The Clear Answering Was Made

I'd just like to say right now that I never stopped believing in Tomo Ohka. He was having some problems, pitching like a pre-glasses Rick Vaughn without the fastball, but I knew he'd get over it. And he did. On Tuesday, the Landlord relieved a bullpen-bound Claudio Vargas, stopping the bleeding with 5.2 innings, four strikeouts, and only one walk. Tonight he pitched about as well as you can expect him to: 8 innings, 2 earned runs, 2 Ks, 1 BB. This pushes him back into the rotation at the expense of Vargas, one would have to think. As the inscrutable Japanese media put it, "With the going to the mound whether or not it can recover confidence of, the clear answering was made."

"But Ryan," you're probably saying, "what about sample sizes? And what about Juan Rivera, dumbass?" For one thing, Rivera's finally playing since Vlad Guerrero got hurt and had two homers this weekend, so shut up. As to your more civilly phrased question, yeah, Ohka's been good in his last 13.2 innings, as opposed to the 30 innings of crap that came before. I think Ohka's back, though, simply because he's pitching like Ohka again. If I may attempt to summarize the man in one pitching line:
6 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO, 85 PC, 4.00 ERA
He doesn't throw many innings, he strikes out few and walks fewer, and his ERA is solid. That's what he did against Brewers on Tuesday, and that's what he did against Toronto today.


UPDATE: Frank brings the tough love in the Times this morning.

"Hey, let's not jump to conclusions here, we thought [Tony] Armas and [Claudio] Vargas turned the corner too, but they turned the corner and went back the other way," Robinson said. "We'll wait and see. It was encouraging, let me put it that way."

Too late. Conclusion jumped to.

In other news, everyone's injured. Brad Wilkerson has a forearm splint or something, Castilla's knee is sore, Guillen's ribs still hurt, Hammonds left the game today, and Jim Bowden is still recovering from severe concussion he sustained just before signing Cristian Guzman. Remarkably, with everyone gimping around and the B-team in, the Nats managed to score 9 runs. I don't have anything to say about this, actually. Good thing Bodes picked up Marlon Byrd.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hammonds is on the DL, and 3B Brendan Harris, a Distinguished Senators favorite and a martyr to Bowden's evil machinations, has been called up from New Orleans. With the Nats facing (crappy) lefty tonight, he might actually play.