Nature's Blue Jay

The Blue Jays ruined this weekend for me.

Last week the Jays went to Atlanta and had one of those "Screw you!"/"No, screw YOU!" kind of series where each game is more violent than the last. The lasting result is that Braves first baseman/all time legendary Nats-slayer Freddie Freeman is out for a while because some Canuck plunked him on the wrist.

It's a damn shame that this happened . . . against some AL team. If anyone was going to break Freddie Freeman's arm, it should have been us.

Remember when John Lannan broke Chase Utley's wrist? I'm not saying I wanted Utley's wrist broken — remember, this was long before he tried so hard to murder some Met on the basepaths that they had to make a rule about it — but the fact that it was a division rival generated more heat than if it had been a Diamondback or whatever.

You have to build these programs if you want butts in seats.

It's too bad this all happened against Toronto. Atlanta doesn't care about Toronto, Toronto doesn't care about Atlanta, and the teams aren't going to see each other frequently enough for this ever to turn into a real blood feud. This is exactly why I hate interleague play.

So the Jays ruined this series. They really are like Canada geese. Consider:

1. Canada. Sure, not all the Blue Jays are from Canada, but not all Canada geese are from Canada either.
2. They're dicks and everyone hates them.
3. It's possible that Rougned Odor once punched a Canada goose in the head so hard that its helmet and glasses went flying off.

The Canada goose is nature's blue jay.

I miss Freddie Freeman. He was a good nemesis. I mean, what's Achilles without Hector?

And if you're going to lose a series to the Braves (who aren't trying), you want someone like Freddie Freeman there to take the sting off. No shame in letting Freeman beat you.

I like Kurt Suzuki, but he isn't anybody's Hector.

Two of Six

There are actually people who argue about whether Scots - you know, like Robbie Burns or Trainspotting - is merely a hideous dialect of English or a whole different language.

Any of you who have had the misfortune of talking to Orioles fans lately will know what I'm talking about.

How bout dem O's, laddie?

I know they can be hard to understand, but in among all the "up'ere"s and "down-ee-ocean"s, our friends to the north have been expressing some distress about their favorite team. The O's been pretty bad lately.

Or rather, they were pretty bad until they ran into what I had been lulled into thinking was a pretty badass baseball team.

Sure, the Nats lost that last game to the Braves, but that's OK. The Braves are beaten, and it's like I always say: parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos. No need to bury our spear in that chest.

But then the losing continued, to the point that the Orioles, who are at best two-thirds of a baseball team (did you guys know that you need a pitcher for the beginning of every single game?), are kicking our asses up and down I-95.

It's bad enough that they're playing with house money and rolling Ubaldo Goddamn Jimenez out there against us.

I was - you won't believe this, but it's true - just about to post something that wasn't just me bitching and moaning. Something positive. But then the O's came along and ruined it.

Oh, don't worry. I'll still get it out there after things go back to normal. When you only have six ideas a year, you don't let setbacks against sorta-crappy regional rivals stop you from using them.

GG Ez

It's safe to say we've got this one wrapped up.

The Nationals just completed a four game sweep of the Braves, capping it with a game in which they ran Matt den Dekker and some guy named Heisey out there (I have no idea who this is. Did he win a contest or something?) and still took the Walgreens W.

Combine that with the a gritty 1-1 draw with the Marlins and a previous sweep of the hapless-but-only-because-they-keep-playing-us Braves, and the Nats are at 7-1 and in a dominant position in the division.

The National League East in 2016 has turned out to be surprisingly similar to the Franco-Prussian War. Everyone was expecting a real fight, but it was over instantly. We're sitting here in mid-April listening to a captive Napoleon III explain himself as we prepare to besiege Paris and inspire a musical.

Terry Collins (left) tries to figure out where it all went wrong as Dusty Baker (right, kickass helmet) looks on.

It's possible - MAYBE - that I'm being premature. Last year, I declared on May 11 that the rest of the season was merely a victory lap. That turned out not to be correct. But, look, I failed to take certain factors into account. One of those factors has found his natural level as Arizona's third base coach, and the other one's getting booed (already!) in Toronto.

Since those two can't make this sure thing any less than sure, we're set. Is there anyone to worry about? This division includes three teams that aren't even trying. I don't need to tell you about Atlanta. The Phillies have been tanking for a while now, and the Nats get to enjoy that starting tomorrow. The Marlins play uncharacteristically tough against the Nats, but that's not enough to stop this from happening.

The Mets? Yeah, they won last year. Won the division, went all the way to the World's Series of Base Ball, and forced me to root for the AL team for first time ever.

It was a fluke. They're a one-year wonder. The Mets are not the protagonist of this story; they were there in 2015 only to show how far the Nats had sunk. "Look what the Matt Williams did to you," said Baseball. "You have been bested by the Mets." Just as it took an FBI investigation to get Jim Bowden fired, so it took allowing the damn Mets into the penthouse to get Matt Williams out of here.

2016 has arrived, and they're already panicking. Their manager proclaimed an April 13 game against the Marlins to be a must-win, and that's as stupid as it is untrue. They did win that game, but it doesn't matter, because the Mets are only even going to finish second because they're the only one of the Nats' competitors deluded enough to think that they have a chance.

Good game. Easy.

Much Baseball

A status report for a baseball team on April 12 is going to be pointless no matter what, but for the Nationals it's even more pointless than usual. They really haven't played much baseball, owing to bad weather and bizarre scheduling, but they've won most of it.

The wins are good, but keep in mind that an actual majority of that baseball has come against the Braves. Atlanta wasn't trying to win at the beginning of the season, and they are now down to their third-string centerfielder, with Mallex Smith having bonked himself hard enough with his own helmet that he staggered back to the dugout looking like post-match Ric Flair circa 1984. 

It's bad enough that the Nats are forced to play their tiny-noggined #2 CF; at least they're not reduced to running Drew Stubbs out there.

Is there anything we're worried about on a 4-1 team? I find myself becoming uneasy about Daniel Murphy. Fretting about a guy who's slugging 1.000 is, I realize, an indication of my morose outlook and bad character, but consider this:

Daniel Murphy is currently hitting like Bryce Harper and fielding like Daniel Murphy. Which of these is likely to continue through the season?

An image search for "Daniel Murphy error Nationals" got me this excellent action shot of Ian Desmond trying to figure out what a baseball is and what he should do with it. I miss him so much.

Murphy's at bats have been the highlight of the season thus far, but his glove really is as bad as advertised. It might be wise to start sending out a defensive replacement after he bats a few times.

Speaking of defensive replacements, Stephen Drew has twice been the first pinch-hitter of the game. Why? He hit .201 last year, and that was a 50 point improvement over his 2014. Meanwhile, sitting in the dugout you've got Matt den Dekker, who already won one for us, and Clint Robinson, one of a precious few Nats who came out of last year looking better than he did going in.

But these are quibbles, the product of a brain so used to disappointments that it never stops looking for them. The wins are what matters, and the Nats have four of them. The Braves don't have any, and the damn Mets only have a couple. I need to remind myself of what it was like last April and try to enjoy this.

Enhancement Talent

The Braves are a sad sight that we can now put behind us for a while. They're a lousy team, they're not trying, and they're about to pull off an awfully cynical relocation, but it was a hard-fought series nonetheless.

It's nothing to worry about. You don't want to be averaging three and a half runs a game, but the wins are the only thing that carries forward. The details of the performance are not predictive.

Our returning heroes (minus one center fielder) open the home schedule against the Miami Marlins, who were a real pain last year.

They had a 71-91 record, but managed 9-10 against the Nats, which is pretty good for a team that's not trying any harder than Atlanta. They had a couple guys in particular who made every game a trial.

First baseman Justin Bour looks like the first guy in your middle school who had a mustache, and he bullied the Nats like he was a couple years ahead of us, hormonally-speaking. He "slashed" MVP numbers against Washington (327/417/558), and I instinctively pulled my underwear out of my ass whenever I saw his face on the Jumbotron.

"Why are you hitting yourself, huh? You better not tell the assistant principal about this."

On the other end of the spectrum in every way imaginable is Ichiro, who's carrying on the baseball tradition that gave us Babe Ruth: Boston Brave, Ty Cobb: Philadelphia A, and Brad Wilkerson: Texas Ranger by playing out the string with Miami.

I say "playing" only our of respect to a baseball legend, because the scrawny bastard can't really play anymore. He hit .229 last year with what might actually have been negative power. Except that when he was up against my favorite team, he very nearly turned back into a real ballplayer - .286! Over 20% of his 2015 hits came against the Nats.

If you add up his MLB hits and his hits in Japan and throw in some spring trainings and extrapolate a couple full seasons against Washington, he's got to be damn near 5,000.

The Natsiest

This is it, people. The final countdown. We're headed for Venus (Venus).

The Nationals just beat the ever-loving hell out of the Braves, and that's great. Curb-stomping the Braves is something I will never get tired of seeing. It hasn't been the hardest task lately, but when was the last time the Nats looked like a team that could do it? It might have been as long ago as June, when they actually did it.

So the Nats are heading into this series with the Mets in as good a shape as one could expect. The Mets, meanwhile, have become so Nats-like that I have to force myself not to like them. They just dropped two of three to the Marlins - that's something the Nats would do. They lost two games off their lead over the course of a weekend - sounds familiar. They're talking about shutting down one of their starters because of innings and ligaments and Scott Boras - well, it'd be nice for the Nats to have company when it comes to that kind of stupidity.

So we're hitting the Mets at their Natsiest. That's good, because they can send us to game over this very week if they get their crap together and the Nats regress to their second most recent state.

Europe Update: Europe actually put out an album this year. They're big in Sweden, I guess. Please enjoy the first single and title track, "War of Kings."

Results

Hey there, baseball fans. Doug Fister from your Washington Nationals here with an update on the Doug's Dingers program.

You know, there are a lot of charities out there, and they're not all equal. You've heard the stories about so-called charitable groups that keep all the money for themselves and don't get anything done. That's hard to forgive - I don't even think making The Score makes up for it!

You don't have to worry about that with Doug's Dingers, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Doug's Dingers gets results!

Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson were toiling in obscurity, which is to say Atlanta. Everyone had forgotten about Uribe, and people thought Johnson was a chick. I know I did!

But look what happened - two patented Doug's Dingers later, and suddenly both of my dudes get acquired by the Mets. Now they have something to play for, and that's what I call results.

People thought I was crazy to intentionally give up home runs to players who weren't very good. Or at least unethical. But when I see the faces of these Doug's Dudes when they get the good news that, thanks in part to me grooving a fastball right down the middle to them, they're back in the playoff hunt - well that, makes it all worth it.

Speaking of those Mets, they just picked up my old buddy Tyler Clippard. They're really going for it up there, huh? Makes me wish I could give up a homer to myself!

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.

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.

Lucky Number

That's how it's supposed to go: They are a bad team, and we are a good team.

The Braves gave up on this season before it started (right before it started). They're the Philadelphia Phillies of baseball.

Thus they are exactly the kind of team - and as someone paying attention in the 90s, this is still amazing to me - that you have to stomp all over if you want to win a little flag at the end of the year.

And the Nats did. And that's good. And Jordan Zimmermann's good-but-not-great pitching performance combined with his three-RBI day at the plate . . . well, he's like some kind of grim-faced, normal-shaped Livan.

For whom there's still time to vote, by the way.