I Hate That Ballpark

I've had a pretty comfortable routine the last few weeks. After I make dinner, my girlfriend and I (no, she's not imaginary) sit down and watch another movie from my always-growing netflix queue. After the movie, I'll flip on the game and pick it up, catching what I missed with a quick trip to yahoo sports.

Tonight was the same way. I bought the "Planet Earth" DVD set the other day, and we've been making our way through them. After one episode of about an hour, I checked and saw a 6-0 lead and said 'screw it' to the rest of the game, so we watched another episode.

When I turned the DVD off, it was 7-5, and Winston Abreu was pitching his second inning of relief. The rest, as they say, is hist-o-ree.

A few thoughts from what I did watch, and what I gathered from the play log...

The first inning represented the best and worst of the Nationals. They're a long-chain offense, relying on hits and the occasional walks to get their runs. They're not a power-hitting team, so they need strings of hits to have a chance of scoring. They had four hits and three walks, yet only scored four runs. It's not that four runs is a bad outcome. It's just that a good team would have smashed their boot down on Arroyo's foot. They dribbed and drabbed their way to just (yes, I feel silly typing 'just') four runs and left the bases loaded. What would that inning have looked like with a homer mixed in there somewhere?

The Nats would get their homers later, taking advantage of a park that's pretty easy to homer in, but then so would the Reds. Cincinnati's park is one of the 2 or 3 most extreme homer parks in the league. And compared to RFK, it might as well be a Little League field.

Statdrunk computerees have crunched park factors to better compare parks. RFK has averaged a homer rate of about 80 over the last two years, where 100 is average. In other words, RFK allows about 20% fewer homers than an average park. Over that same period, Great American has had a homer rate of about 120, which, as you can guess, means it allows about 20% more homers than an average park. That's a pretty substantial swing and those extremes shade lots of things about the quality of each team's respective players. Alright... digression over....

I think it's pretty safe to say that Levale Speigner isn't going to be a major-league starter. His numbers (besides his now 6.6something ERA) are scary. He's walked 15 batters in 21 innings, and has just 10 Ks to go with it. He doesn't fool bats, and he's not even giving the team innings. Supposedly Bergmann's raring to go, and hopefully Speigner can go back to the pen where he belongs (if even there).

Abreu was dominant in his relief appearance, pitching three strong innings, while keeping the Nats in a game that felt like it was slipping away. One thing caused me to raise my brow in curiosity though. After cruising through two innings, Manny Acta had another of those tough managerial decisions. With a two-run lead, Abreu was due to lead off the 6th. Do you leave the hot pitcher in, effectively wasting any chance of a scoring opportunity? Or do you pinch hit, try to extend the inning, and see if the other guys -- Colome, Rivera, Rauch, King and Cordero -- can hold the lead?

Manny chose to send Abreu up. He made an out. The Nats did nothing offensively. Then he pitched another strong scoreless inning.

I'm of the mindset that you need to take every opportunity you can to score, especially when you have a scant 2-run lead with 4 more defensive innings to play. Sure, the Nats would have a chance to build on the lead with their future ABs, but, especially with the way this team struggles to score, I think you need to take a crack at another run or two, especially with the top of the order. Another important factor is the context. As we said, this is a pretty strong hitter's park, and the Reds, despite their GM's best efforts to sabotage it, have a pretty ok offense. Two runs wasn't going to be enough. And as it turns out, it wasn't.

That's not to say that that decision lost the game, just that that's a place where things could've turned out differently. We'll never know though.

Besides, the Nats made it to the bottom of the 8th with that same 2-run lead. But here's where Teh Nook taketh away. With a runner on second, Scott Hatterberg hit a high pop to centerfield, an easy can of corn. Logan ranged over. Kearns ranged over. And as has happened a number of times with plays involving our rightfielder, something went to hell in terms of communication. It's the CFer's ball all the way, and Logan, perhaps distracted by the bull charge of Kearns, let it drop for a double.

The increasingly annoying Bob Carpenter tried to make excuses about where the defense was positioned before the play, but that's just BS. I wish he'd turn off homer mode sometimes and tell us what we're actually seeing, not trying to shade things in the most positive light possible. It was the CFers ball all the way and not a tough play, and for whatever reason it dropped in.

I'm not sure if it rattled Rauch or what, but he threw una Albóndiga to Javier Valentin who hit it to Kentucky. Game over.

Here, too, is where the park comes into play. Rauch and Cordero are both extreme flyball pitchers. Think about how many long, warning track flies -- Cordero especially -- they allow at RFK, and think about where those would go in a bandbox like GAB. One of them giving up a homer in that park wasn't a huge surprise. It's just a shame that because of the misplay the homer plated the game-winning run, not the tying one.

The game ended when pinch-hitter Ronnie Belliard popped on a neck-high slider from David Weathers. Another decision for Manny Acta: Why Belliard and not Jesus Flores? Belliard is batting .135 on the month, and Flores has impressed almost everyone with his patient approach and surprising power. Again, not a game-losing play, but it's a curious decision.

It's a game that leaves us with a bitter taste in our mouth, but 5 hours ago, with Speigner against Arroyo, you'd have inked this one in as a loss, right? No, that doesn't make me feel any better either. Sorry for bringing it up.