Burden

Here's an awkward question: Are we bad fans?

By "we," I mean "y'all." "All y'all," to be less specific. Not me - I'm definitely a bad fan. One of the worst. I only go to games when there's a Livan-related trinket available.

The evidence that Nats fans are bad at being Nats fans is mounting. Sure, it's all circumstantial, but we're not looking at whether the fan base is going to prison, only whether it has bragging rights over Cincinnati or Phoenix or wherever. The burden of proof on this one is light as a feather.

We call it the fan base to make it seem bigger, by the way. You don't want to call and say the fan is going to be there. We put "base" on the end of it.

Some blog intended to help the SEO of a site that's trying to sell you after-market tickets put together a hell of scientific study about fan base enthusiasm, factoring in attendance and ticket price and even diseases of the modern age like Facebook and Twitter engagement.

It's the .48 that gets me. You can't round up.

We're terrible at this stuff! Are you doing your part? Make sure to follow @Nationals on Twitter with both the real account with your name on it AND the one with the funny pseudonym you use to troll desperate semi-celebrities.

Then there was this story about TV ratings. Ratings for baseball are pretty great everywhere, and the good news is that around here they're well up from back when they were under nine thousaaaaaaaaand.

The bad news is, on a per capita ratings-type basis, we're getting outdrawn by damn near everyone. Even Baltimore! Have you seen what they're doing up there? Playing in an empty ballpark, Steve Pearce at second base, running out of Hawaiian shirts before I got there - it's been a complete debacle.

It looks a little better as a counting stat rather than a rate stat - 67,000 butts in their own seats per game - but still. We're 19th out of 30.

The attendance is actually pretty good. After a pretty rough start (2005: 8th out of 16) and rougher middle (2010: 14th out of 16), we're up to 4th. We're number four!

Based on the available facts, I conclude that Nats are not terrible at being Nats fans. Rather, they are rational actors who respond to incentives and whatever you call the opposite of incentives.

If you offer them Shake Shack and Livan bobblehead dolls, they go to the game. If you offer them Bob Carpenter, they switch over to Ancient Aliens.

PS Make sure to check this out, where Wm. Yurasko makes a pretty convincing case that Aroldis Chapman would be only the third-greatest Cuban in Nats history. He also has a line about Chapman's fastball vis-à-vis Jayson Werth's reckless and imprisonable disregard for all living things that I wish I'd thought of and which I now cannot rip off since I've made it clear that I know about it.

Utopia

That was a close one. We were a baby's head's breadth away from disaster.

If it weren't for Michael A. Taylor, a man with the body of a man and the head of a baby's head, driving in a couple runs in the 8th and then stealing second and scoring another one, we'd be in real trouble: headed to Pittsburgh to face a superior team while only one game ahead of the damn Mets, who refuse to acknowledge the Nationals as their betters and stop trying.

Note how his hand is too big for his head. Because it is a baby's head. The head of a baby.

Thanks to Taylor, we're living in some kind of Elysian Shangri-La-Ass Utopia: headed to Pittsburgh to face a superior team while two games ahead of the damn Mets.

So things could be better, and my prescription hasn't changed. We need some offense. We need Aroldis Chapman. We need to set up a GoKickMe so we can afford Aroldis Chapman.

We'll see what happens. I'm just going to sit here pushing myself back into the sofa cushions as I watch my nightmares come true.

The Charoldis Fund

On Monday I laid out a mathematical case that the Nationals should acquire Reds closer Aroldis Chapman. The math included numbers such as "101," "103," and even "106." Those numbers are irrefutable.

The counter-argument contains some much larger numbers, such as "176 million" and "210 million." This argument consists of the Nationals payroll and the money promised to Max Scherzer to induce him to throw his no-hitters for Washington.

The counter-argument is not being made publicly, but unfortunately it's being made by the only people whose opinion matters - the pack of Lerners that signs the checks.

It was revealed last month that the Lerners think they've spent quite enough on this team, and any mid-season improvements are going to have be more or less free, which means they more or less aren't going to happen.

The Nationals’ owners, despite being among the wealthiest in the sport, are reluctant to add payroll in the middle of a season, according to major-league sources.

So that's that.

Or is it?

We're living in the future, and while we don't have flying cars or colonies on Mars or double ties, we do have crowdfunding. If you can get a whole bunch of people to pitch in a few bucks apiece, pretty soon you have Chapman money.

This futuristic method of fleecing suckers has already accomplished so much. Among other things, a whole bunch of people pitching in a few dollars apiece have:

1. Saved the Icelandic goats, evidently the stars of an episode of Game of Thrones, from non-dragon-related extinction.
2. Sent apparent musician Amanda Palmer a million dollars so she could make a record and pay musicians in hugs.
3. Allowed Who's Your Caddy? executive producer Chris Roberts to escape his high-flying Hollywood career so he could follow his dream of making Wing Commander again but this time spending $80 million dollars to do it.

These are the winners in the new crowd-funded economy. One of them throws a hundred miles an hour, one of them is a goat, and the other two robbed drama club kids and nerds.

I'm very nearly serious about this. What if the Nationals made it known that, gee, we almost have a trade worked out for a high impact player who can put us over the top, but we need just a little more money. Click here to donate and make it happen!

Are there rules against this? I'm sure they aren't allowed to mention the specifics of what you'd be paying for. They probably couldn't even do something crafty like using pseudonyms - you know, "Charoldis Apman" or whatever.

That, however, can be solved very neatly by leaking information to friendly writers. "Sources say the Nats are close to acquring a reliever whose name rhymes with 'Chardolis Apman'" - that's the whole reason Ken Rosenthal exists.

It's not like shame would hold them back. They're willing to charge damn near 300 dollars (American!) for an Ian Desmond jersey. Setting up a GoKickMe or whatever to raise bullpen money is far less objectionable.

Even Bolsinger

The Nationals lost two of three to the Dodgers over the weekend, and it has me worried.

I saw about half of those three games on Saturday. There's nothing I love more than a single admission one-and-a-half-header, so after the lights went out on Friday I made sure to get myself a seat in the very hottest part of the stadium, rendering me a deep mahogany color. Blog game George Hamilton.

The narrative seems to be that the Nats ran into a "gauntlet of aces," so who can blame them for losing? The Dodgers threw reigning MVP Clayton Kershaw, unpleasant weirdo Zack Greinke, and even Mike Bolsinger at us - we should be happy we won one of them!

Which, I mean, yeah, it's tough to hit Kershaw and Greinke, just as it's tough to watch Kershaw's Subway commercial or (I'm guessing) have a conversation with Greinke.

I. Like. To. Eat. A. Sandwich. With. A. Steady. Diet. Of. Fastballs. Oh God I'm so lonely

But what do we think is going to happen when we get to the playoffs? Hitting tough pitchers is how you win a World Series, dammit. The opposition isn't going to be running Jerome Williams out there in October.

If you can't score runs off good pitchers, you lose. My evidence for this is the 2014 postseason, in which the Nationals couldn't even score runs off the remains of Tim Hudson and Jake Peavy, and they lost.

So this series loss is not something to brush off as bad starting rotation timing. The playoffs are nothing but bad timing. They don't let the Bolsingers pitch in October; you have to hit the good ones.

This winds up being a happy corollary to my Aroldis Chapman longings. As I baked in the right field sun, I was musing on how odd it was that the Nats were starting Clint Robinson against Kershaw. I don't mean to pick on Robinson, really. He's a great story! And he's producing, which is more than you can say for some of the jockjaws on this team. Of all the people who have ever played baseball, he's definitely one of the twenty best who are currently on Washington's active roster. He's a glittering gem of a baseball professional.

But you have to think that any manager - even Matt Williams! - would rather not play Robinson, who is a marginal major leaguer who bats left-handed, against Kershaw, who is the best left-handed pitcher, no matter how dry and clinical his Subway commercials come off.

I can't even blame Williams for this one, though. The only other option in left was Matt den Dekker, who also bats lefty. Personally, I would have given den Dekker the start in the second game on Saturday, since about 40 minutes previously he'd won the first game of the day by den Dekking one into the upper den Dekk, but whatever. Williams had no choice but to pencil in a marginal lefty hitter against Kershaw.

The Reds aren't selling only pitchers. Remember Marlon Byrd? He hits right-handed, he's making more money than the Reds want to spend, and he was a National as recently as 2006. All of that screams "throw-in in a Chapman trade" to me.

Ten years ago, he saved us from starting Endy Chavez every day. He can save us again.

Seriously, a Robinson/Byrd platoon in left field every day goes a long way toward solving Priority Number One for the low cost of about three million dollars. It ain't my money.

Artist's conception of what it would look like if Marlon Byrd played for the Nats again. 

"Chapman" Means "Peddler." "Aroldis" Doesn't Mean Anything.

The Reds have given up, and that could be good news for the Nationals. It won't them from stop beating the hell out of the Nats all the time, but they might be convinced to disgorge a Cuban for us.

They've made it clear that they wish to be done paying Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake, but we don't need either of them. We got so many starters. Joe Ross isn't in AAA if he's in an organization that needs starters.

What we need is Cincinnati's slow-walking, smooth-talking, triple-digit-fastball-throwing closer, Mr. Aroldis Chapman.

The important thing here is the numbers on the left. They all start with a 1 and have three digits.

I know what you're saying - We have a closer! Drew Storen isn't the kind of guy you trust to close a game you really, really care about, but he's a proven closer.

I'm totally with you on that. The bullpen is, in my opinion and why would I have anything other than my opinion on this here blog, this team's third-highest priority.

Priority number one is offensive production from left field/first base. We're hamstrung here because Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman are 1. Going to come back sooner or later and 2. Have too much seniority to replace.

Do you remember when they called up Zimmerman and made him play shortstop because they didn't want to insult Vinny Fricking Castilla? It's been ten years, and I'm still holding a grudge. It's not the same people making the decisions these days, but some of the ideas linger. They're not going to make Werth park his jailbird ass on the bench just because they have someone who can hit to play left. Therefore, what point is there in acquiring someone who can hit to play left?

Priority number two won't be addressed because it would be really weird to fire a manager at this point in the season, even if he's Matt Williams. I think even I might be against it. Tony La Russa isn't walking through that door.

So that leaves us with priority number three: the bullpen, and that's why I want Aroldis Chapman to become the second-greatest Cuban in the history of the Washington Nationals.

You can work around having two closers. Let them take turns. Get the platoon advantage. Tell Storen to deal with it because the other guy is way better. Just do it. I don't care what it costs.

I ask the Nationals: Do you want a World Series, or do you want us to think you want a World Series?

Wouldn't it be nice to see this at Nationals Park? Feed your bullpen. Feed it.

Two Tens

It's been pretty negative around lately, especially considering that I'm talking about a team on pace to win 90 games.

It's not that I'm wrong (never!) (please don't look in the archives thanks). It's a matter of emphasis - the Nats are good, but I want them to be better. I hate because I love.

It's good to take a step back and think about how much things have improved. I mean, not everything Nationals' management does is ideal or even sensical, but that's nothing compared to the Bowden years.

What made me think of this was Padres general manager A.J. Preller getting completely put on blast by Rany Jazayerli at Grantland.

Jazayerli makes a convincing case that Preller has taken less than a year to destroy the Padres root and branch and sow Petco Park with salt. It's a fun read, and that's even before you to the part where we benefit personally from Preller's 300 days of fire.

For the privilege of acquiring Wil Myers, the Padres surrendered five players, among them Joe Ross (Tyson’s brother) and the “player to be named later” — whose name everyone knew at the time: shortstop Trea Turner, the Padres’ first-round pick last year. Ross, the 96th-ranked prospect before the season per Baseball America, pitched his way to the majors after just nine starts in Double-A this year, and in three starts for the Nationals he has walked two batters and struck out 23... 

The Padres got a good look at what they gave up in Turner, Baseball America’s no. 65 prospect before the season, when he hit .322/.385/.471 for their Double-A team while waiting for the one-year anniversary of his signing to pass so he could formally be given to the Nationals. He’s in Triple-A now, still raking. On Baseball America’s midseason list of baseball’s top prospects, published last week, Turner ranks no. 9 and Ross ranks no. 31.

That trade looked great at the time, and time has only improved it. The Nats gave up Steven Souza, whom they didn't need and who's been decent enough with the Rays, but not so much that you miss him a whole lot. Also included was minor league pitcher Travis Ott, who is now 20 years old and in a couple of years has a real good chance to be 22.

In return the Nats got two guys who could well make up 2/9 of the starting lineup every fifth day next year, and who will be playing for the major league equivalent of free.

Please note that both Ross and Turner are better prospects now than when Mike Rizzo grabbed them. It's like he knew!

What's the catch? The Nats didn't eat any salary. Turner didn't show up to Harrisburg with a wooden leg. Maybe Jazayerli answered that question - the catch is that Preller's an idiot, and Rizzo conned him out of his stuff.

It's like Rizzo asked Preller to trade two tens for a five, and Preller forked it over.

So, in conclusion, I'm going to spend a lot of whatever blog posts are made out of complaining about the management of the Washington Nationals from this point up until the trade deadlines (both the fake one and then the real one no one understands). But no matter how annoyed I get, I will always remember this occasion when our team pantsed another team.

A Special All Star Message

Hi, folks. Doug Fister here, from your Washington Nationals.

I hope you're enjoying the All Star Break! I tell ya, it's the most exciting time of the year, assuming you don't like to watch baseball games.

I'm certainly enjoying the time off. Oh, they wanted me there. My phone was blowing up with texts from Bochy. "cn u pich 4 nl pls?!" Sorry, Bruce. I was honored, but I didn't want to detract from what Harp and Sherz  were doing over there. Let's get that spotlight off Doug for a few days, huh?

Seriously, though, folks, I think it's important to take a moment to think about all the guys who aren't All Stars, the fellas who missed out on all the festivities in Cincinnati not because they're too busy with charity work but because they just aren't very good.

Some call them scrubs or jobbers or enhancement talent. I call them . . . Doug's Dudes.

All season long, I've been doing my part to help out underappreciated ballplayers by letting them hit homers off me. I mean, anyone can give up a long one to Todd Frazier or Giancarlo Stanton. You really have to groove one to let Kolten Wong get his name in the paper.

I'm proud of what the Doug's Dingers program has achieved this year - eight home runs, and not one of them hit by an All Star.

There was Wong and Matt Carpenter, who really got the whole thing going. Joey Butler got one. Who's Joey Butler, you ask?

Exactly.

I hooked up Juan Uribe and A.J. Pierzynski, and they're so old they played for the White Sox the last time they won a World Series. I just skimmed Baseball Reference, and that was in 1917!

Derek Norris, Kelly Johnson, Cory Spangenberg - these are the dudes I do it for. They're Doug's Dudes.

Reacquisitions

It's the All Star Break, so I guess it's incumbent on me to follow journalistic (or at least fact-checking) convention and sum up the Nationals at this moment.

Um, they're pretty good. Remember how awful they were in April? It really was astounding, but they've recovered from that.

It's awfully cool to have the presumptive Cy Young and the presumptive MVP playing on the same team. As long as that keeps happening ("that" having a two-part definition, the first part being that they're both playing, and the second part being that they're still good enough to win all the awards), there's a floor to how bad it can get. The Nats are lucky that under that floor is a crawlspace in which dwells the rest of the NL East.

So I'm trying to be positive - there's plenty of reason to be. But I can't shake the feeling that the Nats aren't quite good enough to win the whole thing, and that they're not going to get any better. The combination of best-in-the-league performances from two guys and surprising contributions from scrubs isn't sustainable.

I'm as pleased about Clint Robinson as anyone, but do we think his OPS+ is still going to be 112 at the end of the year? We do not.

I myself saw with my own eyes (otherwise I wouldn't have believed it) Tyler Moore win a game for us by hitting an RBI double.

It is possible, but it's not probable. Don't think it'll happen again.

The real problem here is that Nationals' management has every reason to stand pat. There's no reason to think they won't win 90 games and win the division. We've already heard about how they think they've spent quite enough money this year, and an unwillingness to load up on salary is going to make it difficult to upgrade in a significant way.

So expect to hear a lot about how all these dudes coming off the DL is just like updgrading the team via trading. Jayson Werth coming back - why, that's like trading for a brand new outfielder! Who hits .200!

That's not all, either. It's not out of the question that we could "reacquire" Anthony Rendon two or three more times this year. Just think what a difference that'll make.

Right. Richtig. Correctamundo.

Being right is so much fun that I'm surprised I don't do it more often.

At the end of May, when we found out that Jayson Werth was going back to prison or the disabled list or whatever, I suggested that the Nationals would do best to acquire a major league hitter.

I actually felt pretty silly writing that post, since it was such an obvious take. Who could disagree? I was in one of those moods where I just want to churn out content even if it's pointless. It happens a couple times a decade.

The very same day, Mark Zuckerman of Nats Insider actually did disagree, for which I will always be grateful. Suddenly that post suddenly wasn't so pointless. Only that one, though.

Now I'm feeling more pointful than ever, because Zuckerman has subscribed to the Distinguished Senators School of What the Nationals Should Do, as pioneered by me at the end of May.

"Do the Nats need to acquire another bat?" Zuckerman wonders. It's like he stepped into some kinda pain in the ass spacetime vortex that bumped him back six weeks. Don't tell him what happens in June. He wants to be surprised.

His answer is yes, by the way. The Nationals do need to acquire another bat. Zuckerman has - without admitting it, I'm sorry to report - recanted his earlier foolishness and - also without admitting it - conceded that I was correct the whole time.

The fact that he was unaware of my correctness is no defense.

One other note from that Nats Insider piece:

Denard Span? He’s in Dallas today visiting a back specialist and quite worried he has a more serious ailment than everyone has believed since he first began experiencing back spasms a month ago.

"Everyone" can be forgiven for getting this one wrong, aside from the (presumably) trained medical professionals the team keeps around to handle exactly this kind of issue.

Have those guys gotten anything right this year?

Are We Worked Up

I went on vacation, but I didn't miss anything.

The Nats are winning enough to keep their crappy rivals at bay. The lineup has more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire, and no outside help is forthcoming. Stephen Strasburg is hurt, and the Nats can't beat the Reds.

Nothing has changed! It's like I stepped into some kinda pain in the ass spacetime vortex that bumps you back six weeks. Don't tell me what happens in June. I want to be surprised.

Other than that, I don't know - are we worked up about our dudes not making the All Star team? Scherzer's in there, but he probably won't pitch. Harper helped MLB and its sponsorship partners set a major league data-mining record by getting more votes than anyone ever.

But that's all we got, at least until the first wave of replacements comes in. All Star rosters are getting to be like the NBA playoffs - it's not an accomplishment to make it; it's a failure if you don't make it.

I am looking forward to the All Star break, but it's nothing to do with the game. This team is in dire need of four days off. It brings us four days closer to Jayson Werth coming back, but there is an upside. We also have some good players who will benefit from the time off.

Dedication

The Nationals are sending some pretty inadequate lineups out there lately. Ian Desmond batting third; Clint Robinson batting fourth; Matt den Dekker batting.

You can't argue with the results, but we've been lucky. Don't think it's anything more than that. When they inundate you with heart-warming stories about Emmanuel Burriss playing in his hometown, that's to distract you from the fact that Emmanuel Burris is in the lineup.

The Nats have problems. They're thin right now, brittle. Sending the International League All-Stars out there can work for a while, but not forever.

And this - den Dekker, Burriss, etc. - is it. This is what we got. The cavalry ain't coming.

The Nationals’ owners, despite being among the wealthiest in the sport, are reluctant to add payroll in the middle of a season, according to major-league sources. 

Never mind that the Nats committed $210 million to right-hander Max Scherzer last offseason; ownership’s stance also is influencing the team’s current trade discussions, sources say.

That's it, then. We have what we have, because improvement would cost money, and they spent all their money on Max Scherzer.

It's presumptuous to tell another man what to do with his money. So here I presume to tell the Lerners that this is not the time to get cheap. What we have now is a team good enough to win the division because the division is easy to win.

What we want - and we all want this, right? - is a team good enough to win a World Series before it falls apart over the winter.

It's easy for me - all I have to do to show how dedicated I am to that goal is talk about it. There are some people named Lerner out there on whom it is incumbent to spend some millions of dollars to show their dedication.

Merciless

I'm relieved. Kicking the hell out of the Braves was a vital thing to do at this juncture. They were within two games, and when a lesser rival tries to impinge on your turf, you have to deal with it mercilessly.

I'm guessing Jayson Werth picked that up back in February and passed it on to the rest of the team.

Seriously, it could have been bad. What if we'd lost that series? Disaster.

There were good signs even aside from the wins. The starting pitchers, for example, broke some kind of made-up-ass record. It's not like anyone actually cares about the franchise record consecutive scoreless innings by starters, but this last turn through the rotation does show that what was supposed to be our strength might actually be as good as advertised.

• Fister? Back!
• Strasburg? Maybe back!
• Scherzer? Holy crap is Scherzer great. 
• A couple other guys? Yeah sure!

And they even scored seven runs Thursday with the B-team.

Which brings us to the gloomy part of the post. The team was as B-ish as it was because Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon are hurting.

Rendon has a "little bit of an issue with the quad that he’s been playing with," no doubt ignoring his doctor's insistence that playing with it only makes it worse. Based on his injury history, we can expect to see Rendon back in time for Thanksgiving.

Harper is dealing with a similar issue. His leg hurts. This is worrisome, because frankly his legs haven't been doing a super great job of carrying him around lately. If they can't do that, what else are they good for?

Even if this particular quadriceps problem isn't a big deal, we're all expecting Harper to hurt himself for real at some point, right? This beautiful dream has to end sometime, and I don't think we're lucky enough that it'll wait until October.

Things That Don't Matter

"Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." - Edmund Burke

Which is to say that if you replace Jordan Zimmerman with Drew Storen in the ninth inning with a one run lead and Storen then blows the lead once, you should learn that you shouldn't replace Jordan Zimmermann with Drew Storen in the ninth inning with a one run lead a second time.

I think a chimpanzee could learn this. I'm sure Bud Black could. Davey Johnson probably knew it already.

I don't want to dwell on that right now, though. I want to complain about things that don't matter.

After four innings in Wednesday's game, the Nationals were getting carved up by Shelby Miller, while Jordan Zimmerman was somehow preventing the Braves from scoring. Bob Carpenter was treating these performances as if they were equal.

Heading into the commercial break he said (more or less; I'm going with the Thucydides method of quoting people here), "Two pitchers being very efficient in what they're doing."

At that point, Zimmermann had thrown 61 pitches, five of which were turned into hits. Miller was at 49 pitches and one hit. One of them was definitely being efficient.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining about Zimmermann's results. He was getting the job done, and he was even better from that point until some idiot took him out of the game (he got through the fifth on maybe four pitches, which prompted F.P. to start singing "Smooth Operator").

Carpenter wanted to say something good about Zimmermann, but the tiny, underused part of his brain that is aware of the other team told him that the other guy was better at what he was complimenting Zimmermann for, so he just lumped them together.

I guess what bothers me about Carpenter is that he basically doesn't acknowledge the other team - everything is chalked up to the Nats doing good or the Nats doing bad.

 Actually, a more accurate Bob Carpenter rating system would go something like:

1. NATS ARE AMAZING
2. Nats do GREAT
3. Nats do good
4. Nats do their best
5. Nats do bad

It's not evenly distributed - if you graphed it, it was peak at 2, and you only hear 5 a couple times a week.

Even beyond the homerism, Carpenter's reluctance to admit that there is another baseball team playing the baseball game makes the broadcast boring. I mean, I know the Nats. I watch them all the time. Let's hear something about the guys who aren't on my TV every night. Stay up late and watch a Dodgers game, Carp. Vin Scully can make even a visit from the Diamondbacks interesting.

It's tough, you know? I get all excited because the Nats are coming on, and then I hear that MASN music and get triggered because that's when it hits me that I'm going to have to listen to stupid crap for three hours.

Haruspicy

That was a fun weekend. It's fun to score runs, it's fun to throw an almost-perfect game, and it's really fun to kill another team's momentum. I'm not sure I have the numbers exactly right and I don't care, but the Pirates had won eight in a row until they stumbled into town just like a sacred cow.

That happened to the Nats in Cincinnati at the end of May, and things hadn't been quite right since.

Are they quite right now? That remains to be seen. We're back in first place, but that has as much to do with the cruddiness of our rivals as our own quality. Between them, the Nats and the Mets have let Atlanta get to within two games of first place.

All the Braves have done to deserve that is not implode like the rest of the division. They haven't had their second baseman standing in the middle of the diamond yelling at their befuddled coaching staff, and they haven't hired some random hillbilly to be their manager. That's good enough for almost first place in the National League East.

So, you know, we'll have to see. I know that's not a satisfying answer, but I have the luxury of giving unsatisfactory answers since I don't do this for a living. I had the radio on yesterday, and someone was asking Mark Zuckerman if the Pirates series was a turning point, like the big comeback against the Braves.

The obvious quibble there is that if the Braves comeback were a turning point, we wouldn't be asking if this is another one. Did all that momentum or whatever only last a month? And now, like, the Nats beat up on the Pirates so bad that it refilled their spirit meter, so they're good until August?

But Zuckerman had to pretend there was something to that idea, because that's his job. You have to imagine that the ups and downs of a baseball season are telling a story, and that the last chapter can help you predict what's going to happen next.

That's not how it works in real life - Chekhov's gun probably isn't going to go off. If you're trying to figure out what's going to happen tomorrow based on what happened yesterday, you might as well open up a sheep and see what it looks like in there.

Items

The Nationals aren't very good. Maybe you noticed! They keep losing baseball games. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they know they shouldn't do that.

Recent developments may offer us a way out.

Item: The Nats have talked to the Cincinnati Reds about Aroldis Chapman. They won't get him, but wouldn't that be great? Chapman throws harder than two Livans put together, and that's part of the reason that getting him won't be inexpensive.

Even though this probably isn't going to happen, it is a sign that Nats management realizes that this is the time to go all in and make sure they win the division. The bullpen could definitely use shoring up, although my priority would be left field. Chapman, though, is good enough that you don't really worry about that. Get him.

Item: The Padres just fired manager Bud Black. I don't stay up late enough to watch a lot of Padres games. Actually, what makes me think I'd watch Padres games if I were up at three in the morning? I need to stop making excuses for why I don't watch Padres games. Gotta be true to myself. About Padres games.

Anyway, I can't speak from personal observation, but Bud Black seems to be a well-regarded manager, even though that can't possibly be his real name. He must have gotten started in a punk band, right? The point is that he's available, and he's apparently pretty good.

Which works out great, because my list of areas where the Nats need improvement goes like this:

1. Left field
2. Bullpen
3. Whatever it is Bud Black does

Stand by for News

Anthony Rendon's back! That's great. Rendon is my favorite Nat for two reasons:

1. He came up through the system. I saw him in a game with Harrisburg. He didn't do anything, but he was there. Well all like dudes our team drafted more, right?
2. It was a mere nine years ago that I told Nats fans that we were going to love Matt LeCroy because of his miles of smiles. The first thing I noticed when Rendon came up was how cheerful he seemed. He was always smiling, and his body language seemed to say "Yay I'm in the majors!" It was really endearing.

And then he turned out to be the best player on the team last year, so it all worked out pretty nicely.

Now he's back, and they decided that he's a second baseman again. According to the dude on the MASN broadcast that they got to replace Debbie Taylor, the Nats' reasoning here is that they want to keep Yunel Escobar in the lineup, but they don't want him to switch positions because it might make him uncomfortable.

Who cares if Yunel Escobar is uncomfortable? Sure, he's been a pleasant surprise. He's jacking all kinds of singles and probably scoring on a lot of Bryce Harper homers, but you don't move Rendon out of his natural position for a guy like Escobar.

It only lasted an inning before Escobar came out of the game and Rendon was playing third anyway, but still. I don't like the thinking there.

By the way, when I saw Rendon with Harrisburg, his manager was . . . Matt LeCroy.

And now you know the rest of the story. Good day.

Infested with Lice

So the Nats are lousy now. I was there on Tuesday night, when Tyler Moore hit cleanup. I'm glad I didn't pay for those tickets, because paying money for a professional baseball game and finding out Tyler Moore is hitting cleanup is like . . . well, it sucks.

I did pay like fourteen bucks for a sandwich, but it was really good. Plus I got a "commemorative coin," which is going to sit at the bottom of my junk drawer until the next time I need a little tiny screwdriver to adjust my glasses, at which point it will commemorate the time I got to watch Tyler Moore hit cleanup.

I noticed that when Casey Janssen came in to serve up some meatballs, the Blue Jays fans gave him a standing ovation. It's nice that someone loves him, because as far as I'm concerned he can just get the hell right out of here and never throw another pitch while wearing a hat with a W on it.

Stephen Strasburg has a strained "trapezius," which is just damn good writing. Seriously, a couple posts ago I was trying to think of a joke about the Nats inventing a body part to pretend that Strasburg injured just so they could make it so he doesn't pitch anymore. I couldn't come up with anything, so I gave up.

But the Nats invented the "trapezius." Isn't that great? I guess whoever came up with it was at the circus or something. That's hilarious. "Ow, my trapezius!"

The important thing is that he's out of the way, and now Taylor Jordan can take his place and . . . oh hell. I briefly forgot that the Nats are lousy now.

Bold

That was grisly. The Nationals just got swept by a "should we fire our manager?"-level bad team. I have some notes. I'll bold the names so it looks like a gossip column or something.

- Kudos to Joey Votto for demolishing the offensive stereotype that Canadians are pleasant and polite.

- Kudos to Babyhead Michael Taylor for completely kicking ass all weekend after I spent my whole Friday saying he wasn't good enough to start. Eh, it's not like anyone read it anyway.

- On Friday, the Nats finally figured out what we've all known for a long time - that Stephen Strasburg is injured and should be put somewhere he can't do any harm to himself or to others. So they replaced  him in the second inning with Taylor Jordan, who sounds like a chick but pitched like a man. In the 6th, the Reds walked Babyhead with a man on second to bring up the pitcher.

Superstar manager Matt Williams had gotten four scoreless innings from the first guy out of the bullpen. This was clearly the point where you pinch-hit for him, give him a hearty bro-slap, and try to extend the lead. But nope! Williams let Jordan hit poorly for himself and blow the lead in the bottom of the inning.

- I wasn't paying super close attention on Saturday, but apparently Jose Lobaton messed up his hand and couldn't throw. Why in the hell did he finish the game? I know it was Ramos' day off, but if I've learned anything from Generation X film classics, sometimes you get called in on your day off.

- There were exactly two things I enjoyed about this series:

1. Did you see when Denard Span flung that homer back onto the field, turning it into a not-a-homer? The Great American Ballpark (ugh) starting shooting off fireworks as though Span hadn't flung it, and he looked at the source of the fireworks and shook his head. "Nah, I handled that. Not a homer." That was great.


2. Ray Knight doing color was a lot of fun. He was as bloodthirsty as Rob Dibble, and the MASN broadcast has been missing that kind of animal savagery. He wasn't afraid to call out the Nats for swinging at junk, and he provided some insidery strategic insights that F.P. Santangelo doesn't bother with. On the con side, he still feels the need to chuckle at the worst of Bob Carpenter's jokes, which F.P. has learned to ignore.

Replaycement Postscript

In this morning's post, I argued against a position that I wasn't sure anyone had actually taken. We need to replace Jayson Werth, I said, because:

1. The Nats are going for it this year
2. Werth was terrible before he got injured
3. Werth will likely be terrible when he's not injured anymore
4. The Nats' in-house options are not good enough

Now Mark Zuckerman at teh Insider has taken the opposite position.

And they’ve established they can win without him already this season. Since Werth last played May 15, the Nationals have gone 9-2. 

So the notion that general manager Mike Rizzo needs to go out and acquire another left fielder to take Werth’s place is a bit misguided.

What could be more definitive than a sample of eleven games? Eleven games, by the way, in which the Nats did not score very many runs and were carried by Bryce Harper.

For one thing, Werth isn’t out for the season. He will be coming back, and Rizzo isn’t the type who usually gets pressured into picking up a player to fill in for only 2 1/2 months.

If this team really cares about winning, he'll be coming back as a pinch hitter.

Werth also remains under contract for two more seasons after 2015, owed $21 million in 2016 and again in 2017. He’s not going anywhere.

If this team really cares about winning, they won't let sunk costs stop them from getting the team into championship shape.

Zuckerman then goes on to describe the Taylor/Moore/Robinson crap chimera that's getting Werth's playing time. He acknowledges that they're not any good before showing us the bright side.

Take Werth’s stats out of the mix, and the Nationals’ remaining left fielders have been just as productive, even more so in some cases: a .215 batting average, .271 on-base percentage, .329 slugging percentage and .600 OPS. Still below-average, but the guy they had for most of the season’s first six weeks was producing at below-average levels to begin with.

So on the one hand, Werth is going to come back so we can't fill his spot. On the other hand, Werth was playing so badly that we don't lose by playing scrubs in his place. If the second part is true (it is), then the first one doesn't make any sense.

There are a lot of silly assumptions here, like that since the Nats have been winning so far while getting nothing from left field, they're bound to continue winning if left remains a black hole. Or that the rest of the lineup is such a murderers' row that we can punt on LF anyway.

When it comes to the people actually making the decisions, I'm worried that bit about "$21 million in 2016 and again in 2017" is going to loom larger than it does in either my or Zuckerman's analysis.

Replaycement

Jayson Werth has a broken wrist, and I just realized that Blogger puts a red underline under "Werth" when I type it but not under "Jayson." It just did it again! Weird.

It took a couple weeks for anyone to think to get Werth's wrist looked at, apparently. At the time, the man himself said, “I’m relieved . . . It’s still swollen. It was bad. About as bad as it could be without being broke.” And that's why you shouldn't necessarily trust medical diagnoses from dudes with bad grammar who just got out of jail.

This is the same medical staff that told us Anthony Rendon would only be out for a week or whatever. That was in March.

Anyway, it's time to consider our Werthless present and contemplate our Werthless future. Let's not forget that Werth was completely useless in his short time spent on the field this year. He couldn't hit or field, and the Nats should have been looking for alternatives even before the fateful wrist-plunk. We know he can't help us now; we have to consider that he might not be able to help in the future. A 36-year-old outfielder with a thrice-busted wrist isn't something you bet on.

The Nationals have a couple options here: they can stay the course, or they can look elsewhere. Consider, though, that the first option is just terrible. We're looking at Michael Taylor as an everyday outfielder. I know we all love Taylor - he got some big hits back when the Nats couldn't do anything right, and he looks like a little kid.

But he's not hitting. Remember when he stepped in for Bryce Harper and hit that grand slam against Arizona? That was May 13, and he hasn't done a damn thing since. That's closer to being literally true than you might think - he hasn't had an RBI or an extra-base hit since that homer. Two singles, one walk, and 12 strikeouts.

MLB Trade Rumors runs down our other options:

The Nationals have some other alternatives in house, including Tyler Moore, Clint Robinson and the rehabbing Nate McLouth.

Did you shudder? I shuddered.

Clearly, this isn't acceptable for a team that's trying to win a World Series before everyone hits free agency. The iron is hot, the sun is in the correct position for hay-making, and the rosebuds are gatherable.

I'm worried the Nats are going to half-ass this, expecting that Werth is going to come back and be good enough to justify starting. I don't think that's likely, and I want to see them do something big and find a long-term solution.

Either way, they need to do something soon. The Nats are not generating a lot of offense at the moment, and it'll catch up to them at some point. Time to start kicking the tires on a gently-used Brewer or something.

Do They Like Him? Do They Like-Like Him?

More All Star voting news! Mark Zuckerman at teh Insider reports that our very own Bryce Harper has more votes than anyone else.

Harper has received 1,116,582 votes to date, edging out Cardinals third baseman [and Doug's Dude] Matt Carpenter (1,113,060) as the league’s top vote-getter and well ahead of all other NL outfielders.

That's good news. I'm not sure I completely agree with Zuckerman's conclusion, though.

No other Nationals position players rank in the top five right now, which is testament to Harper’s immense appeal around the country, not only in D.C.

Harper's getting all the votes; the other Nats are polling like Fat Elvis; that must mean America Loves Bryce!

I have my reservations about the "immense appeal" theory, assuming that Zuckerman is referring to something more than the respect a player earns from out of towners by being great - something closer to affection. I'd suggest that Harper leads all NL players in All Star voting merely because he's leading all NL players in being good at baseball. No appeal required.

And as far as his teammates not making anyone's ballot - really, what other Nat would you vote for unless you had a rooting interest that superseded any concern for the process? They won't let us vote for Scherzer. I guess Wilson Ramos has case, but it's a "he should be in the top five" case rather than "he should be winning." Other than that, our best candidate is Danny Espinosa, and he's not even on the ballot.

Nobody's voting for Ian Desmond, right?

Psephography

We're starting to get early results from the All Star voting, which reminded me that I'm boycotting it this year and probably forever.

They announced before the season that there wouldn't be any more paper ballots. This news, along with a neat reminder of why the internet is terrible, can be found in a piece by Ted Berg on "For the W!N," USA Today's attempt to show how hip and snarky it can be.

Bad news for people who aren’t reading this: Major League Baseball will eliminate its paper All-Star ballots in 2015...

Only people who don't know how to internet because reasons use paper ballots. For teh Epic W!N LOL!

This is terrible news for people who love paper chads but great news for inevitable Justin Bieber write-in campaigns.

OMG Justin Bieber amirite! Such chad very ballot wow. Something something bacon.

And moving to an online-only ballot might help the league keep it a bit more current, rather than frustrate fans with a list half-full of guys who are hurt or haven’t played regularly.

Look at the ballot, you meme-spewing halfwit. Jonathan Schoop has played nine games this year, and he's on there. Scooter Gennett is back in the minors, but you can still vote for him. Anthony Rendon is on the ballot.

So anyway, I'm sitting this election out. I love paper ballots. We all enjoy baseball, but let's not act like there's not a lot of downtime. Poking out a little piece of paper next to "A. Rendon" forty times is second only to drinking when it comes to filling that downtime. It's to the point where I don't even want to go to a game after voting ends. Part of that is because I try to avoid going outside in August, but the lack of ballots has something to do with it.

I don't like not having the paper ballot option, because signing up for things on the internet is creepy. I've given MLB my information enough times that it probably doesn't matter at this point (I weighed my options, and writing in Livan was worth it), but it's still not something to be encouraged.

Look at this privacy policy. It doesn't come out and say, "We need you to sign up for stuff so we can mine rich veins of data," but I can read between the lines.

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.

Spoilers

The Phillies are in town to get their whuppin'. I sound more confident about this than I feel - I'm actually expecting a letdown in this series. The Nationals, who are awesome, dropping a series to a pack of stumblebums like the Phillies would be ironically appropriate, like when Paris killed Achilles. Sorry about the spoilers.

I mean, it has to happen sooner or later. The Nats aren't going to win every series for the rest of the year.

Probably.

The Phillies somehow aren't in last place at the moment (see here for Ruben Amaro's probable reaction to that state of affairs). This is thanks to the Marlins, who responded to their team's struggles by hiring some random hillbilly to be their manager, which only seems to have made it worse.

It occurs to me that new Miami manager Dan Jennings is the Billy Carter of managers. Not in the sense that he has a famous brother, but in the sense that he's a random hillbilly who seems like he'd be up for shilling for questionable alcohol brands.

You probably know this from the Simpsons, but President Jimmy Carter's brother Billy parlayed his reputation as a drunken hayseed into his own brand of beer, Billy Beer. My heroes at Modern Drunkard Magazine report that after Billy Beer went the way of the Zima, Billy lent his celebrity imprimatur to a revolting concoction called Peanut Lolita. Peanut Lolita. If you've ever heard a creepier name for a drink, you made it up yourself and should be in jail.

Billy Carter drinking Peanut Lolita. If anyone knows of any other jobs where you get paid for looking like a dork and drinking straight out the bottle, please let me know where to send my résumé.

Wolves

We're all still furious at Marvin Hudson for throwing Bryce Harper out of the game for basically nothing, right? Even though we won? I've calmed some since it happened, but I spent some time last night musing on how much I would enjoy seeing major league umpire Marvin Hudson suspended or fired or torn asunder by wolves.

Cooler heads have since prevailed. I mean, at least he tried to help us out by getting Matt Williams out of there too.

What I do not find convincing is the argument that Harper shouldn't be removed from baseball games because people paid to see him. This line of thinking was all over the place last night, as exemplified in this ESPN piece that combines the idea with one of those Mastercard "priceless" jokes that would have been hackneyed ten years ago.

Washington Nationals ticket: $60.  

Bryce Harper jersey T-shirt: $30.  

The chance to see Marvin Hudson eject Harper in the third inning: Absolutely ridiculous.

It was ridiculous, but the first two lines do not contribute in any way to the ridiculousness. Harper deserved his ejection a week ago in Arizona, and the price of tickets or how many people wanted to see him had nothing to do with it. Would Harper's ejection last night have been hunky-dory if the fans had gotten in for free or if the stands had been empty? Does an outburst by Harper deserve more leeway than an identical blowup by, say, Tyler Moore, whom no one pays to see? I don't think we want an NBA-style caste system in baseball.

At most, the exorbitant price of a Bryce Harper jersey T-shirt should increase by one the number of ravening wolves unleashed on Marvin Hudson.

The Nationals did win, and the Mets of course lost. The Nats now have a day off to reflect on how they're in first place all by themselves, and the fact that it should have happened in April doesn't make it any less sweet.

The Mets, meanwhile, have a few hours before the Cardinals resume beating up on them to reflect on how nice it was to be in first for a while and how they're like Icarus. Icarus, you may recall, flew too close to the sun before his being absolutely terrible at flying kicked in and he died. Similarly, the Mets flew high for a while before they remembered that they're terrible at baseball and crashed back to earth.

The Mets Suck by  Jacob Peter Gowy (c. 1660)

HAHAHAHAHAH

AH HAH HAH HAHAHAHAHAH!

HA

*ahem*

WOOOOO HAH HAH HAH

WOO

Delayed

I was hoping to be able to slap together a quick post about how we're finally and for good in first place, but the Cardinals let us down last night. First they break Drew Storen, now this.

Did you see that game? The Mets always look idiotic, but they took it to a new level on Monday with those ridiculous Norman Schwarzkopf costumes. They looked like they were trick or treating in 1991. Except even sillier than that, since camo stops working when you put your hideous Met colors all over it and wear it with striped white pants.

"Trick or treat!"
"Oh, aren't you cute! What are you dressed as?"
"An asshole."

So it didn't happen last night, but it'll happen soon enough. Maybe tonight.

Bryce Harper won his second straight Player of the Week award, an honor that I guess is important enough to capitalize.

This isn't news to you, I'm sure, but he really is amazing to watch right now. Harper's at-bats alternate between clinical detachment, as he calmly watches a pitch an inch inside go past him, and sudden, brutal violence when he swings. It's actually kind of unsettling.

A typical Harper AB goes something like this:
Ball 1.
Ball 2.
JUMP SCARE!

Attrition

That was some road trip, huh? The Nationals blasted their way to the Pacific like a dyslexic William Tecumseh Sherman, and now they're a half a game out of first.

As in any successful march to sea, there were casualties, and I'm actually kind of worried about this.

Jayson Werth got plunked on the wrist by fancifully-named bad pitcher Odrisamer Despaigne and hasn't played since. He was shockingly understanding about the HBP for a guy who just got out of prison. I was expecting the old broken-lunch-tray-to-the-throat.

We're not losing much with Werth out (especially if that contract is appropriately insured). Werth being out bothers me only as a matter of depth. Getting Babyhead Taylor in there every day is actually an improvement, but it makes the bench shorter and means we have to see Tyler Moore more than is ideal (i.e., at all even once).

Doug Fister, meanwhile, so exerted himself in his charitable endeavors that he has "tightness" in his "forearm," which all too often translates into "surgery" in his "Tommy John."

This is a problem. We were supposed to get The Rotation of Five Aces (Under a Definition of "Ace" Expansive Enough to Include Gio Gonzalez). What we actually have is One Ace (Scherzer is so awesome. He's like the Bryce Harper of baseball players) and four guys who might be hurt and whose velocity is down and who just generally aren't as good as they were supposed to be.

We're holding steady for now, but what happens when three of these guys go on the DL and one of the survivors is Gio Gonzalez and there's no one left in the bullpen because they're all starting?

In other National League East news, the Marlins just got beat bad enough by the Braves that they fired their manager, Mike Redmond.

The Marlins seem to have realized that hiring an inexperienced, recently-retired player to manage your ballclub is not the best way to win a whole bunch of baseball games.

Why am I mentioning this in a blog about the Washington Nationals? Ha ha ha I can't imagine why!

Apples, Spray Bottles, Bacon

Professor Bacon is back, and he brought a brand new Distinguished Senators feature with him: It's the Professor Bacon Bacon Blast of the Week!

I would like an apple

This week's Professor Bacon Bacon Blast of the Week award goes to "Babyhead" Michael Taylor for Wednesday's ninth inning grand slam against Arizona pitcher [look up who this is later] [actually, you know what? Don't bother]. I mean, we all know Bryce Harper would have done the same thing if he had better impulse control, but Professor Bacon doesn't care who dings the dingers as long as the dingers get dung.

Professor Bacon also wants to recommend this video. It's like he's trying to tell us something.

Having triumphed in the desert, the Nationals are off to sunny San Diego, where the locals play baseball in the middle of the night and sometimes wear camouflage uniforms so as to confound their enemies.

Will Ian Desmond commit three or four more errors? Will Bryce Harper punch an umpire in the throat? Will Alexi Amarista become the next Doug's Dude?

If you could let me know about any of those, that'd be great. I'm not staying up for this series.

UPDATE: It looks like mid-2000s relic Professor Bacon isn't compatible with mobile devices. I asked him about it, and he just kind of tilted his head at me. So I said, "You know, Apple products," and then he suggested that apple products sounded pretty tasty and maybe I should him feed him one.

This Year's Model

Apparently Stephen Strasburg is this year's Dan Haren. You know, the guy in the rotation where you say to yourself, "We should be good enough to get away with starting this guy, right?"

Of course, we weren't good enough to get away with starting Dan Haren in 2013, so last year we didn't have a Dan Haren. This seems to me to be the superior strategy.

What's wrong with Strasburg? Beats me. He seems to be attempting to develop a new form of batting practice where you throw 95 miles an hour fastballs right where Diamondbacks can hit them. If that was his intent, he was successful. His other pitches didn't work, I guess. I didn't stay up for it.

The big question, of course, is injury. Wait, that's not a question. "Is he injured?" There. Matt Williams thinks he isn't, and that makes me think he is. I figure one more start before they realize it, and then we can go back to the good old days of Tanner Roark in the rotation.

We'll be fine either way, but it's really a shame that just as Bryce Harper transforms into Mickey Mantle, Stephen Strasburg turns into Dan Haren.

I wish I had stayed up if only to see the debut of our new lefty set-up man, outfielder Clint Robinson. I love it when position players pitch, especially when they manage to strike out an actual player (in this case, funnypage prettyboy Aaron Hill).

You broke Luann's heart, you son of a bitch. I'm glad you got K'd by an outfielder.

Robinson was winging the fastball up there at about 80, which is so slow that Fangraphs decided that half of them were changeups. That may not be sustainable, but he was getting better results than the guy throwing 95.

Tonight on MASN: Nationals vs. [Opponent]

“I have yet to understand the value of Arizona. I have yet to understand why God brought me here.”

-Cappadonna, never catering to none

It's a shame the victory lap had to start two time zones away against a bunch of guys I'd never heard of playing for a team I often forget exists.

Seriously, the Diamondbacks' starting lineup was like something from an unlicensed video game. I vaguely remember Aaron Hill from Toronto and from his appearances as an unattainable dreamboat in Luann.

Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Aaron Hill

And I guess I remember Paul Goldschmidt, but that's only because he led the league in homers a couple years ago, and I'd never heard of him then. I still couldn't pick him out of a lineup, especially if they put Mark DeRosa in there to fool me. I only know who he is because I don't know who he is.

But hey, eleven runs are still eleven runs even if you score them in the middle of nowhere against nobodies. And there's nothing to help you unwind after a long trip like winning a baseball game in which the outcome is never once, not even for a moment, in doubt.

Victory Lap

I don't know about you guys, but I am officially No Longer Worried.

Marlins? Taken care of.
Braves? Very much taken care of.
Mets? Well, that's just a matter of time.

Let's face it - back when the Nationals were tied with the Phillies for last place, it wasn't the Marlins, Braves, and Mets against whom they were competing. It was themselves.

It's almost as though the Nats were taking us on a tour of baseball history. On offense, the Nats recreated the magical year of 1968, when the Yippies ran wild, Apollo Something or Other orbited the Moon, and baseball players couldn't hit baseballs.

On defense they took us even further into the past by mimicking the forgotten, probably mustachioed gentlemen playing the game in 1868. Back then, they'd hadn't thought to bring gloves with them on the fielding job, and and a cleanly-handled base ball was as much of a novelty as an electric street light. Certain Nationals took this time-travel role-playing even further, fielding their positions as though they'd had an arm blown off at Antietam.

The last four series proved that the Nationals have dropped the Mr. Peabody and Sherman act and returned to the present day. The Mets will soon be swatted out of the way, and everything's going to be just fine.

Consider the rest of the season a 130-game victory lap.

Livan: Now More Than Ever

Today is the last day to write in Livan in the Franchise Four vote. I'm not expecting everyone to show the dedication that I did - I did actually write him in for every one of the nine teams he played for (I had completely forgotten that he was on the Rockies, and I bet they'd like to), along with Greatest Living Players and MLB Pioneers.

I didn't write him in for the Negro Leaguers vote. Outta respect.

While I don't expect anyone else to go through that rigmarole (much less to find the url for each team and paste them into nine consecutive words in a sentence that you've gone back and lengthened just so you have nine words for the urls), I do think it is the duty of every Nats fan to:

• Vote for Ryan Zimmerman
• Write in Livan
• Or at least someone who played for the Nats - Keith Osik or Levale Speigner or someone

Every vote that doesn't go to Dutch or Livan (or Deivi Cruz or whomever) goes to some damn Expo. I mean, Tim Raines is the poor man's Rickey and that makes him pretty great, but I'm not exactly burning to see him honored at the All Star Game in place of someone - anyone - who played in DC.

Write in ¡Livan!

This is the Urn

Bryce Harper hit three home runs on Wednesday, and that's something I'm in favor of.

It was the high point of what has so far been a Great Leap Forward for Harper, as he attempts to transform his offense through rapid industrialization and collectivization. I'm guessing that's how batting coach Rick Schu phrased it, anyway.

Translation: "Bryce Harper's bat is like a steel I-beam!" Note 106.7 FM The Fan broadcast tower in the background.

It's working so far. Harper's walking a ton and cranking lots of dingers. He's also striking out a lot, but this is now and we don't care anymore. His swing's better, he's not jerking his head around, and he hasn't yet KO'd himself on a wall.

So, is this it? We've been waiting ever since Harper was drafted for the big, MVP-caliber season. People have been disappointed so far, and while that disappointment isn't the most logical thing, it's understandable. He hasn't played a full season, never hit 30 homers, never been in an MVP race. Frankly, he got swagger-jacked by Mike Trout, who came up for good at about the same time and has been much, much, much better. Much.

But hell, Harper's younger than Trout, and according to advanced statistical projection systems, he always will be. He came into the season as still the youngest player in the National League, and it's his fourth season. There's plenty of time for Harper to do what we all expect him to.

I'm just glad it's happening now before he bolts for somewhere else with a $500 million contract, and I hope he stays well clear of walls.

These Days

Tuesday's game was very Nationalsy. It was the distillation of the Washington Nationals in These Times.

There were injuries, defensive screwups, and the inability of the players to make their bats contact baseballs in such a way that they (the players) were able to reach safely the bases strewn across the infield.

Mat Latos did it to us again. Mat Latos.

Big, booming offense wasn't part of the plan this year, I realize. When Mike Rizzo rolled this team, he put all the points could into Starting Pitching. The problem is that a starter can't do it on his own - even Kerry Wood in 1998 needed some help from his fielders, and Rizzo didn't put any points into Defense (or Constitution, Dexterity, or Charisma, for that matter).

When Defense lets down Starting Pitching, you need some kinda Offense. More, at any rate, than "One Run against Mat Latos" Offense.

The real star of the Washington Nationals in These Times, though, is manager Matt Williams, who should be fired. Or maybe demoted to AAA to work on his managing.

A good manager puts his players in situations where they are likely to succeed. A bad manager has Dan Uggla bunt. It's not entirely clear to me why Dan Uggla is hanging around this team, but I know it's not for bunting. His last sac bunt came in 2009, and that's still true even after Williams had him try it again, because it sure didn't work.

I also thought pinch-hitting with Doug Fister was pretty dopey, but I'm not going to act like I didn't squeal with delight when it worked. It's like the universe is rewarding him for all that charity work he's doing with Doug's Dingers.

UPDATE: Bob Carpenter just now, on Tom Koehler: "28 years of old..."

We're Rolling We're Rolling We're Rolling We're Rolling-uh

Imagine how confused the Phillies were. "This . . . this can't be possible," Ruben Amaro muttered as he scanned the National League East standings. "We took every precaution; our calculations were exact. We even signed Jeff Francoeur. The experts said there was no way we weren't finishing last!"

I don't know why the Phillies are so desperate to finish last, and I don't much care. I will say that their plight reminds me of the mid-1990s, when the Phils weren't trying very hard to win and we were supposed to pretend that Philadelphia was a "small market." I remember standing around in my giant baggy pants listening to Soul Coughing and trying really hard to ignore that Philly had, like, three times as many people as Atlanta.

Amaro no longer has to worry that he should have tried harder to give away Chase Utley: the Nats are no longer in last place, and the Phillies can settle in there for the long haul.

Meanwhile, in the higher reaches of the division, the Mets got taken down a peg just like I wished for. They're still in first, but they know it won't last. Previously unbeaten at home and with a winning record against their superiors (i.e., us), they are now very much beaten at home and with a losing record against their superiors. Ha ha.

Now the Marlins come in with their weirdly Nationals-esque narrative. Terrible at the start of the season, they're currently on some kinda hot streak. If we can win this series, we'll be at least in third place and maybe even over .500. If that happens, I won't be talking so much about firing Matt Williams, although I will still be thinking it every moment I'm awake.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get me a Livan bobblehead.

Update: Success! Looks just like him.

First Mistake

I get the feeling that this weekend is going to be great, but I'm going to miss it all. It's already started, actually - I barely saw Thursday's game. I have a horse race to prepare for and a brisket to smoke. Some things (e.g., brisket) are more important than watching the Mets get their upcommence.

The Mets getting brought down a peg is still really important, though. Look at the them strutting around with their idiot colors and their silly name. "Duhhhh we're in first place," they say. "And we read on Distinguished Senators that the Nationals are terrible and won't ever catch us."

Reading Distinguished Senators was your first mistake, The Mets. Well, except for picking your name and your colors. I guess those were first. And there were probably some roster mistakes early on. Maybe Casey Stengel wasn't the right guy for that job, either.

But anyway, reading Distinguished Senators was a recent mistake, The Mets. You're in first place now, but it's a fluke and you know it. The Nats are only five games back, they're better than you, and Matt Williams can't hold them back forever (right?). As you sift through the rubble of another wasted season, you may look back fondly on April. It's all you'll have left.