This Is Rickey Calling on Behalf of Giant Foam Rickey

Instead of presidents or pierogis or whatever, the A's have racing A's.

Left to right: Who Cares, Who Cares, RICKEY!

That's all well and good, but one of them is Rickey Henderson. How in the hell is Rickey ever going to lose a footrace to Dennis Eckersley? I guess I can suspend my disbelief to the point that it's plausible for William Howard Taft to beat Abe Lincoln, but let's be real here: This shouldn't be a contest. Ever.

Giant foam Rickey beats giant foam Eckersley every time. Real Rickey beats real Eckersley every time. Giant foam Rickey beats real Eckersley every time. The only way Rickey loses that race is if they pay him like Mike Gallego, in which case he'll run like Gallego. Pay Rickey!

I Wake Up Every Morning and I Craig Craig Craig

It looks my Nats comeback fever dream is going to need a new grizzled veteran, since Craig Stammen is on the disabled list with "forearm tightness."

"Forearm tightness" is the baseball equivalent of Clemenza telling you, "Oh, Paulie . . . won't see him no more." It's bad. Like, leave the ligament take the cannoli bad.

This might be my last chance for this to make any kind of sense, so I'm going to share the song that goes through my head every single time I hear "Craig Stammen." It's hell being me.

Craig can give you stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina stamina

This is a bad development, obviously, even though the work that would have been done by Stammen(a) has been handed over to a Heart-Warming Story. I've been a big fan of Stammen ever since 2009, when while he wasn't actually very good, he was the only dude on the whole damn roster who would throw two strikes in a row. I guess that was the Daniel Cabrera year.

This situation brought up a tangential issue: Where am I supposed to get my news? The official website is 50% ads and 100% useless. Bill Ladson's blog is somehow less up do date than mine. I used to rely on the Washington Post's Nationals Journal, but all of a sudden they want me to pay actual, real life money to read their internet blog about a baseball team.

And I'm all, "Sorry, man, but I'm from the internet, and I don't pay two dollars and fifty cents (American!) for baseball news. You jockjaws still got Chico Harlan over there? Oh for real? Yeah, I'm not paying you."

For now I'm relying on Mark Zuckerman at Nats Insider combined with however much of Bob Carpenter I can stand to listen to before I hit mute.

Brightside

It's not all bad. Here's a list of all the things we can happy about. Yes, there are only four things we can be happy about.

• We have the same record as the Marlins, and according the staff of the Sun-Sentinel, the Marlins are going to be pretty good this year.
• Matt Williams shook up the lineup AND brought in Blake Treinen in the seventh inning. I mean, the Treinen thing certainly (spectacularly!) didn't work, but it proves that Williams was paying attention. I had been wondering about that.
• Denard Span is on his way back to solve a problem that we don't really have.
• It's an early game today, so we can just get it over with and then get on with our day.

Rock Bottom

This is rock bottom, right? I have to think that after a humiliating butt-whipping like that, highlighted by no one catching any baseballs, things were tense in the locker room. Maybe some personal issues that had been simmering for years boiled over, like Tyler Moore took a swing at Jose Lobaton because of the time they were at the mall together and Lobaton ran into some of his friends from Tampa and ditched Tyler.

Artist's conception of the Nationals hitting rock bottom at the hands of the Red Sox as John Farrell looks on

And then after they pull Moore off of the backup catcher, a grizzled veteran stands up. Slowly, since he's all covered in ice packs because he's so grizzled. I'm thinking Craig Stammen.

So Stammen says something about how it hasn't always been easy playing for the Nationals. He's had to deal with leather pants, fireworks going off course and exploding the fire chief, and even the FBI poking around. But none of that was as humiliating as Mookie Betts stealing second and then just helping himself to third because there wasn't anyone there. Does this team even have any coaches, Stammen wonders aloud.

But look, Stammen says, visibly restraining his emotions, this could be our last chance, and I'm not going to sit here and watch you guys blow it by being completely terrible all the time. It's time for us to band together and learn about teamwork! It doesn't matter if you're about to be a free agent and can't wait to get out of here, or if you look like a little kid, or even if you're Dan Uggla. Together, we can do this!

And then everyone says "Yeah!" and Lobaton and Moore hug and then the song kicks in and we get a montage where the Nats win twenty in a row, interspersed with hilarious lighthearted pranks and capped off by a scene where it's the World Series and we're playing Boston and we redeem ourselves by not letting Mookie Betts pants us and we win!

So that's something to look forward to, and it all starts tonight.

The Real Victim

If only these guys could hear how sad they're making F.P., I bet they'd play better. It's just heart-breaking.

The Art of Storytelling

So here's the thing when you're dealing with a screenplay. Suppose you've written one, an inspiring true story of a young man who escapes from an oppressive regime, wins the World Series, gains 200 pounds, and becomes hero to millions.

Naturally, a bidding war ensues. The winner, rather than just filming the thing and preserving your vision, sends it around to be "punched up." Like, they send it to David Mamet for more swears or whatever. It hurts, seeing your vision adulterated like that, but it's the kind of compromise you have to make if you want to get things done.

The Nationals are currently relying on the following script:
Act 1: A National hits a solo home run
Act 2: The Nats white knuckle it until the ninth and hope the other team doesn't manage to score, like, two runs
Act 3: The other team scores, like, two runs
~Fin~

I don't like it, and I bet you don't either. Clearly it's time for Jayson Werth to take on the David Mamet role and punch up this script with some swears, by which I mean dingers. Or least hits. Something, for God's sake.

The Nats get their chance to punch up the script this afternoon against Red Sox starter Rick Porcello. The important thing here - and I don't think I can overemphasize this - that Rick Porcello's name is Italian for Rick Piglet. Rick Piglet!

Further Voting

I did the Mets too.

And here are the Marlins.

Up next: Diamondbacks, Greatest Living Players, Rockies, MLB Pioneers.

Write In ¡Livan!

It's time to vote for the Franchise Four, the fun, official activity that reminds us that this franchise doesn't have any history to speak of! Each team has eight candidates, and you get to choose four.

Except for Nats fans, who get to pick Ryan Zimmerman and three Expos.

At least it's an opportunity for education. I didn't even know who Steve Rogers was until yesterday, even though he might be the most 80s-looking ballplayer in major league history.

So I give credit to MLB for raising awareness of dudes who played in Canada 30 years ago and for having the intellectual discipline to go with the actual best players in franchise history rather than trying to appeal to their current paying customers.

I will point out, however, that the candidates list has a glaring, gelatinous omission. There's a pear-shaped hole in the ballot, but together we can fill it. #WriteIn¡Livan!

Click to enlarge the official Distinguished Senators ballot

Delay

The game was delayed, so I resorted to watching Austin Powers for a little bit. Remember the part where Powers and Elizabeth Hurley are talking about all the stuff he missed while he was frozen? One of the things she mentions is "the first female British prime minister."

(This isn't my main point, but this is a British person talking to an ostensibly British person, so saying "British prime minister" is kind of clunky. Who's your favorite American president?)

Later, when Powers is being tempted by the fembots and trying not to let his spyboner distract him from his mission, there's a "think about baseball" gag - Austin shouts "Maggie Thatcher naked on a cold day!" twice.

But he had never even heard of Margaret Thatcher until half an hour before that happened. I suppose it's possible that Elizabeth Hurley showed him a picture, and he found her so revolting that she instantly became his go-to debonerfication aid, but I don't find that convincing.

So then I did watch the game and holy crap did you see Ryan Zimmerman catch that bunt? That was awesome! He dove for that thing like a Secret Service agent leaping in front of a bullet.

Like the first game, it went according to plan. The pitching was good, the real players were good, and the ragtag bunch of misfits standing in for the other real players didn't do a whole lot. And we won! Not only did we win, in fact, but we beat a pitcher who looks like the next Tim Lincecum.

By which I mean that he literally looks like Tim Lincecum.

Correction

Reader(s),

It has come to our attention that yesterday's post ("Tonight's the night" 4/6/15) was not up to our journalistic or at least fact-checking standards. A list of the two worst infractions follows.

1. The event referred to did not take place at "night," at least not in any time zone that matters. A better title would have been "Toafternoon's the afternoon."
2. "The night" carries with it a connotation of excitement, fun, and good results. Given the events of yesterday afternoon, a different term should have been used.

In conclusion, yesterday's post should have been titled "Toafternoon's some garbage featuring Dan Uggla." We regret the error, and we will leave the post with its original, incorrect title as a reminder of our failures.

Yours,

Distinguished Senators

Tonight's the night

Nah. They Just Got Confused About Which Team He Was On

The Philly fans just cheered the hell out of Jayson Werth. I don't think it was just because he's totally dreamy.

Could it be that the conventional wisdom of the sports section is wrong?

Hygiene

I don't have anything to say about baseball, but I always have an opinion about watching baseball.

The highlight of the weekend's action was watching the crack MASN camera team bring the catcher narrative to life for us. On Sunday, Ivan Rodriguez picked up one of his late, agonizing hits on the way to 3,000, and the announcers took the opportunity to talk about how maybe Pudge is being pushed to greater heights by competition from Wilson Ramos.

The view on my television immediately shifted to Mr. Ramos himself, enjoying the game while hanging over the Mo Vaughn barrier in front of the dugout. What follows is a list of Ramos' actions while the camera was on him:

1. Pick left ear with left pinkie.
2. Examine left pinkie.
3. Pick right ear with right pinkie.
4. Examine right pinkie.
5. Make a face.
6. Brush off right pinkie on Nationals sweatshirt.

I don't know a whole lot about television production; certainly not as much as the guys who told Jim Riggleman to make really awkward hand gestures while he previews bad managerial decisions in front of a green screen. But I probably would have said something like "CLOSEUP ON JAYSON WERTH! NOW!" right after #1 in that list.

I also noticed that Bob Carpenter is still doing that thing he does. You know, the thing where the Nats screw up really bad, prompting Carpenter to mention the screwup as briefly as possible and then obsessively mention a much less damaging gaffe the opponent committed.

The first time I recall this happening was back in 2009. Elijah Dukes had evaded a flyball like it was a DUI checkpoint - this was back when the Nats couldn't catch anything - and Sunny Bob steadfastly maintained that David Wright was the bad guy.

It happened again on Saturday. Jonathan Sanchez walked approximately everyone, and the Nats responded by scoring only one damn run. I wasn't paying real close attention, so my only info was coming from Carpenter. Listening to him talk, you'd think Sanchez had walked in about fourteen runs. I was honestly shocked when I looked up to see a 1 on the scoreboard.

At least Dibble would have called him on it. I think Santangelo just mumbled something about "country hardball" as we went to break and winced through that Riggleman commercial again.

Happy Birthday Rome

Rick Ankiel continues to impress. Not as a ballplayer, because he's been awful, but as a story. Not only is he in many important ways just like a dinosaur, he appears to be just a heck of a nice guy.

During his first trip back to St. Louis as an opposing player, Ankiel thanked Cardinals fans with an advertisement in the city’s main newspaper.

“Many Thanks to Cardinals’ fans and the City of St. Louis for your support and cheers over the years,” the ad read, with a picture of Ankiel smiling. “It was a privilege and an honor.”

So that's nice, and he even played pretty OK during that series, so we shouldn't mistake his kindness for weakness.

Did you notice how all during the Brewers series Santangelo was whining about all the shifts? The complaints just kind of zipped into one side of my head only to escape from the other side without sticking to anything, but they did increase awareness of all those shifts. Turns out the Brewers are trying something pretty interesting.

The Brewers use spray charts to set their defense, and in many cases, that means defensive shifts that put infielders in odd places. It's common for most teams to position three infielders on the right side to play defense against power-hitting lefties such as David Ortiz, Adam Dunn or Jim Thome.
But thanks to information in spray charts that indicate where a batter is likely to hit a ground ball, the Brewers are taking infield shifts to a different level, sometimes to the extreme. For example, the Brewers' infield shifted against the Nationals' right-handed batters Jayson Werth, Michael Morse, rookie catcher Wilson Ramos and Rick Ankiel, a lefty.

I'll be interested to see if this winds up helping. As the data available to teams become more detailed, we could see some seriously crazy stuff. Only two of the dudes out there are restricted in where they have to be on defense. A maniacally charismatic manager could maybe find seven strong men without well-developed regards for their own safety and have them stand right in front of the plate. I'd think about that for the major league minimum.

Important news in the field of blogging equipment: Costco is apparently selling giant jugs of good-quality bourbon for basically nothing. Now, I live in a police state (as far as liquor blogging paraphernalia goes) bordering another police state. BUT! Say I put up an add on this thing and clicked on it from as many computers as I could get to. Could I write off gas for a road trip to Delaware on my taxes? Something to think about.

Lunch

You hear about this Rob Dibble controversy? It's about the silliest thing ever, but it gives me an opportunity to take a snarling walk down memory lane.

Rob Dibble was fired from his analyst job after Stephen Strasburg's season-ending injury prompted him to make some of those feral "walk it off, rookie!" noises that you may remember from when Ryan Church ran into a wall.

He recently claimed that Strasburg's dad was so incensed that he emailed the Nats, and that's what prompted the pink slip. Stan Kasten, formerly the guy in charge of apologizing for Jim Bowden, disputes that and hopes Dibble "gets whatever help he needs."

This argument is so trivial that it doesn't matter who's actually correct. Therefore, I'm siding with Dibble.

I know the guy's easy to hate; I've certainly taken shots at him. But Dibble's done some good. He provided a necessary counterweight to Bob Carpenter's cult recruiter cheerfulness. Remember the time he went all Dada and told you to bring a lunch? He wasn't here long, but he left memories that will endure forever. Some of them are even good.

Stan Kasten, on the hand, never did a thing for us. This is a guy who couldn't get rid of Jim Bowden without the help of the FBI. And when the Smiley Gonzalez scandal finally did break, Kasten bravely stood up and blamed everyone in the world but himself.

For all the talk about Kasten bringing the lessons of the Braves dynasty to Washington, the best thing about the Kasten Era was that we lost 100 games only twice.

Beat the Mets

I got to say - I don't expect much from this team, but I do expect a certain level of competence against the Mets. So good work and keep it up.

PS. Ok, I'm annoyed, and MASN has a damn problem.

I was watching MASN and wondering when the O's game was going to come on. That's when I heard the Manny Ramirez news, from Johnny Holliday and Ray Knight. They said: "Manny Ramirez is retiring." I thought to myself, "Huh, ain't that a thing?" and took another pull from my Jim Beam rye on the rocks.

An hour later, I get on my trusty personal computer and find out that Manny Ramirez is retiring . . . because he's facing a 100 damn game suspension for drugs.

I got no inkling of this from MASN. Knight said something about how Manny was maybe too involved in the steroids controversy, so they didn't completely avoid that aspect, but they certainly avoided the substantive part of it.

This is a dereliction of duty as far as I'm concerned. For once in my life, I relied on MASN to keep me hipped to the baseball news. They failed totally. "Manny Ramirez retires" is at best half the news.

Reversal

I guess it wasn't about getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot after all.

Ian Desmond will return to the leadoff spot tonight rather than swapping places with Danny Espinosa as Manager Jim Riggleman had originally planned. Espinosa will play tonight against the Marlins, but Riggleman simply changed his mind after saying yesterday he planned to hit Desmond, who began the season 0 for 13, seventh in the lineup and move Espinosa to leadoff.

It's been a bad day and a half for the two levels of management just above the players. Let's review!

• Jim Riggleman reverses his own inexplicable mistake and moves Desmond down in the order.
• Riggleman makes me watch a couple old men in the middle infield instead of playing the starters.
• Third base coach Bo Porter kinda loses the game by faking out Jerry Hairston with all the ankle-breaking elan of a prime Allen Iverson.
• Riggleman, concluding after less than one try that his new lineup wasn't optimal, moves Desmond back to leadoff.

So yeah, that's a pretty sour mixture of indecisiveness and incompetence, like a cocktail made of Coors Light and dishwater. Jayson Werth kinda lost the game too, but at least he hits doubles.

But none of that matters, because ¡LIVAN!'s pitching tonight. There should be a name for beautiful days like today. I mean, we had Strasmas last year, but ¡LIVAN!'s been bringing us joy since day one. Livanoween? La Fiesta de Santo Gordo? National 82 MPH Fastball Awareness Day?

A Post

They've rolled out the B-team four games into the season. Santangelo likes it, but I kinda want my money back. I wasn't prepared for a Cora - any Cora! - in the starting lineup just yet.

Other than my disgruntledness, the big effect here is to hide for a day the drastic reshuffling of the lineup. Ian Desmond, who's looked as bad as anyone can over three games, is no longer leading off; Danny Espinosa is.

Bob Carpenter was quick to point out that "This isn't about getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot." He didn't explain what other objective aside from getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot was to be achieved by getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot, so I'm going to go forward with the assumption that this was primarily about getting Desmond out of the leadoff spot.

Why was he ever there? I realize that this roster doesn't give you a lot of good options there, but Desmond doesn't get on base. It's just not part of his skill set. Other than just picking the up the middle guy with the most seniority, I can't figure out the thought process that wound up with him batting first anyway.

Greek for "Ankiel-Lizard"

Ankylosaurus was an herbivorous dinosaur that wielded a club made out of a bunch crap that congealed at the end of its tail. The typical Ankylosaurus found its target only occasionally, but it did enough damage on those occasions to make its Cretaceous contemporaries think twice about messing with it.

Rick Ankiel is an omnivorous outfielder that wields a club made out of wood, which he swings with the wild desperation of an also-ran dinosaur being eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Like his namesake, he seldom finds his target, but he makes sure it hurts when he does.

Rick Ankiel is the Than lan moc cau of baseball. And in my book, that's worth 1000 đồng.

Unlike the Ankylosaurus, which didn't exactly stand out among the really impressive animal life of 100 million years ago, Rick Ankiel has had one of the most compelling stories in baseball.

Ankiel came up with the Cardinals as a pitcher sometime during the pre-Nats dark ages. He boasted one of those preposterous curveballs that in other contexts would cause one to criticize a video game for being unrealistic. Unfortunately, his other go-to pitch was a fastball to the backstop, which he debuted and used perhaps excessively during the 2000 playoffs. It was an awful sight, and Ankiel was sent to the minors to work on some of those things that a pitching coach really can't help you with.

That should have been the last we ever heard of him. He pitched all over the Cards minor league system, threw some of those Desmond-style random target fastballs, and had some injuries. News filtered up through whatever it is that protects the casual baseball fan from every dispatch from Knoxville that he was going to try baseballing from the other side, as an outfielder.

The crazy thing was: it worked. He displayed both the power and whiffiness of an Ankylosaurus' tail, along with the ability to handle the outfield and gun down anyone who remembered his pitching career and figured it was safe to run on him. He hit a three-run home run in his first game back in the majors since his playoff humiliation and went on to have a couple quite decent seasons as a major league outfielder.

Isn't that nuts? I mean, that never happens. One of the things that happens when you watch baseball for a while and take the long view is you see the same stuff happen over and over. Great players get old, bounce around, and retire. Pitchers blow out their arms, try to come back, and retire. GMs rob Dominican teenagers, get investigated by the FBI, and get fired. Ankiel's career path is, if not unique, enough to set him apart from all the other soul patched hopefuls that march over the green fields of baseball every year.

And now he's here, bringing with him his rich backstory and his distinctive, dinosaur-with-a-bone-club-on-its-tail skillset, and I'm all for it. I'd rather watch an interesting player than a good one, and Ankiel's about the most interesting non-Cuban ballplayer out there.

Phew!

I don't know about you, but I need a breather after all that excitement. Good thing we get the night off, so that we can follow up an afternoon of of ¡LIVAN!'s gelatinous majesty with an evening with a band called Livan in Falls Church. 8 pm at the State Theater. Get your tickets here.

So let's see here:

• ¡LIVAN! rules
• Offense sucks
• Bullpen rules

The last time all those things happened at once, we finished at .500.

Tonight's the night

In preparation for today, I finally washed my Nats cap. The thing was a disaster, encrusted literally with the detritus of countless lawn-mowings and figuratively with the detritus of years of Nationals fandom.

This, I thought, was a new beginning. I would wash away all the sweat and little bits of grass that somehow wound up on my head and awful Boswell columns and Nook Logan at-bats, and together my hat, my team, and I would walk into a glorious future, cleansed of the filth of the past.

Almost nothing came off. It's ground in there too deeply.

And then I put my hat in the dryer and it shrank.

An Original Observation

This is AWESOME.

Omen Update: I got a hit today from Strasbourg, France.  DUDE!  Say hi to the geese for me, mysterious accidental French reader.

Still, I'd Rather Hear Buck Martinez

So I splurged for Extra Innings this year (love it!).  I just turned on the Rays/Jays game, and there's Kevin Kennedy's giant Easter Island head in the booth talking about . . . wait, what?!

Former Major League Baseball manager Kevin Kennedy was among eight individuals that subdued a man threatening to blow up a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Tampa, Fla., early Friday morning.

"He said, 'I'm gonna blow the plane up and take all you to hell with me,'" Kennedy told FanHouse.

At that point, Kennedy, along with seven other passengers, charged Stanley Dwayne Sheffield and eventually subdued him, Kennedy said.

So that was kind of a jolt. Almost sobered me up.

Stamp of Approval

Look, I'm not going to pretend I spent a huge amount of time thinking about the Washington Post beat writer situation after Barry Svrluga left.  When that fancy lad "Chico" Harlan made an ass of himself, I pointed at him and said "hey, look."  That's about it.  Now we have this Adam Kilgore guy, and I totally didn't notice.  Until now.

Sorry for today's absence of game updates. For some reason, my laptop and the wireless in the press box in Port St. Lucie did not get along today. Frank Robinson and Tomo Ohka had a better working relationship.

Holy crap, dude!  That is a serious, old school Nats reference.  And it happens to be right in my wheelhouse.  I loved Tomo Ohka and I hated Frank Robinson.  I spilled so many words on that stuff that I recently received an award for being the one person in the whole world, excepting those actually named Ohka, who cares the most about Tomokazu "The Landlord" Ohka.

You think Harlan bothered to educate himself about this formerly hot button issue?  I bet not.  Not with his busy schedule of bitching about his job and daydreaming about All the President's Men.

So, in conclusion, Adam Kilgore rules.

P.S. I'm still doing this.  I totally went in hella hard on this dude yesterday.

Finally!

I mean, they pretty much made it all up - didn't even interview me - but at least they spelled my name right.

It's That Time

So this year instead of writing buttery paeans to ¡Livan! or yelling at Chico Harlan or whatever, I'm trying this out.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Is It Just Me, Or Did It Get A Little Less Fat In Here?

Yeah, a little. On balance, we're still fatter than we were two weeks ago.

Is It Just Me, Or Did It Get Fatter In Here?

It ain't just me!

SAM Missile

I still haven't magically developed the coding ability to put that damn poem in a format that doesn't take up the entirety of the front page and the July archive, so hold on. But I totally looked at a Nats-related thing today (lay off, man. I just picked up Wii Sports Resort), and here's what I found.

That sequence of uncommon efficiency pointed to a broader, sustained truth about Lannan's pitching approach. Since June, judged either by stats or results, Lannan has become a different pitcher. He's also become one of the most unique in baseball, striking out almost nobody, pitching more innings than almost anybody.

Just . . . dude, I know you hate your job, but don't say "most unique." Just don't, man. Don't. I shouldn't have to tell you this, Chico. "I overexaggerated the amount of cash money in the ATM machine, as I found out when I entered you're PIN number too the machine." I shouldn't have to tell you these things. Damn.

Y is for Youth

Y is for Youth, that’s the Plan that we follow
Though the record we have makes it tougher to swallow
We’re better than last year, if I may be so bold
We still lose all the time, but at least we’re not old

Z is for Z-Men(n) – we’ve two of them now
R. at the corner, J. on the mound
By the time that we’re good – and this is a surety
Both Z’s will be collecting Social Security

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, and extra special thanks to Erato, muse of lyric poetry, for flitting about my head intermittently over the last month. Special whatever the opposite of thanks is to the Red Sox, for acquiring a LaRoche and robbing my N stanza of the timelessness to which great poetry aspires. Anyway, I'll put the whole thing up in one post tomorrow. UPDATE: And by "tomorrow," I mean "next week." Who knew it was so damn complicated to do a "Click to read more" on a post?

Postponed for the Start of the Riggleman Era

I'm going to finish this thing next week. I just realized that I have to go to an actual Nats game tomorrow, and preparing for that's interfering with my usual poetical routine of absinthe, opium, and RhymeZone.com, the rhyming dictionary. So stay tuned, and does anyone have a rhyme for "1962 Mets"?

W's for W

W’s for W, red, white, and curly
(My cap is a pink one – don’t say it’s girly)
We should be careful – it might mean tall green
If the lawyers decide we stole it from Walgreens


X is for Treasure, cause X marks the spot
Bad teams get good draft picks and good teams do not
Our death grip on last place ensures there’s no danger
That we won’t get first dibs on that catching teenager

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters. Hey, today's Bastille Day! Man, fuck Bastille Day. Seriously, look up Louis XVII on Wikipedia. We might as well celebrate Pol Pot's birthday.

U is for Unicorn

U is for Unicorn, rarest of creatures
A horn and not existing are its greatest features
The odds of you finding one out in the woods
Are the same as the Nats being any damn good


V is for Victory, that slippery dame
She doesn’t come ‘round much at Nationals games
Just when you think that she’s coming our way
In comes the bullpen to scare her away

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, thanks to the Nats for including me in on that letter and making me feel so much better about everything. "We hope to sign our 2009 draft choices by the August deadline" - feel the confidence!

S is for Strasburg

S is for Strasburg, whose bonus will floor us
That's what you get when you roll with Scott Boras
I can't say I care - he's not after my money
But you can see how the Lerners don't think it's funny


T is for Trees, our fine cherry blossoms
The first week of the season, they look pretty awesome
But when May rolls around, the view’s gone to potty
The trees are all bare, and they look like dead bodies

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, thanks to the Nats for manning up and drafting Strasburg, and also thanks to the Nats for not boring us all with a lot tedious negotiations. Have they even called him yet?

Q is for Quaff

Q is for Quaff (that's a dork word for "drink")
The Nats are more fun when you’re too drunk to think
Another Q word, one that here fits right in:
The Quinine in tonic, which goes with your gin


R is for Reds, where our players come from
Pena and Kearns, also Lopez and Dunn
We didn't do well, but the Reds are quite testy
Since Bodes set them up with a broken Majewski


Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, thanks to the Rockies for giving me an excuse to drink, and thanks to those pith helmet-wearing limeys for coming with a drink to express how much they dislike humidity.

O's for the O's

O's for the O's, our orange friends up the road
Whose owner, it happens, is a godawful toad
We've got little to boast when it’s time to get hatin'
But as bad as things are, our owner's not Satan


P is for Presidents running around
They get your hopes up, but then Teddy falls down
It’s a good thing they’re there and a good thing they run
It’s the only time Nats fans see something that’s fun


Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, thanks to George Washington for being the first president and having the dignity not to reenact sausage races, and special thanks to North Carolina for coming up with the idea of putting vinegar on pork shoulders.

M is for Milledge

M is for Milledge, aspiring rapper
Whose baseball career has gone down the crapper
It was bad before, now it’s worse by a bit
We sent him to Pittsburgh for a guy who can’t hit


N is for Nick, with his nifty moustaches
The baseballs he fields, the baseballs he bashes!
Enjoy while you can all his walks and base knocks
Since soon he’ll be working for the Boston Red Sox


Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, and big ups to me for rewriting the Milledge one on the fly.

M is for . . . Let Me Get Back To You On That

I'm going on vacation, so you'll have to wait a week for the resumption of the triumphant Nationals alphabet. I apologize for any weeping and depression that may ensue, but it's not like I can throw off my gauntlets in the middle of a LARP and drop internet rhymes on everyone.

K is for Kontrived

K is for striKeout, which means it’s for Dunn
Strike three sailing by him – that’s not very fun
As bad as that is, it’s nothing at all
To Dunn in the outfield, dropping the ball

L is for Lannan, our top lefty hurler
With eyebrows so long he could use a hair curler
Batters may be distracted - they must be surprised
When they see the sasquatches over his eyes


Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters and apologies to John Lannan. I just couldn't think of anything for the Lerners. By the way, if I ran a newspaper this would be my Michael Jackson headline: "It Was Thursday - What a Black Day." "Smooth Criminal" is my favorite Michael Jackson song, which I'm gradually realizing is unusual.

I is for Interim

I is for Interim, like our GM
Will Mike Rizzo stay on the job in the end?
I can think of one good reason he'll get the spot:
Just not being Jim Bowden counts for a lot

J’s for the Journalists who cover our team
The fans thirst for content, and they produce reams
The season is long, and it must be a slog
It only gets worse: now they have to write blogs

Thanks to FromOldBooks for I, and thanks to Chico Harlan for letting me photograph his iced-out J chain.

G is for Guillen

G is for Guillen, from back in the day
A hot-headed fellow indeed was Jose
Bodes brought him in – I don’t think he was kidding –
Based on his skillfulness at babysitting


H is Hernandez, my main man Livan
Who’s been growing sideways since he has been gone
He’s not very good – take a look at his stats
But he turns into Maddux when facing the Nats

And here's a special bonus stanza for Nate:

G's for GUZMANIA!, a grievous affliction
(What else to call a fat shortstop addiction?)
The fandom's so giddy at Nats Triple Play
That a guy's got to wonder if they've seen Cristian play

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, the Latin -ictio third declension feminine ending for making the Guzmania part so easy to rhyme, and extra special thanks to puppies for being so cute.

E is for Expos

E is for Expos, our Frenchy forebearers
Who decamped to the south for a ballpark much fairer
Since then they’ve performed with a maladroit touch
Je regrette, Montréal, but you ain’t missing much
F is for Flores, poached from the Mets
Which adds to the long list of that team’s regrets
We’ve been waiting around for Jesús to save us
But he keeps getting hurt, so we’re stuck with Nieves

Thanks to FromOldBooks for the letters, thanks to me for the dope rhymes, and thanks to the Mets for Jesús Flores.

C is for Cristian

C is for Cristian (no H in his name)
We used to be better when he came up lame
He’s now got new eyeballs, new shoulder, new spleen
He’s a whole new ballplayer – is he man or machine?

D is for Dibble, with his World Series Ring
He played the game; that’s why he’s got the bling
If ever you question his statements or hunches
It’s cool that you do, but bring own lunches

Thanks again to FromOldBooks for the letters.

A is for Acta

I think it's time for a little culture around here. Let's begin!

A is for Acta, our soon former boss
Every win to his credit, to his debit each loss
Add these things up and it’s quite plain to see
That he won’t be around by the time we hit Z

B is for Bowden, or Bodes to his pals
Dudes love the Segway, leather pants thrill the gals
If you ever meet him, he’s surely not bland
But check for your watch after shaking his hand





C and D on Monday. Thanks to Liam at FromOldBooks for the letters.

Tank!

Manny Acta's still the manager, and I think I've figured out why. Obviously, management doesn't think he contributes to winning games. Why else would they let it be known, in their typically loathsome, passive-aggressive manner, that they're going to fire him?

But now losing doesn't look so bad. 16-year-old catcher Bryce Harper, subject of a self-parodically overblown Sports Illustrated cover story, is well on his way to figuring out how to get himself into next year's draft.

Harper, the Las Vegas high school catcher who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, will forgo his final two years of high school, get his GED and play community college baseball next year at the College of Southern Nevada. His father, Ron, made the announcement Saturday at a tournament in Oklahoma City...

Harper will turn 17 on Oct. 16, and by finishing high school he will be eligible for the 2010 draft, where he is expected to be the No. 1 pick and command a multimillion-dollar signing bonus.

We've already seen the rewards a team reaps for tanking it for a year. Tank for two years, it turns out, and it just gets better. We can't let Jim Riggleman get in the way of this kind of haul.

Last week, I made fun of Dave Sheinin for defending the Nationals against the charge that they drafted cheap. I don't know if this is an actual controversy - is anyone who doesn't work for the Nats or isn't Dave Sheinin disinclined to believe this? Well, just in case, here's my point made for me:

On Tuesday, the Nationals used their third-round pick -- No. 81 overall -- in the amateur draft to select Trevor Holder, a University of Georgia senior who had a 7-5 record and a 4.48 ERA this year. Holder hadn't been ranked by Baseball America among the top 200 prospects, and even Holder himself didn't think he'd be drafted so high.

Well the Nats must know something everyone else doesn't, right?

But the Nationals, who'd tracked Holder since high school, had five years of information on him and liked what they saw.

Yeah, that's some Scouting! We're getting a leg up on everyone with only the sharpness of our eyes!

The team also liked the idea of signing Holder quickly, and at a discount rate. On Friday, just before moving out of his apartment in Athens, Ga., Holder agreed to his first professional contract, which included a $200,000 bonus; the previous year, pick Nos. 80-82 all signed for between $490,000 and $525,000.

Oh. Never mind.

It's A Hollow Snarl

Hey Dibble, what happened to edgy?

Remember that laughable slapfight the Robs Dibble and Neyer got into earlier this week? R-Dibbs seems to have scrubbed it from his Twitter. It happened June 7, but check it now. On the 6th we get a telegram dispatch from the last good Nats game:

John Lannan CGVs The Mets 21 1st pitch strikes, 1st CG in The Show. Nice job

Then on the 8th we're treated to a stream of random capitalizations.

talking to Andy Larouche of the Pitrates about The Nate McClouth Trade, At 5 o'clock we will have David Price on to talk about the Draft

Where's the beef, Dibble? I mean, if you're going to post for photos like this...

...you can't then turn around and unilaterally squash the beef with a pencil-necked, never-played-the-game former roofer like Rob Neyer.

I'm honestly disappointed.

By the way, if you were going to start a mock Dibble Twitter thingy, could you do any better than this?

Got some cool new shades for the game tomorrow

That's an actual entry. He wrote that himself. What can you say? Dude's unmockable.

Signability!

Look, I don't know nothing about no draft. I'm just as elated about the start of the Drew Storen Era as the rest of you, but I'm pretty clueless beyond that. That's what this guy does, and let's all be glad he's there.

The story that seems to be coming out of this, though, is that after taking Stephen Strasburg, the Nats went all Chris Rock at the rib place on us.

Above: Chris Rock as Mike Rizzo, weighing his options

Apparently the Nats had promised that they weren't going to be cheap this year. They'd take the best available player. While their actual strategy may well be defensible, that's clearly not what they did. Dave Sheinin over on the Post site tries to make the case for the defense. And fails.

Finally, a word about the Nationals' picks at Nos. 10, 50 and 81 overall: There was a lot of dissatisfaction expressed among commenters on this blog, and elsewhere, about the quality of those picks. Many accused the Nationals of outright lies when they said they took the best players available with those picks.

Well yeah. They didn't take the best players, and they said they would. That's lying, right?

But my view is, when you're facing something as monumental and complex as the Strasburg negotiations, the last thing you need is a bunch of difficult negotiations among your other picks. If the Nationals constructed their draft board out of players they felt would be relatively easy signs, then made their picks based on the best player available on their board, I don't have a problem with that.

Man, what kind of evasive Obi-Wan Kenobi bullshit is this? "You see, when they said 'best players,' they meant 'best players that wouldn't cost any money.' Because of the italics, you see."

What the hell, Dave? You don't work for the Lerners, and that's the only legitimate excuse for this kind of nonsense I can think of.

Beef: It's What's For Lunch

So many stupid things happen to the Nats that I forget probably half of them. Here's another one to throw on the pile.

D.C. Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin yesterday ordered that all fireworks displays at Washington Nationals games be suspended until a safety review can be conducted, after fireworks debris landed on him as he watched a game, a department spokesman said today.

I don't know about you, but I'm picturing a guy who looks like William Howard Taft in an old-timey fireman hat with his moustache singedand his face strategically charred like he'd been smoking a loaded cigar.

This is not the first assault on our favorite team's right to explode things whenever they want. Back before they'd even played a gam, some pinko "neighborhood commissioner" and another crybaby halfwit who pretended to be scared of Grateful Dead fans tried to stop it. But it didn't work, because this is America, dammit! And America it remains.

The fireworks are coming back for the Washington Nationals, days after debris from some pyrotechnics fell on the local fire chief as he watched a game.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

So, the draft is tomorrow. Probably you knew this. Here's my prediction: with the #1 pick, the Nats will take Stephen Strasburg. With the #10 pick, they'll take somebody I ain't never heard of. So that's why I'm not all that excited about the draft itself, and that's why I won't be attending the Official Draft Party (It's Cool! Bring a Lunch!). The real excitement comes afterward, and it's not the good kind. I've been trying not to think too much about it, frankly, because a Nats-type screwup this time won't be funny, like typos on jerseys or setting fire marshals on fire.

Speaking of lunches and the necessity of bringing them, Federal Baseball brings further proof of my theory that Rob Dibble prepares himself to commit self-expression on the internet by getting drunk and listening to rap. Following the example of Jay-Z vs. Nas, Game vs. 50 Cent, and N.W.H. vs. the Jam Boys, he's now beefing with ESPN columnist Rob Neyer. Neyer calls Dibble a dumbass, Dibble calls Neyer a roofer - please, guys, squash this beef before someone gets shot! Or before I have to read any more of your weak-ass insults!

That's Cool; Bring A Lunch

In my office, we rely on daily calendars to amuse ourselves because the alternative is me complaining about the Nats all day. I have a baseball calendar, replete with birthdays and impossible trivia questions. One coworker has a trivia calendar - each day brings a new question about geography or history or whatever. It's like Jeopardy for people (like me) who can't stand Alex Trebeck.

They're usually pretty easy, but last week we had a clock-meltingly surreal one. Here it is - let's see if you can figure it out: "Where on the human body is fear of open spaces?" Take your time.

The answer, of course, was "agoraphobia," which successfully answered maybe half the question. It was quite an enigma - was the calendar just messing with us? Was it a dada art experiment? Did it actually think it was right? We don't know and we never will.

In a similar vein, Rob Dibble posted something on the almost always not worth reading MASN website. He's apparently embroiled in one of those fun internet feuds where the participants never name the people they're beefing with. The post itself gives absolutely no indication what the hell he's talking about.

There are some local writers and bloggers that would like to try and twist what I say as to why the Nationals are not playing well. To me thats about as low as you may want to go. My street cred comes from experience, and though I sometimes might not come across as kind and gentle the way some people might think it should, let me try and get you up to speed with MY experience.

This is followed by a series of anecdotes about the Cincinnati Reds, culminating is some incredibly awesome trash talk.

If you want to challenge my street cred, that's cool, but you better bring a lunch because we're going to be here all day.

That's just beautiful. Bring a lunch, snitches, cause Dibble's got the crazy street cred! That's cool, but bring a lunch! Lunch is essential in this endeavor!

I'm not being sarcastic - this is my favorite thing on the Nats-related internet since Chico Harlan's "I hate my job" coming out party. It's not just because "That's cool; bring a lunch" is about to become my stock response to everything. This post also proved that Rob Dibble and I have identical blogging preparation techniques. In case you're wondering - and I should be charging for this kind of expertise - I have a time-tested two part regimen to prepare myself for the rigors of typing on the internet.

1. Get drunk
2. Listen to rap

Dibble is clearly replicating or at least approximating my pre-blog routine of Fighting Cock bourbon and Ghostface Killah. How else to explain the incoherence and unironic gangsta talk? I have a drink, and then I think "I work magic at a liquor store" is a deeply meaningful statement. Dibble and I are soul mates in this, and you ought not front on our street cred.

As far as the actual argument goes and as far as I understand it, I'm on Dibble's side. Anderson Hernandez should unquestionably be beaten about the head and neck until he stops thinking about things other than fielding ground balls. Maybe it won't help, but he sure isn't paying attention now, so it couldn't hurt. Where on the human body is fear of getting the hell slapped out of you? Fielding!

St. Claire the Thaumaturge

You could argue that in the history of the Washington Nationals, Randy St. Claire was the only member of the non-playing part of the team that ever did a damn bit of good for anyone. We've had terrible hitting coaches, bad managers, and worse GMs. We always had a good pitching coach, though.

St. Claire did two remarkable things, remarkable both for their on-field impact and how easy they are to pin down, which is unusual when you're talking about coaches. 2002's Livan Hernandez was a fat failure of a pitcher. He could eat food and he could eat innings, but you didn't want him doing either. In 2003 he joined the Expos, and St. Claire laid hands upon him. By which I mean he messed with his arm angle until Livan became ¡Livan!, a legitimate Cy Young-quality pitcher. As I've lamented before, this amazing transformation and inspirational three year run got less press than that little hobbit Japanese girl pitching a third of an inning in a semi-pro league. That doesn't make it any less awesome.

Later, he fixed Hector Carrasco, the very definition of a journeyman. By teaching him some sort of magical changeup, Carrasco briefly became a really, really good pitcher, bailing the Nats out when they had their annual "We're out of pitchers!" crisis in 2005. Hector very directly credited St. Claire with his turnaround before signed with the Angels.

And . . . that's it. And I guess that's the problem. Two miracles, the thinking probably goes, don't make up for years of lousy pitching, especially this terrible one we're in now, so they fired him. Obviously, it's not all St. Claire's fault. Or even mostly his fault. Maybe it's not his fault at all. I'm guessing, though, that the Nats made some personnel decisions based on the hope that St. Claire could get that third elusive miracle. Daniel Cabrera had lost his fastball - Randy can fix his mechanics! Scott Olsen, after years of violently resisting arrest, can't strike anyone out anymore - Randy will take care of it! Neither happened. They emphatically didn't happen, and that combined with the bullpen's incredible ineptitude combined with the fact that Mike Rizzo needs to get in some firin' practice before he trains his guns on Acta mean that St. Claire's gone. He won't be the last.

As summer follows spring and a blown Nationals lead follows a Nationals lead, so the new pitching coach follows the old. I don't know anything about Steve McCatty, the former AAA coach who's stepping into this thankless role, but what Mike Rizzo is saying about him isn't making me sanguine.

He goes back to the days where pitchers pitched a lot of innings and they were really tough burly guys on the mound, and I think he's gonna bring an edge to the pitching staff, a toughness, and kind of a really tough-minded mindset not only to the starting rotation but to the bullpen guys, too.

This is meaningless to the extent that it makes any damn sense at all. Burly? That's what we're after? If only we had more huskiness, things would be fine. It's those portly pitching staffs that get it done. You need gentlemen of a certain carriage.

Randy, as we all know, is a diligent film-worker and a mechanics-oriented pitching coach. Steve is more of a gut-feel [guy], more of a mental aspect kind of the game, and he's a much more old school pitching coach than I think Randy was. He was kind of the modern guy who worked diligently with films, how to attack hitters and that type of thing.

I fear that this is faulty reasoning. Allow me to summarize: science and hard work didn't do it, so we're going with some witch doctor oogy-boogy bullshit. Well, I guess it can't get any worse.

I Before E

On Friday I donned native garb and went to walk among the infidel in Baltimore. It was a special occasion - the arrival of Matt Wieters. Maybe you heard something about it.

Once I got accustomed to the weird accents and garish orange garb of the natives, I realized something: I was having approximately a million times more fun than I ever did at a Nats game. Approximately.

It's not because I'm an Orioles fan. I've been to scores of meaningless, indifferently-played O's games that left me with the same "Hey, at least it's baseball" feeling as most Nats games gave me. This time was different, though, because the Orioles are a team on the rise, and their fans are keenly attuned to it.

Wieters didn't do anything, but it didn't matter. There was enough spillover excitement for Nolan Reimold and Luke Scott and Brian Bergeson to carry everyone through Wieters' fruitless at-bats. The fans, their sweat reeking of Old Bay and National Bohemian, were satisfied that their team had good, compelling players and a rotation filled with talented, homegrown pitchers. Perhaps they reflected on the twin masterpieces of the Miguel Tejada and Erik Bedard trades. It also helped that they won.

The good news about the Orioles is hugely magnified because I'm looking up at it. Fans of the even competent teams would scoff. But as a Nationals fan, I couldn't help but envy every single thing I saw, from the pretty ballpark to the 8+ inning pitching performance to the complete lack of a Nat Pack.

Meanwhile, the Nationals have lost . . . what, five or six or ten or fifteen in a row? All to the sound of Josh Willingham bravely throwing himself into outfield walls but forgetting the part where he catches the damn ball? People are now talking openly about poor Manny Acta being led to the altar to appease the bloodthirsty gods of Base Ball. I'm a diehard - I'm still here. But who can blame the casual fan's eyes for drifting Wietersward?

Still Real

Hoo boy, did we ever get Livaned. I kind of enjoyed it, I have to admit, and I would have enjoyed it even more if the big guy had hit a triple or something. Did you see that crap he was throwing, those slide whistle curveballs? I miss it. It's still real to me, dammit.

I'm not going to enjoy so much losing to Santana, but what can you do? Sometimes the unstoppable force meets the unthreatening, barely noticed object.

Meanwhile, here's something about how glad I am Daniel Cabrera's gone. There's some other nonsense in there too, including ancient Chinese wisdom. I buy it in bulk and pass the savings on to you.

And the Feeling's Right

I just realized that it's ¡Livan! Night! It's a night of divided loyalties and gelatinous, 80 mph fastballs, and it should be a natinal holiday. I love ¡Livan! so damn much, and it hurts me that he's a Met now. And this time he's going up against my man Craig Stammen, so my loyalties aren't as divided as they usually are on ¡Livan! Night.

Please indulge me - I'm going to get all nostalgic for minute. Here is the entirety of my favorite post about Livan and maybe my favorite post ever.

I got nothing today. But I tell you who did have something was my main man Livan, who went 3 for 4 with a homer and two doubles. I'm sure you're aware of this, but he's a pitcher. And sure, maybe his pitching wasn't so hot, but some of that was Joey Eischen's fault, and the rest of it you can cram up your ass because Livan rules.

And here's my heartfelt tribute after the ugly SOB got traded, sacrificed to the stern principles of the Youth Movement.

Whatever age ¡Livan! is -- let's say 38 -- he was such a youthful 38 that we all agreed to call him 31, but I guess that's not youthful enough for the movement.

Good times. But now I hope he's awful enough that Stammen gets the win and stays in the rotation forever.

It turns out that the best resource on the internets for information about El Cubano Gordo y Feo is (of all things) Who's Dated Who, a website I'd never heard of until doing a Google search to see if ol' Distinguished Senators figures anywhere in the results for a search for "Livan" (it does not). They get his age wrong - they have 34, when the correct figure is "34" - but there is a downright disturbing wealth of information there. Height, weight, profession, religion ("Christian" - if you want more detail than that, you have to go to another site). You can vote how good a date he is; there is currenly one vote, a 10. I will not deny that it is mine.

Who's ¡Livan! been dating? I hadn't been wondering, but now I know, and there are pictures too. I have not yet voted in the contest to determine "Livan's Best Romance." Other features: commentary on the great man's love life by such internet experts as "MiamiPapi" and "no1diamondback fan"; a list of his eye-opening quotations presented free of encumbering context ("It's hard to beat that team"); and a fairly puzzling "Related Profiles" section. This is totally going in the links if I ever get around to updating them.

I Once Preferred A Human Being's Company

I spent most of my weekend in Natstown, just like they're always telling me to - I was there Saturday and Sunday. I'd recommend it, as long as you don't have to get on the Metro afterward. Some observations:

• I'm estimating 40% Orioles fans.
• Ryan Zimmerman is good at baseball.
• The ovation for the troops each day was the only thing the crowd could agree on and the longest anyone seemed interested in anything. It would have gone on for ten minutes on Saturday if the announcer hadn't started yakking about someone coming up to bat.
• The presidents race actually is pretty entertaining. I know I'm supposed to be all jaded and from the internet, but what can I say? On Saturday, Teddy had the thing wrapped up until that damn Oriole bird came out of the crowd and tackled him. I wasn't not entertained.
• Those statues out in front of the park? They're starting to come to life, and I think they're going to kill everyone.

I noticed a report over at Nationals Pride that the Walter Johnson statue has a crack. I checked, and it's true. I can only assume that all three statues are gradually breaking away from their bases, and that they will eventually come to life with malice in their stony hearts. Wielding their poop-covered bats and extra arms as weapons, they will wreak havoc on all around them. Watch out, Ray Knight and Johnny Holliday.

Please enjoy the awesome reflection effect, which was totally intentional. Note how the crack cuts right through those Nationals fans, reflecting the heartbreak that we've all experienced since we've started following this team.
Who is the mysterious woman reflected in the base of the statue? I don't know, but she looks as though she's pissed that the Orioles lost and she wants to get the hell out of there.

Typical Nats incompetence! I went around to the back of the statue and found another crack.

Get it?

And here is a small cat that is asleep.

Relief

I'm kind of relieved that Manny let a starter blow a lead for once. Really.

New Favorite Nat

Apparently Jordan Zimmermann addresses John Lannan as "Eyebrows." If I were ever talking to Lannan, I wouldn't have the stones to say that, but I'd sure as hell be thinking it. Dude looks like a Batman villain's henchman.

Why yes, they are real. Why do you ask?

American Dream

I made the mistake of watching the Nats game on Monday night, and I kept thinking of the Dusty Finish.

The Dusty Finish is a professional wrestling booking technique popularized by jive-talking fat man Dusty Rhodes. Basically, you make the crowd think that the good guy has won and maybe even taken the title from the bad guy (usually Ric Flair). Then, some pro-wrestling nonsense happens (double disqualification, whimsical act by an authority figure, etc.) and the decision is reversed. The crowd, having seen its dearest hopes fulfilled and then dashed, went home pissed. It is said that excessive use of the Dusty Finish killed off entire towns for Rhodes' employers. Even people who are willing to pay money to watch dudes pretend to fight will put up with only so much.

Above: Dusty Rhodes says some things about Elvis that probably aren't true, threatens Jerry Lawler with 17 dancing go-go bears

Did you watch that game last night? It was awful. Ross Detwiler, a recent first round draft pick, made his first major league start, and he really looked out of place. By which I mean he threw strikes and didn't suck. I was excited - finally something was going right. How did the team respond to this breath of fresh air? Well, they committed three errors and blew the hell out of a lead that would have given Detwiler the win. Manny Acta did his part as well, foolishly pulling his starter after five innings, six strikeouts, and no walks. His reasoning made me despair.

...if I have to keep a Class AA guy out there because I don't want to go to my big league bullpen, that's really scary.

Yeah, it is scary, and a good manager would adapt that this situation. You know, maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. As soon as Garret Mock walked the first post-Detwiler batter on four pitchers, we all knew what was coming. It was like I thought Kerry Von Erich was finally going to win the belt from that strutting bastard Ric Flair until the ref got knocked out and reality set in.

The Nationals are booking a Dusty Finish every night, and it's killing baseball in this town. Attendance is in the crapper and TV ratings (I assume) are still terrible - people will find other ways to divert themselves. Take, for instance, me. I like baseball a lot more than most people. I'll watch just about anything. But last night when the Pirates scored their thirtieth or fortieth run (I stopped keeping track pretty early into the implosion), I said to myself, "I don't have to watch this shit. I've got better things to do." And I said that last part even though I totally didn't have better things to do - how long would someone who actually did stick around?

Here's a thing about how much I hate Daniel Cabrera. Well, hate isn't the right word. I mean, it's not like I think he's a bad person because . . . no, wait. Never mind. Hate is the right word, and I do think he's a bad person. It's from last week, but not a damn thing has changed in the interim. There something timeless about Daniel Cabrera sucks articles.

Rhymes

So Tom Boswell has for a while been making arguments that the Nats shouldn't draft Stephen Strasburg. Whatever. Neither I nor anyone else listens to anything Boz has to say - you've got to wonder how a polished, embarrassed journalist like "Chico" Harlan feels about some crusty old sportswriter straight out of central casting intruding on his blog. But anyway, he did it again today by pointing out that it's hard to tell who's going to be a hall of famer. Which is inarguable, really. Whether or not it has anything to do with the situation at hand can be determined by looking at who wrote the damn thing.

The important thing to remember here is that Boswell isn't trying to talk us out of unreasonable, slavering enthusiasm about Strasburg; he's trying to talk himself out of unreasonable, slavering enthusiasm. You know how Boz gets - he's not exactly balanced when it comes to what's been one of his two favorite baseball teams for more than several years.

Anyway, here's something I wrote about the pert, supple back end of the Nationals' pitching rotation. I gotta admit, I like this one. It's short, it's light on "facts" and "analysis" and all that other crap that internet baseball writing has made me so tired of, and it employs a hell of sophisticated literary device where I'm talking about one thing but I make it sound like I'm talking about something else. What is that thing? Here's a hint: it rhymes with ass.