Jade

Here's how jaded the Nationals have made me: the last two years when we ran out of pitchers, I noted it. I ranted, I raved, I took cheap shots at a fellow man's choice of leather trousery. This year, it took me until the second start by some reliever with the obviously made-up name of "Levale Speigner" (is this an anagram? Anyone?) to notice. The reason, no doubt, is that the starters are so lame (literally, in some cases) that the drop-off when you pull a former Fort Myers Miracle out of the pen and beg him for five innings isn't all that much.

We lost to the Reds, which happens a lot. If I'm reading this right -- and there's every possibility that I'm not -- the Nats are 2-10 vs. Cincinnati over the last two years, and not a year has gone by that I haven't recycled that joke about how we're scrappy but the Reds beat the "s" out of us. Because I love it.

The game proved the importance of venue on how the game is played. Rather than a low-scoring, making-pitchers-look-better-than-they-actually-are affair typical of RFK, we got dingers flying out of the bandbox. The result, a two run loss, is familiar enough no matter the environment.

Game Notes

• Nook Logan had two strikeouts, got caught stealing, and did something else bad that I forgot about.
• The winning pitcher sounds like a sex act I want no part of.

Make Up

Does winning three of four from the Braves make up for losing our first series with Baltimore? For most of you, probably not. I don't even hate the Orioles, but I'm disappointed as well. I don't want to be called a pessimist, but a division title might be outside the range of the Nationals' abilities, and I'm rooting for Atlanta to do it if we can't. Anyone but the Mets.

A similar question: does Nook Logan's Sunday make up for his Friday? Sunday saw him at his Nookiest: two stolen bases on two consecutive pitches, a walk, and of course the double that called the Orioles' strategy of spending millions of American dollars on their bullpen into question.

Friday's performance was a Nooklear disaster. As you know, Logan's there for speed and defense. Replacing Ryan Langerhans in center field, Logan slipped in a painful-looking way and handed Kevin Millar a single. Millar, having transmogrified at some point into the much more athletic Freddy Bynum, later came around to score. In the 9th, he walked and stole second -- good! But then he failed to take third on a ground ball and was stranded there when he should have been using his Nookish velocity to tie the game. If one were feeling uncharitable, one could charge Logan with costing the Nats two runs in about a third of a game.

Logan isn't the kind of guy who's going to hit two-run doubles all that often. No one is claiming that for him. It's all about the speed and defense. But every time either or both of those abilities let us down, it shrinks Nook's usefulness margin drastically. It's the same reason I get a little queasy every time Zimmerman airmails a throw over Belliard's head -- if he doesn't have the D going for him, he doesn't have a lot.

Speaking of Ronnie Belliard, I can't help but giggle whenever I see him pretending to be a first baseman, as he was on Sunday. What's the thinking here? I have a couple of theories.

• The Nationals are attempting to hasten Nick Johnson's recovery by appealing to his sense of team loyalty and pity. See what we're reduced to without you, Nick? Please come back, baby. Please.
• Manny Acta lost a bet.
  

Essais de Théodicée sur la Groin de Logan

Theodicy is the branch of theology that endeavors to explain the existence of evil in a world governed by a benevolent and all-powerful God. Providence is the idea that God provides for and takes care of us. Sometimes the difference is a matter of perspective.

Nook Logan messed up his right groin (I only have one myself) on Saturday and is probably headed for the disabled list. Rough stuff. Here's a guy who's struggled for years, shuttling from the minors to the majors and back. He finally finds a team desperate enough to give him a chance to be a starter. Just as his dreams are in reach -- WHAM! -- one of his groins fails him. A theologian's rationalizations, I think, would be no comfort to Nook Logan right now.

Consider the Nationals, though. This works better if we pretend that the team is a sentient animal, one that's incapable of taking care of itself. It lives in some kind of open to the public pen, surrounded by slack-jawed yokels watching its every move. Its handlers do their best for it, constructing a shiny new pen and making sure it gets the best diet they can afford. But sometimes things get a little tight, and the Plan just doesn't have room for the top-of-the-line chow in the budget. So they're going to feed it Nook Logan, which at the very least is going to give the Nationals a very severe case of indigestion, the worst it's had since so much money was sunk into that four year's supply of Guzman. Well, Logan's injury, like a bolt from the heavens, may have just saved the Nationals life. That'll make you think and make you grateful, and you're not particulary concerned that some poor fellow just lost a groin.

And that's pretty much how I feel. I'm sure Nook Logan's a nice guy and all, and we're all brothers on Spaceship Earth and all that crap, and I suppose on some kind of philosophical level I'm deeply concerned about his groin. Or, to be more precise, I know I should be deeply concerned about his groin, but I'm not going to lie to myself. Nook Logan can go ahead and schedule a full-on double groinectomy if that means Chris Snelling gets to play every day.