Oh no!: Washington Nationals sink to .500 ball!

thats right.. our new baseball team.. our very quickly beloved "NATS" have been stinking up the joint these past two weeks.. i think at one point they were 8 wins and 4 losses but are now 11 and 11.. you do the math cause i never been too good with the numbers racket but i'll tell you one thing: it ain't pretty..

the sad part is the NATS are actually a pretty good team..first of all: they happen to play in the most competitive division in baseball right now.. the teams are currently separated by one or two wins.. anyone can take this..

the pitching has been real good..with one exception i had the painful 'pleasure' of seeing live at my first nats game.. a clown named horgan who has since been demoted to playing minor league ball after accumulating an earned run average on the stratospheric order.. this horgan feller gave up something like 5 runs to the florida marlins putting the nats out of contention in the game (it was like 5-0 when he came in and he kept giving up doubles and singles and this and that and tit for tat and next thing you know it was 10-0...)... well he did it again a few games later and then was demoted

which brings me to my next point: frank robinson's managing of the pitchers has raised this baseball fan's eyebrows..... last night nats starter esteban loaiza struggled to get out of the 8th inning...instead of putting in a reliever robinson sends him out again and loaiza gives up a homer to the first batter he faces in the top of the 9th.. would not be so bad except that it was a 0-0 game! obviously loaiza was tired and then gave up two more hits... not to take anything away from loaiza's great 8 innings but he should have never taken the mound in the 9th... robinson seems to be the anti tony "where's my phone to the bullpen" larussa.. he leaves pitchers in too long.... i've seen this happen in a few games here and there..

anyhow with the exception of horgan and a few instances of pitchers being left in there too long the pitching has been very good..

but the hitting has been the problem.... with the exception of a few games where everyone hits (when it rains it pours and when its dry...) the NATS lineup has been anemic at the plate... far too many games with no runs scored.... although vidro, castilla, guillen and wilkerson are solid bats in the top of the lineup the bottom has far too many names who lack the hitting punch of mendoza....we're talking batters who can't even make the mendoza line (over 200 average).. batters like the rookie ryan church, the shortstop christian guzman in particular has been terrible, terrel sledge though much as my friend howard likes his name just can't hit for squat, the catcher schneider and on and on... far too many dead bats...

so if these NATS don't obtain one more solid bat its safe to say they ain't going very far...whats distressing about this is that the team is pretty good but is just missing a bit of pop....however, because the team is still owned by major league baseball and the process of finding an owner has dragged on its doubtful any personnel decisions will be made before the trading deadline sometime following the allstar game (mid june me thinks).... therefore, its highly doubtful much of anything will happen.. meanwhile livan hernandez, loaiza and patterson are three of the best pitchers going so far this season.. however, with minimal run support its hard to see them doing much of anything...

lastly, the crowds at RFK so far have not been too impressive.. they seem to be sinking to an average of 25,000 per home game... those ain't the numbers i would have expected for a new franchise... not sure whats going on...

still..goes without saying..great to have baseball in the nation's capital!!!!!!!!