Or Did He Cut the Dreads?

As you've probably already heard, Brian Lawrence is out at least until August. There are two things worth noting about this:

• Scott at Nationals Farm Authority got himself a press credential and broke this story, so [finish Will Carroll joke for this spot].
• Tom Boswell wet himself, and [finish SWAGGER joke for this spot].

Don't listen to Boswell. Not ever, but particularly not now -- there's no need to panic. We'll be fine. Well, "fine" is a relative thing; we'll be bad, but this isn't an utter disaster. For one thing, it means Jon Rauch, formerly the odd man out of the battle for the last few slots on the pitching staff and out of minor league options, will probably be joining us in April, which is good news for my extensive collection of Giant Baba memorabilia.

On the other hand, we could see a replay of that unpleasant part of last season where we actually ran out of pitchers. Lawrence isn't all that good, but he throws 200 innings like clockwork. I suppose that last part should be the in past tense now. We've got a bunch of pitchers, but not many we can rely on to give seven innings every five days. Rauch recently had the same surgery Lawrence is anticipating, and John Patterson is coming off an unprecedented workload. There's no more reason to think Tony Armas will be healthy than there is to look forward to the sun not rising tomorrow. Ryan Drese was hurt last year, and Ramon Ortiz has it in him to suck really, really bad. So we'll see.

The other big news of the weekend was Frank trying to scare Cristian Guzman into playing well.

Washington Nationals Manager Frank Robinson said he might ask shortstop Cristian Guzman to begin working out at second base and/or third base at some point this spring, in the event the team chooses to give its starting shortstop job to newly signed veteran Royce Clayton, bumping Guzman to a utility role.

My first reaction to this was a hearty "HA!" Yours was probably similar. Guzman's not a popular guy, being as he is a fat, incompetent money-leech. But the welfare of the team should come before any sick joy we derive from seeing the punishment of the emblem of the Bowden Regime, and the team probably won't be any better with Clayton as the full-time shortstop. Guzman, as I've mentioned about thirty times in the last couple of months, is not actually as bad as he was last year. That was an aberration, a nightmarish abnormality in an otherwise somewhat-less-than-mediocre career. Clayton is no better and is on the team only, as far as I can tell, to keep Brendan Harris off it.

If we're going to sit Guzman, Alfonso Soriano would be a better choice to replace him, as long as Princess Alfonso decides he's up to it (note to Bowden: this time make sure he'll do it before you announce it, dipshit). Yes, it would make our infield defense bad to the point of Dada absurdity, but it solves a pretty sticky problem Bodes dealt his way into, and it would add a nice kick to the offense. At least it gives us options -- Clayton is just the same problem with cooler hair.