A "Good" Loss

Despite the results, there were some things to like about tonight's game.

The bullpen was tremendous, especially Micah Bowie who bailed out the starter, giving the Nats 2.1 quality innings. I know it's just two appearances, but Jesus Colome looks like he could be a find. He's throwing strikes, which has always been his problem. If he keeps it up, the Nats have a solid arm in the middle innings.

Manny Acta seems to handle a pen pretty well. It's a bit different than Frank. Frank would work a reliever for one inning, but with more frequency. Acta seems to get more innings out of his guys, pitching them less frequently.

Of course, saying that, Rauch pitched very effectively for the third game in a row, although he had thrown only 25 pitches -- basically, the equiv. of one long outing.

The team had some pretty good ABs, and the doubles they sprayed were indicative of that.

Dmitri Young had one of those doubles, flipping off his helmet to help with the aerodynamics as he styled around to second. He also ripped a homer deep to the right-center gap. That was the first really hard hit ball he's had. The doubles he's had have mostly been grounders pulled down either line. He's hit them hard, but it's not like he's driving the balls to the gap there. He hasn't been terrible with the glove either, and he's only failed to make one play that he should've in the three games I've watched.

Ronnie Belliard, who has bigger breasts than me, seems to hit an awful lot of weak fly balls and flares. Some have dropped in, which have made his performances look better than it has really been.

They continued to show plate patience.

It seems silly to say that when they walked only twice, and struck out seven times. But they worked the counts, getting into favorable counts a number of times. As a whole, they weren't flailing around as terribly as they seemed to be doing in the first two games.

They had a difficult time early in the game against Edgar Gonzalez, who was a strike-throwing machine. He had three pitches working early, and was nailing in the inside and outside corners consistently, and the Nats had little chance. As he tired, he got sloppier with his pitches and started missing his spots, and that's when they took advantage, getting many more opportunities in the third inning and beyond.

On the other side was the terrible, terrible Jason Bergmann (Who was much better in Smultronstället)

His fastball is passable. He throws hard, and it's got a bit of zip to it. He just doesn't seem to have command of it, leaving it up and over the plate far too often.

His breaking pitches are terrible. They're not crisp, and they sort of roll up to the plate, either falling harmlessly way out of the zone or, worse, flopping over the heart of it.

Tonight, it was mostly the former, as he walked just a hair under a third of the batters he faced -- 6 walks in total.

The Nats have an offday on Monday. I wonder if they'll try to skip his spot in the order the next time through and, in the meantime, option him down while recalling Saul Rivera to give them an extra dependable arm in the bullpen.

The games we're going to win this year are going to be just like this. Our offense isn't going to blow anyone out, even without Guzman or Logan. So they need strong relief pitching to hold the team in the game.

Three games and all, but we're almost at the point where we need to consider going the tandem starters route, like they do in the lower levels of the minors. Essentially, with Bowie cleaning up Bergmann's mess tonight, that's what we had. Add 'em together, and our duo gave us 6 innings with 4 runs. On this team, we'll take that out of a 'starter'!

I didn't feel down about this loss... certainly not the way I was taking losses last year. That's good for my sanity.

Oh, and a hearty congratulations to the 16,017 fans at the game, who appear to have set a new low for attendance.