he must have to decide whether to load with canister, grape, or ball.

It looked like a stretchable hit, but if Ramirez had tried for three, he'd have been out by forty feet. Someday, and probably soon, the other team is going to try to stretch that double, knowing how far the right field wall is from third, and Comrade Bluegrass is going to give some poor sap the most embarrassing out of his professional career.

PS: What happened to the Hard Times Cafe? When BW doesn't get his Frito pie, he is a grumpy BallWonk.