A Few Quick Thoughts On A Great Game

Woo! A win! We only need to win every game between now and Saturday the 26th -- the 6th game of our next road trip -- and we're back at .500!!!

Today's game was a combo of two factors:

1) The bats HAD to wake up at one point or another -- although the increasingly terrible Bob Carpenter's ridiculous assertion that Lenny Harris was the difference was laughable.

2) The Marlins have a terrible infield defense. Think about how many of those hits we had were 10-hoppers through the infield.

Be excited about the hits, but realize that our biggest weakness was still on display yesterday: zero power. 15 hits and they only managed 6 runs? When you don't ever hit homers, and even doubles are a relatively rare occurrence, it takes three hits to score a run. More often than not, when we're playing a crisper defense, that's not going to happen.

Don't let Nook Logan's 2-4 fool you. He grounded into two double plays. The final hit he had was the only "solid" hit he had, a line-drive flare over the second baseman on a hanger.

Anything we get out of Cristian Guzman is gravy at this point. He had a decent night with the bat, and the difference in his swing is refreshing. Two things though: 1) His beard scares me; 2) What happened to that 15 pounds he supposedly lost?

Shawn Hill has been complaining of forearm pain all year, so seeing him leave with an injury -- elbow problems -- isn't surprising. He fell in love with his slurve -- it breaks larger like a curve, but runs more horizontal like a curve; what is it? -- and threw that many more times than I'm used to seeing. Breaking pitches put the most stress on arms. I wonder if the number he threw contributed to the pain?

They didn't find any obvious structural damage, but he's going in for an MRI to get a better look. With a little luck, it's just a spot of tendinitis. Although with his Patterson-like arm history...

Brian Schneider continues to sputter to life. I'm glad to see that, because he's a better player than he's shown over the last two years. A good defensive catcher who hits .260, slugs 10-15 homers and takes a walk is a pretty valuable thing. Still, I'd like to see more PT for Flores against some tough lefties -- Does Olsen qualify?

He was robbed of a homer late in the game, when Reggie Abercrombie leaped up and over the fence to snare one of his flies. After the ball fell into the glove, Abercrombie snapped the glove back towards fair territory to ensure it wasn't a homer, but, in the process, smacked the glove against the fence, spiking the ball down to the ground. At least Schneider got a double out of it.

Ronnie Belliard cannot play first base. Short, stubby legs, and a small demeanor mean he can't stretch enough to get an extra split second on close throws, and also hinder him from reaching those high and wide throws while keeping the foot on the beg. He was charged with an error on a drop, and missed a play or two that a better 1B -- do the Nats really have one? -- might've gotten.

Supposedly Nick Johnson took some grounders at first. Get healthy!

Ryan Church looked a little shaky on a few plays in left. He was replaced late in the game by Ryan Langerhans, who looked anything but shaky on a terrific diving catch deep to the gap in left-center, that would've scored two runs had it fallen in.

Lots to be excited about. But lots of expectations that should be tempered, too.

As we've learned time and time again, you're never as bad as you look when you're losing, and you're never as good as you look when you're winning.

Still, for one night, we looked dammmmmn purty.

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