Without offense, Nationals are too close for comfort

Harrisburg wasn't rained out.

They beat Reading 5-4

Why is Harris pinch hitting in crucial situations. This guy has become Riggs Austin Kearns and he is killing us.

When is Destin Hood moving to Harrisburg.

Harper sure sounds like Drew Storen in that interview. The one thing not talked about is his jump from high school learning workload to college.

Q: Would you rather get to the big leagues in two years as an outfielder or in three years as a catcher?

A: Whoever drafts me, whatever they want to do with me, I'll do. I love to catch. I've loved to catch my whole life. But playing in the outfield and being able to hit and play in every single game, that's a big difference. Anywhere I can help a club, I'll help them. Anywhere they need me or want to use me, I'll do whatever they want. I love to catch and love to play the outfield.

Q: What have you missed about being in high school?

A: I have not missed one thing at all. I really haven't. I didn't really have any friends in high school because I was about baseball. That's all I was about. Everyone else, they were about partying and all that kind of stuff. I stayed away from all that. I was pretty much a homebody. Go to school, go to baseball, go to the gym and come home. And eat a great home-cooked meal by my mom. That was my day. Then Sundays I'd go to church.

Speaking of Austin Kearns... It is interesting what a change in location did for him http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?playerId=5012

>>Speaking of Austin Kearns... It is interesting what a change in location did for him Posted by: PNatsFan

Give him a month and he's back at .245--guaranteed. Look at Schneider and Church when they went over to the Mets. Both starting off blazing just like Austin Ks. Then Schneider finished off on the bench before being shipped out and Church was back to the mid .200s before being exiled in Pittsburgh.

Certainly agree with dovelevine's comment above about pinch-hitting with Harris last night with runners on 2nd and 3rd and on out. Don't think the lefty/lefty match-up thing makes a lot of sense when the players BA is below the Mendoza line.

Quote from above - "The Nationals can't put a finger on why the runs have dried up" - huh?

How about starting with the leadoff batter - who has become an automatic out? You are not going to win when your leadoff batter is never on base, never stealing bases, never scoring runs!

If Morgan is never going to get walks, and get base hits rarely then they need to move him out of the leadoff spot and put someone else in there - like Desmond maybe???

jwg

Certainly agree with dovelevine's comment above about pinch-hitting with Harris last night with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out. Don't think the lefty/righty match-up thing makes a lot of sense when the players BA is below the Mendoza line.

>>"The Nationals can't put a finger on why the runs have dried up" - huh? How about starting with the leadoff batter - who has become an automatic out?

Agreed and sometimes you have to make a radical decision. Riggs should have pinch hit Gonzalez or Pudge for Nyjer in the 9th. If a guy's in a major slump and you need a hit, you've got to be able to make big moves without worrying about stepping on feet. Not sure Riggs is capable of this.

With this drought in hitting this makes me think he Nats should draft Harper. Or at least someone else that has major hitting skills.

Teams slump...get over it, they'll be fine and Riggs will be fine. No panic necessary.

Verducci's column in SI is interesting, but he leaves out a key difference between Strasburg and Leake -- a $13 million difference.

Man, I love me some Adblock Plus. Bye-bye, "Morning Brushback" logo.

That is all.

No, really, that's all I had to say.

I'm getting older so perhaps my memory is just failing me - but didn't Willie come through with a game winning pinch-hit just two weeks ago (or so)?

Glad to see Lannan back in decent form last night. Maybe it is just a minor thng with his elbow and not the typical descent into surgery. His velocity and location were pretty good and he gave the club a chance to win.

Side note on Harper, once the Regional tournaments begin this week, he and his teammates will get to use aluminum bats like most of the rest of the JC teams in the country.
His coach guessed in the Vegas paper today that Harper probably would have had 40 jacks if they had used metal all year.

http://www.lvrj.com/sports/it-s-bombs-away-for-harper--csn-at-district-94233829.html

Oh, your memory's probably fine, lowcountry. The problem is your grossly unwarranted assumption that such ancient history carries any weight with real fans.

Random note on the impending Strasburg debut (since we haven’t had our daily flurry). It appears that the many reports of a June 4th debut may be driving sales. The Nats web site has a definite dearth of tickets available for the date at many levels. Yeah, I know – that site can be notoriously unreliable and the Nats have been known to ‘hold back’ tickets, but things are definitely moving for that game – and the rest of the weekend for that matter.

I like Storen already. Any baseball player who can (1) recognize he spoke ungrammatically, and (2) make a self-deprecating joke about it that includes the word "Stanford," is special.

And a 0.00 ERA doesn't hurt, either.

Nyjer is pressing like everyone else on this team right now and i think he misses Marquis Grissom. I don't think the abscence of Adam Dunn's bat has anything to do with this current slump Dunn has left a ton of men on base so far this season and while their is still time for Dunn to turn it around i haven't seen anything in his approach to improve on his current drought with RISP.

I gave him points for the self-deprecation, but a demerit for the Stanford reference. :-)

I also gave him a pass on the grammar because it's baseball talk, dude.

Thanks, Scooter. I forget those pesky details sometimes . . . :)

Scooter: Thanks for the tip on AdBlocker. Now I've hidden the hideous headshot of my boss on my company's website. I owe you big time for that.

Hee hee. Glad I could help, Soren. Just recently, it finally occurred to me I could use the ad blocker on pictures I just plain don't like.

Scooter, would it be better with a picture of an opposing hitter sprawled in the dirt? Say, oh, I don't know, Chase Utley or somebody like that? Just a thought... :-)

New format/headshot must be slowing down AK. It's 4:41 and no lineups posted. Mark over at Nats Insider has had lineups posted for an hour or so...Just saying...

eh, back in town after a long road trip, I'd cut him some slack.

I too was wondering about line ups. I looked up Kearns current stats (they are pretty good right now) in preparation for making a comment this morning. I got sidetracked so the conservation was held by others. I will just say we will see where he is at in June, but I will not be suprised if he is still doing well. I hope Bernadina keeps imnproving at the plate. Anyway lets hope we get 4 out of 5 of the Mets/Os and win on Sunday when I will be in attendance.

Sec 204 Row H Seat 7

What the Nats need is pitching b/c the pitching on the whole has been terrible thus far

We are barely getting by with it

Our hitting will produce enough to win this season if we can get people out from the mound