The Late Mistake

My wife asked me if I remembered the Beavis and Butthead where Beavis composed and performed a song that went:

Dammit dammit son of a bitch
Dammit dammit son of a bitch
Son of a beeeeeetch sonofabitch sonofabeeetch
Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammit

Of course I called her a damn liar. Nothing so perfect could exist in this world! But she was right. It was during a song by a band called the "Comateens" (good lord) that Beavis didn't think much of. Butthead didn't like it either.

While this shook my faith in the terribleness of creation and in the untrustworthiness of my wife, Beavis' song became my go-to refrain when something goes wrong. How handy!

Washington Nationals center fielder Adam Eaton, who was carried off the field Friday, has a torn left ACL and will not play again this season...

Dammit dammit son of a bitch, etc.

Eaton wasn't around long enough for any of us to develop an emotional attachment to him, but dammit (dammit son of a bitch) if I'm not going to miss him. He got on base and stuff. Big fan of that. And even if you didn't have the same regard for him that I do, consider the mess we're in now.

Babyhead's back. Son of a beeeeetch.

Michael A. Taylor's tenure with this team has been frustrating. He didn't hit, can't hit, and will not hit, but he's always right there when the center fielder of first resort gets hurt. He's going to suck up an unacceptable number at bats in a completely useless manner until management does something about it.

And here's the thing: This team just scored 23 damn runs, which doesn't even seem like it's possible. Problem solved, right?

No, the problem is not solved. Mike Rizzo needs to get on the phone 29 times and say something like, "You guys give up yet? Who's playing center for you assholes? What's this gonna take?"

I'm serious. 29 times. Don't do any research. Go in there like a bull. Coffee is for closers.

Fresh. Local.

These ESPN layoffs got me to thinking: Is this the first time Jim Bowden's been fired without completely, obviously deserving it?

It also got me to thinking about local, hand-crafted, artisanal baseball content.

It's like with tomatoes or Korean fusion tacos or whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of hippy-dippery involved, but the fact is that a tomato or a Korean taco that traveled only 25 miles to get in your mouth tastes better than one that came from California. That it's served by a cheerful dude with a beard and a butcher chart of a pig tattooed on his arm is just a bonus.

I'm trying not to project my personal habits onto nation-wide trends here, but I stopped watching regular season non-MASN baseball some time ago. I wonder how big the audience is for relatively meaningless baseball that's not your favorite team. And when it comes to your favorite team, there's more material than anyone can realistically consume - you've got a whole cable network, podcasts, newspapers, all kinda stuff. Even blogs if you're really desperate.

One of the good things about living in the future is that you can watch whatever you want all the time. Maybe you've seen people getting nostalgic about poring over box scores in the morning paper while listening to Jack Benny on the Philco, being careful with how much oleo they put on their toast because of the war.

Above: A young me concentrates so as not to miss the news from Sportsman's Park or Iwo Jima.

We don't have to do that any more, and in the same way we don't need to get our highlights from people who are only going to spend 40 seconds on our team before going to back to talking about the Yankees and/or Tim Tebow. We don't need the game of the week to see exotic teams from the far-off Central Division, either - anyone who cares about that kind of thing can watch the Brewers whenever he wants.

I don't know if there's anything to this. This Forbes article suggests that there is - national baseball broadcasts (not counting the playoffs) are steadily declining even as regional sports networks do better and better in spite of Bob Carpenter.

ESPN's problems are bigger than this, but it's not clear that the network has any purpose for baseball fans anymore. Not when you can get fresh, GMO-free baseball content that didn't have to be trucked in from Connecticut.

Game Over (Alchemically)

Is it too early to proclaim "Game Over" on the 2017 Major League Baseball season? The Nats just swept the Mets in their crappy city, their crappy borough, and their crappy stadium. So we win. It's too much to come back from.

I guess. I warned you that I wasn't going to do the math, but if the Mets aren't mathematically eliminated, they're definitely eliminated according to some other discipline. Let's say that they're alchemically eliminated.

Enough about those idiots. There is seldom a reason to talk about the Mets in May, and this year is no exception. It's a franchise defined by cocaine and failure.

Also terrible announcing. Left to right: Cranky old man sexism, diseased adenoid voice, who cares

So let's talk about us. The Nationals have the best record in baseball, and it would be even betterest if we had a bullpen. So at this point we're back to me talking about Nostradamus again. The difference, I suppose, is that when Nostradamus predicted the Gulf War or whatever, everyone in France wasn't saying the same thing.

I mean, I know that the Nats are going to win the division easily and trade for a closer and maybe but probably not win the World Series. You know that the Nats are going to win the division easily and trade for a closer and maybe but probably not win the World Series. Everyone knows that the Nats are going to win the division easily and trade for a closer and maybe but probably not win the World Series.

So what do we do in the meantime? We've got five months to kill. Do you people have hobbies? Embroidery? Stamp collecting? Actually watching these games and listening to Bob Carpenter?

Do we pretend that all this stuff that's about to happen matters? There are going to be some ups and downs. Dudes are going to be injured and then not be injured any more. Maybe Bryce Harper will say something "outrageous" and we'll all pretend to be entertained by it.

A bunch of stuff that ultimately doesn't matter is going to happen, and then it's going to end. Probably badly. I'd say it's a metaphor for life, but that's too depressing even for me.

Monuments

You know how when you live around here, in this area that all of a sudden we're supposed to call the DMV like those letters don't already mean something else, you almost never go bask in the tributes to star-spangled glory that dot our nation's capitol? Like that statue of FDR's little dog?

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

Well I had friends from the provinces in town, so I actually went to look at monuments. Some of them were pretty nice, but the best part was that I didn't see one damn pitch of one damn Nationals game this weekend.

I was looking at monuments to American greatness, while those of you who stayed home were looking at a monument to being completely terrible at baseball.

IN FRONT OF THE PHILLIES.

Pathetic.

I skipped this offseason, but I had assumed things were under control. Little did I know that at some point it was decided to dig up Jeremy Guthrie, run a few volts through him, and run him out there. If we're going to win anything, it's on the strength of our starting pitching, right?

Well we have a problem then, because teams with good starters do not sneak into the Graveyard of Crappy Orioles Opening Day Starters and stand for a while leaning on their shovels, lightning crackling ominously behind them, while they decide to dig up Guthrie instead of Sir Sidney Ponson because it's less weight to carry.

The Nationals brain trust discusses options for the starting rotation

It's not Guthrie's fault. We probably would have lost that game even with a real pitcher - and remember, against the Phillies - and we're going to lose basically all the games until at least one dude in the bullpen manages to get someone out.

I guess it's too early to panic, but it's exactly the right time to get annoyed. They'd better figure this out - I'm running out of monuments to look at instead of this monumentally bad baseball team.

Prediction or Prophecy

You ever watch those Nostradamus shows? The ones where under- or ill-accredited experts explain that when some dead French guy refers to the Danube as the "Hister," he's actually predicting World War 2?

What fools we were to ignore Nostradamus' warnings about Matt Williams!

I can't get enough of them. But I do think they miss what must have been a significant part of Nostradamus' life.

If the dude knew what was going to happen all the way from Henry II getting killed in a jousting accident to 9/11, he must have been bored out of his mind.

Can you imagine? Every time anything happens, everyone runs around like it's news, and you're sitting there fuming because you wrote a cryptic poem about it years ago but no one would listen.

Sure, maybe you said "Mabus" when you meant Obama or Bush or the other Bush or Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or Arafat or Napoleon, but it's all right there. It must have been exhausting for the poor guy.

I can relate - it was exhausting for me last year. My prediction as of April was that the Nats were going to win the division easily and then crap out in the playoffs. As the season wore on, it became clearer and clearer that that was exactly what was going to happen, so I kind of checked out.

So no predictions this year. I can, however, pass along a recently-discovered quatrain from Nostradamus himself. Did the great prophet predict the outcome of the 2017 Washington Nationals season? Only time will tell.

A leader of dust, a bearded criminal
Inspired by national attitude ignited
Will conquer the division of the Orient
And then crap out in the playoffs

Lindomania

I was able to watch the season opener, having been laid up with a fortuitously-timed cold.

I know what you're thinking, but this was the real thing. I wanted to go to work. In the spirit of the Wrestlemania season, this is a shoot cold. I'm not working anyone.

So we can all agree that the one game we're all paying super-close attention to is the one that sets the tone for the rest of the season, right? Even though it's 50/50 if Adam Lind is even on the roster in September?

Things I liked:

1. Yay we win!
2. Blake Treinen hella closed!
3. Strasburg was rad as hell!
4. Bryce Harper hit a home run and so did some other guy so we won!

Things I'm worried about:

I have two issues with the lineup, which is all the issues the issues with the lineup.

1. This is not a good defensive team. Daniel Murphy is still shipping up to second base; Jayson Werth is one year closer to being a full-on inexplicably-adored mummy; Adam Eaton in center is not something a team with a center fielder would do.
2. This is not a good offensive team. I "analyze" a team's offense by how far down the lineup I go before I find a batter less interesting than whatever lunatic ancient alien/Nostradamus show is on the History channel. The Nats made it all the way down to Dutch Zimmerman hitting in the fifth position. That's not great.

It'll get better once Rendon returns from whatever seemingly tiny injury is keeping him out, but we're down a Wilson Ramos. No one likes Matt Wieters more than I do, but let's not pretend that he can hit.

Tonight's the night

Manifesti

"I could do the math, but I choose to take a nap."

-RiFF RAFF

"If you're good at something, never do it for free."

-The Joker (attributed)

These two aphorisms are the new twin mottos of Distinguished Senators. One comes from an outlandish fictional character whose unbelievable antics have entertained us for years, and the other is from some Batman movie.

Above: Rap game Katy Perry

To explain:

1. My disinclination to do the math is not a new development. It took a genius like RiFF RAFF, a veritable neon icon, to summarize my philosophy on it. It was over a decade ago that I wrote maybe three posts including some cutting edge Bush administration-era baseball statistics before I realized that I was sick of that stuff.

From that point, I asked my audience to take my word for it - if I say someone (for instance, Jayson Werth) can't hit, believe that I looked it up or at least made a reasonable assumption. I'm not going to bore both of us with math.

And by "both," I do mean, in many cases, literally two people.

2. The Joker bit really made me think. Was I a good blogger? Maybe not in terms of output (at this point I'm at about four posts per annum). But if any of these posts was any good, I was - according to a guy who got turned by acid into a clown - making a mistake.

So all I need to do is figure a way to get paid for blogging, right? That's some cutting edge Bush administration-era blogthinking right there, my friend. Is there a word for something that is more unlikely than something that is impossible?

The only solution then is to stop being good at it. And that works together very nicely with RiFF RAFF's example. Knotty baseball problem? Just type something fast and stupid and then take a nap. It's not like I'm getting paid for this.

Here's hoping there's a difference to notice.

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.

Are You Not Entertained?

Man, how about that Rangers/Blue Jays fight, huh? My favorite part was when Rougned Odor punched Jose Batista right in his damn face.

Moments before this picture was taken, those glasses and that helmet were actually on that guy's head.

Is that bad? Should I not have enjoyed that? Here's a Craig Calcaterra piece that suggests that I shouldn't have without managing to say much of anything.

These takes [takes expressing the idea that the fight was rad] have one thing in common: for them to make coherent sense, players have to play roles to satisfy an audience rather than be actual human beings with feelings.

Here I run into a problem with empathy. Unless it's sympathy - I've never been able to keep those straight. I'm aware that baseball players are human beings who hurt when Rougned Odor punches them in the jaw, but can I actually care?

There are over 7 billion people in the world. How upset can you get about how many of them getting punched before that's the only thing you have time for?

Speaking only of baseball, I can barely bring myself to care about the 26 guys I'm supposed to (that's the Nats active roster plus Dusty Baker and Matt LeCroy minus Jayson Werth). Maybe it's just that my brain isn't big enough to maintain that kind of Monkeysphere, but Jose Batista's feelings aren't important enough to me that I'm not going to enjoy a fight in which he gets turned into a bobblehead doll by a tiny violent lunatic infielder.

The Word

Having Alonzo Mourning as the best player on your team was less than ideal for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that while Mourning was very good, he wasn't that good. He wasn't Hakeem Olajuwon.

The other problem is that Mourning allowed himself mentally to be taken out of games. All Dennis Rodman had to do was some light needling followed by a discreet elbow, and Mourning would go off like Krakatoa (too soon?) and have to go sit down for a while.

Hugs!

I guess a 6'8" dude with parti-colored hair and a lip ring doesn't qualify as a secret weapon, but Rodman brought more than rebounds to the table. He had less tangible skills.

I thought Bryce Harper was past the Alonzo Mourning phase of his career, but these umpires keep getting under his skin.

On Monday, Harper was pretty upset about the strike zone, and he antagonized the umpire to the point that he got ejected while in the dugout with his back turned.

It turned out to be a very brief 86, as moments later Clint Robinson hit a walk-off home run. Harper took time out from celebrating Robinson's triumph to look at the umpire and yell something at him. That something, I regret to inform you, included what is euphemistically referred to as "the Fuck Word." Followed by "you."

It was pretty churlish, and now he's facing a mild suspension. That is not, in my opinion, OK.

Harper is our best player. He is THE best player, and he needs to keep himself on the field. There are two major threats to his participation:

1. Running into walls like a dumbass
2. Getting himself thrown out like a dumbass

He managed to tame the first one - he hasn't injured himself through excessive effort in ages. I figured he was beyond the other one as well. Remember last May? He flipped the hell out, got tossed, and let Michael A. Taylor hit the Professor Bacon Bacon Blast of the Week. Shortly afterwards, he got ejected for basically nothing, which should have taught him that picking fights with umpires is no way to win anything.

Look, we all want to yell at umpires. They have undeserved power over things we care about, and they seldom seem worthy of it. But you won't win. I mean, Major League Baseball can win against umpires, but Bryce Harper won't. Soothing your own savage breast by yelling at them is short-sighted and ill-advised. Harper just failed the marshmallow test.

It's best to treat the officials like any other part of the game that's beyond anyone's control, like the weather. You can yell the Fuck Word at the weather, but that's not going to get the wind behind your fly balls.

Greener

Stephen Strasburg's going to be sticking around for a while, and what a pleasant surprise that is.

I figured the combination of Scott Boras' advice and the Nationals' organizational whateverness when it came to Strasburg meant he was bound to go the way of the Zimmermann, but maybe the organization wasn't as whatevery as I thought.

I was influenced by the fact that the fans all seem to hate him. I get it, I guess. He's never been as good as we all hoped, and I suppose he comes off kind wienerish. But it's nice that the team is run by people smarter than those cheering for it.

It's more puzzling from the Strasburg/Boras end. Boras is infamous for making sure his clients see free agency. Why does he do this? As bank robber Willie Sutton allegedly but probably didn't say when asked why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is."

What changed this time? For the answer to this question, we go to another fake quotation: I assume that at some point in the 1970s Tommy John said, "My arm hurts." Then he had his eponymous surgery, which we've learned can extend the careers but dampen the earning potential of major league pitchers.

That's my guess. You can feel free to chalk it up to Strasburg's fondness for the organization or the area or even you personally, but I'm going with the idea that unconventional placement of his ligaments makes him less inclined to gamble on free agency. All that deferred money that wasn't good enough for Jason Heyward or Yoenis Cespedes looks greener when you've got a time bomb in your arm.

I'm a fan of the extension (it ain't my money), and I especially like how it widens the Nats competitive window. When Max Scherzer signed on, I figured we had two years, and I based that on the assumption that Strasburg wasn't sticking around any longer than he had to. You can see why I was so upset when Year One was ruined by the Three Stooges.

I'm still upset by that, but now we have extra years. Stephen Strasburg is going to be our #2 starter for at least three more years, and all our foes envy our good fortune.

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.

Stealing Money

I remember reading an article about the men at the periphery of professional basketball (this was back in the day when "NewsRadio" was still on the air, so I have no chance of tracking it down now). These were players who went un- or barely drafted and wound up in Europe or playing on ephemeral teams with silly names in some of your less glamorous cities.

A common complaint among these athletes was that the guys in the NBA - not the stars; the 12th men - weren't as good as they were. Why, they asked, are those chumps making the NBA minimum on ten day contracts while I'm making basically nothing playing for the North Dakota Fargonauts?

I made up the Fargonauts, but this one's real.

They had a term for it. The undeserving NBA players were "stealing money."

You have to wonder if Brian Goodwin of the Syracuse Chiefs is thinking something similar.

The Nationals aren't scoring much lately. They totaled three runs in the three games against Philadelphia. There's been a lot of talk about lineup construction, but making it so Harper and Murphy bat one after the other wasn't going to scare up enough runs to win that series.

The problem is personnel, and why in the hell is Michael A. Taylor still around? He's been stealing money for parts of three seasons, and he hasn't shown the ability to do much but hit a home run a couple times a month.

Meanwhile, Brian Goodwin is hitting .350 for the Fargonauts and probably staring wistfully at his phone.

Is there an explanation for this? It's possible. I don't follow prospects, and maybe there's something I don't know about Goodwin - maybe he compares people to Hitler all the time. But Taylor had a chance and didn't get the job done, so it's time to get Goodwin out of Fargo.

Shrub Status

The ancient Greeks had a proverb: Zeus strikes the tallest tree.

It worked on a couple levels. Literally, if confronted with several trees, lightning (i.e., Zeus) will zap the one that sticks up the most.

Figuratively, the idea is that if you're too successful, you're going to get smacked down so hard that you'll wish you were never king of Lydia.

You can tell this is a timeless idea because it affect the Nationals right now this very day in a couple of different ways.

Like a proverbially rich king of Lydia, Bryce Harper is just too good. It didn't take long for the opposition to catch on to that fact, so they're not pitching to him anymore. It turns out that the chance of Ryan Zimmerman driving someone in from first is less than the chance of Bryce Harper driving someone in from home.

Bryce Harper (left) is intentionally walked

With Harper out of commission thanks to effective cost-benefit analysis, the Nationals as a whole are getting zapped by Zeus. In the middle of what should have been a run-of-the-mill victory parade, the Nats were bushwhacked and swept by the Phillies.

The Phillies!

The bright side here is that the Nats are about to embark on a punishing Midwest road trip. Perhaps getting reduced to shrub status means that Zeus will take it easy on us.

Of Course Sometimes

An argument for the designated hitter is that no one wants to watch pitchers bat. We pay to see the best in the world doing the things at which they are best.

I've never agreed with this. Seeing the best do something at which they are not the best is not only entertaining in its own right; it makes the people who are the best at it seem even more impressive.

And, of course, sometimes the pitcher succeeds.

I missed most of Sunday's 16-inning win against the Twins, but I got to see Óliver Pérez, pitcher, shock the world and Minnesota by laying down a two out drag bunt, which the Twins fumbled into a tie game.

Chris Heisey won the game a little later with a homer, but that's not as it interesting, is it? He's supposed to do that. Pérez doing an Ichiro impersonation is something that's going to stick with you.

Sunday's marathon completed a sweep of the Twins. The Nationals again have the best record in baseball, and they're off to their best start ever. The race is - remains - over.

Is it a problem so far in the season, the Nats have had to play only the worst teams in baseball? Nah.

If the Nats win 75% of their games against bad teams (and they do!), they can win half (or, depending on your perspective, lose half) the time against good teams and be fine.

Then the playoffs come along and all they need is to be just the tiniest bit above .500. No problem.

Reinforcements

During World War I, the Germans had an idea. Rather than having the guys who were good at World War I spread out all over the army, they decided to concentrate them into all star teams which, having been given special training, would actually accomplish something after years of everyone sitting around in trenches picking vermin out of their food.

Combat prancing was a big part of the training.

Baseball would copy this all star team idea in 1933 as a way to raise money for penurious former players. 82 years after that they would ruin it by getting rid of paper ballots.

Germany's stormtrooper idea kind of worked. The elite soldiers did accomplish some stuff, but running out in front got a whole lot of them killed, leaving the rest of the army to carry on with that many fewer competent dudes.

It was a matter of attrition, and we're seeing something similar with the Nationals pitching staff.

Nats pitching has been really good, leading baseball in ERA even after coughing up five to Miami earlier today. They've even been shouldering some of the offensive burden - this fellow points out that Nats leadoff hitters are getting out-hit by the pitching staff, 517 OPS to 577.

Being out in the forefront of all the baseballing is taking its toll, though. Joe Ross developed a blister and may miss his next start. Max Scherzer had mechanical issues in Thursday's start. He insists that it's nothing to worry about, but what does he know? He's no more a trained medical professional than last year's training staff.

We need reinforcements. Lucas Giolito has a 1.17 ERA over two games in AA, and that's good enough for me. We're not looking for any Taylor Jordan half measures here.

Speaking of leadoff hitters and reinforcements, it's time to give up on Michael A. Taylor. It's not clear why he's in the majors, or why it was assumed that he'd be with the Nats out of spring training (maybe there's a good explanation; I skipped spring training this year because I hate it).

Taylor got into 17 games in 2014 and didn't hit. He followed that up by not hitting in 2015. This year he's switched it up a little by not hitting.

What's he doing here? I know he wasn't supposed to be the starter, but that's not good enough for a fourth outfielder. That might not be good enough for Syracuse.

Where, by the way, center fielder Brian Goodwin is hitting .372.

It's time.

Secondary Goals

The Nationals have won the division, which is the primary goal. Now they have the opportunity to accomplish a number of secondary goals.

One of these is keep me from worrying over the course of the season. Following a sports team is not a restful pastime. You worry and get angry and wind up wincing every time you hear Pete Kozma's name years later.

The Nats' main priority should be making sure none of that happens to me until the playoffs start.

And I have to say, I was starting to think about considering beginning to worry last night. The Nats were sitting on two straight losses and getting shut out by some guy I ain't never heard of.

It's one thing to get shut down by Jose Fernandez; that didn't bother me. But after three innings of silence against the dregs of Miami's bullpen followed by eight strikeouts at the hands of 32nd-round draft pick Adam Conley, the part of my brain that insists that the worst is going to happen was starting to take over.

Stupid brain! All the Nats were doing was getting Conley where they wanted him. Waiting til they saw the whites of his eyes. Roping, if you will, a dope.

In the seventh inning, Conley ran out of gas. Then came the Cannonade. Two distinct sets of back-to-back homers. Jayson Werth's 200th. A grand slam from Bryce Harper, who hadn't hit one in almost a week. Two hit into that minigolfesque thing in center field.

They didn't light it up for the Nats.

And let's not forget Stephen Strasburg's nearly flawless, possible-new-leadoff-hitter performance.

So yeah, it was silly of me to think about considering beginning to worry. Season's over. Harper's MVP. Dusty's Manager of the Year. See you in October.

Problem or Problem Problem

Michael A. Taylor is killing us out there.

A leadoff man - it's likely you knew this - is supposed to get on base, and Taylor is doing that every fifth time he gets the chance. You don't want to read much into one at-bat, but when he struck out Monday night with the bases loaded - well, it hurt because it was so predictable.

He's not making up for his putrid batting line in other ways, either. Taylor is playing like his tiny head is full of tiny rocks.

In the seventh on Monday, with the Nats down by four, Taylor singled. Up next were Anthony Rendon (good) and Bryce Harper (great!). Taylor, ignoring or defying all statistical conclusions and generations of lived baseball experience, lit out for second base and got caught. So that was two rallies killed.

It's OK, though. I'm fine. We're fine. There are two reasons I'm not really worried about this.

1. The Taylor situation is temporary. Ben Revere's coming back someday (right?), and then we can sit Taylor on the bench and tell him to think about what he did.

2. Dusty Baker knows that this is not ideal. This happened last year when Denard Span ended his Nats career in August, and it's not clear that Matt Williams understood what a setback it was. I quote myself:

The other day Dan Kolko was relating a conversation he'd had with Matt Williams: Given that Span has tightened up now and we're slated for more Taylor than we'd expected, did Williams want to see Taylor do anything differently? 

 No, of course not, we are told Williams said. Don't change a thing. As this happened, Taylor's stats appeared in the background, complete with a .280-something on-base percentage.

Dusty, on the other hand, evinces a basic understanding of whether or not a baseball player is getting the job done.

“He’s been struggling some to get on base,” Baker said. “But he’s the best that we have to put in that spot right now without having to tear the rest of the lineup up.”

One can take issue with the importance of not tearing up the lineup, but that's not a big deal. Having a manager with even the barest minimum qualifications, on the other hand, is huge.

Strategic Losses

As we reported first here at Distinguished Senators, the season is over and the Nats won. Just put up that NL East pennant right now. Our gonfalon bubble is unprickable.

Because the rest of the division is engaged in a dispirited slapfight for second place, our beloved, triumphant Nationals can afford the occasional strategic loss.

Jonathan Papelbon blew the save on Sunday, and that's OK. It didn't happen to somebody that anyone likes, Papelbon can handle it, and it gave our unfortunate friends in Philadelphia something to be happy about. He showed real perspective when asked about it. “We’re in first place and we won the [gosh darn] series, man. You know?”

So it's not too upsetting that the Nats failed to complete a sweep of the Phillies, since that game three loss threw into relief the only problem this team has: the save would not have been blown if Jayson Werth were still capable of playing baseball.

The Phillies won when somebody (who cares?) hit a double over Werth's head. Babyhead would have caught it. Den Dekker would have caught it. Any number of the offseason free agents who weren't interested in playing for the Nats would have had a shot.

Ian Desmond probably wouldn't have gotten it.

The hope here is that we gave up a loss, but in return made Dusty Baker aware that he shouldn't leave his worst player out there in the later innings. Maybe - this is a long shot, I know - this will prompt Dusty to consider that he shouldn't be playing his worst player at all.

That's how a loss becomes a win.

Former Nationals Update!

Helpful commenter "Anonymous" sends along with that Austin Kearns is a volunteer coach at Lexington Christian Academy. It's nice that he's staying busy, and I hope he doesn't break anyone's femur.

I have also discovered that Kory Casto has been inducted into the North Marion High School Hall of Fame. I was always pretty hard on Casto, but that was only because he was taking playing time away from Chris Snelling. Plus I think he was pranking us with how to spell his name.