Karate Foreshadowing

The Nationals have been doing some excellent foreshadowing.

First, they underlined the fact that they are definitely going to win the division by going to Missouri and kicking ass across its entire expanse.

Then they ran into the Cubs, who it turns out are going to be this season's final boss.

It's just like in Karate Kid when Karate Kid meets the guy from those Buffalo Wild Wings commercials, and you're all like, "Ooh I bet Karate Kid is going to have to beat that guy in the big karate tournament after suffering some setbacks but prevailing because he believes in himself."

That's what happened to the Nats this weekend - they're just setting the groundwork for their triumphant comeback in the NLCS. After the Cubs walk Bryce Harper for the 42nd consecutive time, Ryan Zimmerman will step up to the plate hoping to improve his 1-42 record in at bats after the Cubs intentionally walk Harper.

And he'll do it, even though he can't really play anymore and Joe Maddon had Tommy La Stella or somebody intentionally injure his knee. You're the best! Around! Etc.

But we do need to talk about the batting order. Harper got the full on Barry Bonds treatment on Sunday - the Cubs walked him six times and hit him once. He didn't swing at a pitch.

The Cubs were comfortable doing this both because Zimmerman can't hit and because Joe Maddon doesn't give a damn about anybody's feelings.

I mean, that had to have been deeply humiliating for Zimmerman. I feel bad, and it's not because my favorite baseball team lost. I think there are managers out there who wouldn't have challenged Zimmerman like that just to spare his feelings.

But Joe Maddon is the Sensei John Kreese of baseball, so he did it and it worked.

Cubs manager Joe Maddon (left) instructs his pitching staff

And while I care about Ryan Zimmerman's feelings (seriously, I do - it's not like he's Jayson Werth), he's going to need to suck it up and get used to batting a little lower in the order. Batting Harper and Daniel Murphy back to back is the only thing that makes sense.

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.

Blue Flowers

Hey, tonight actually was the night! The Nationals finally broke the "Tonight's the night" curse. I'm not about to dig through Retrosheet to figure out if the Nats ever won a season opener after tonight was proclaimed to be the night, but they lost the first one and the last one, so this is a step in the right direction.

Bryce Harper hit a homer and then wore a funny hat. Max Scherzer was pretty good, aside from an apparent desire to match the Nats offense dinger for dinger. Daniel Murphy won the game all by himself without subjecting us to any silly-ass walkup music.

There's no way this doesn't wind up being the high point of the entire season, Murphy-wise.

There was a fair amount of dumbassery, even with Murphy's entrance on mute. Rendon got picked off right before a home run. Even before they handed the Braves a run, you got a bad feeling from the bullpen – they had the look of a dog who's going to eat your food the minute you turn your back.

The dog represents pitchers who aren't Max Scherzer. The turkey represents giving up a run, I guess.

Sure enough, as soon as our backs were turned, Felipe Rivero walked in a run and, more amazingly, managed to walk Jeff Francouer.

The really worrying thing – more worrying than "What the hell are we going to do when the starter doesn't go seven innings? – is that Ben Revere, our brand new center fielder, couldn't even make it four innings before he hurt a rib and had to be entrusted to the bloody clutches of the medical staff.

Their office is not a place that you're guaranteed to make it out of.

Ben Revere checks in with the trainer. "You have ptomaine poisoning on your tongue. You need a bad operation."

It was a fun win, but we have to hope every victory isn't going to cost us a center fielder.

It's Too Late to be Grateful

On Christmas Eve, Daniel Murphy's representatives paid a call on Mike Rizzo. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and stood, with their hats off, in Rizzo's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Rizzo,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for unemployed infielders, who suffer greatly at the present time."

Representatives from the ACES agency make their pitch to Mike Rizzo

At this point, a certain kind of general manager - a more cautious, if not necessarily a better, one - might have asked if there were still prisons and Union workhouses, if the Treadmill and Poor Law were still in full vigour. Finding out that they were, he would have dismissed Murphy's agents, snapped at Dan Jennings for expecting to get Christmas Day off, and gone home to eat some gruel and be terrorized by ghosts.

Rizzo took a different tack. Overwhelmed by holiday spirit, he whipped out his checkbook and started writing, looking up to ask the portly gentlemen if 37 million dollars would suffice.

It did, and now we have Daniel Murphy for three years. I'll do the cons first:

They tell me Murphy can't really play defense. He's going to be playing second, at least until everyone gets injured, and bad second basemen are no fun.

Murphy's presence means that we'll be rooting for Ryan Zimmerman's inevitable trip to the DL to come before Anthony Rendon's inevitable trip to the DL. The former might send Murphy over to 1st base, where the damage he can do is minimized. The latter could set off a terrifying cascade of defensive wackiness, so let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Assuming he stays at second, this is a straight defensive downgrade; possibly a steep one.

The other reason I don't like this signing is that Daniel Murphy is a basic Irish-American. That's a new stereotype I just developed to describe people whose walk-up music is "I'm Shipping Up to Boston." Thanks to Rizzo's Christmas liberality, I'm going to have to hear that damn song a couple hundred times more than I would have otherwise. Sam Adams commercials have been more than filling my need to hear it, so this is not a welcome development.

Fricking Irish. I'm starting to think those 19th century editorial cartoonists had a point.

Daniel Murphy avec shillelagh

To understand the pros, I have to put in some effort to accustoming myself to baseball in these times. Consider:

A 770 OPS gets you a 113 OPS+ these days. Man, I'm from the 90s. Back then, you could slug .550 and bat eighth. Every shortstop hit 30. The roads were paved with dingers. We didn't have half a dozen basic Irishmen coming up to bat to the hackneyed sounds of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston," either. Back in my day, everyone used "Crazy Train."

The point is that by modern standards, Daniel Murphy's C+ OPS makes him a pretty good hitter.

The other weird thing is that pretty good hitters make 12 million dollars, and that still seems weird to me. Greg Vaughn and Jeff Cirillo never made that much in a year. Eight digits for a guy like Murphy makes no sense to me, but I guess I'll have to get used to it.

So, in conclusion, a lame conclusion. Maybe this is good! By the bizarre, degenerate standards of the mid-2010s, the guy can hit well enough to make an absurd amount of the Lerners' money.

On the other hand, maybe this is bad! I mean, is there really an advantage to having a second baseman who hits a little bit above average when he fields way below average? Is Murphy + Danny Espinosa - $12 million really better than Trea Turner + Danny Espinosa + $12 million? I'm not convinced, and I'm not sure a free agent signing that requires a number of injuries to pay off is a good investment.