White Suit Pressed

"I got my white suit pressed, out the cleaners."
-Dr. Octagon, Waiting Room

In addition to its official purpose, Memorial Day is an occasion to take your Boss Hogg suits out of storage and to take stock of your baseball team.

A classy fellow like Jefferson Davis Hogg would never wear white out of season, so The Dukes of Hazzard must have taken place entirely between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

My baseball team is really good, and I don't know how to handle it. The best team I ever blogged about went .500, and they weren't actually that good. There have been better Nats teams since then, but I was happy to enjoy them without trying to have an opinion about everything. This is an usual position for me to be in, and I'm learning that I can't take being this happy. But there's no reason for anyone, including me, to care about that.

The important thing is that the Nats are good, and it's not an illusion. They're in first place now, and there's no reason to think that it won't stay that way. They've reached this position in spite of a really heavy load of injuries, a number of disappointing performances, and an opening three weeks where they looked as bad as it's possible to look.

Anyway, here are some 28% of the way through the season awards.

• Most Valuable National: Bryce Harper is running away with this, to the point that he's the easy favorite for the actual NL MVP. He's a lock as long as he gets through the year without taking a swing at an umpire.

• Whatever the Nats-Specific Version of the Cy Young Should be Called: Max Scherzer is good at baseball, and I'm glad he finally got some wins. He was sitting on a really rough 1-3 record for a while there.

• Least Valuable National: Even if Stephen Strasburg isn't injured, it's getting to the point where you just make something up to get him out of there. Just tell everyone he's suffering from exhaustion, like when a famous person goes to rehab.

• Manager of the Year: Randy Knorr's steady hand guided the Nats through one of their darkest periods. It's no coincidence that the Nats are undefeated with Knorr calling the shots.