Your Line Of The Night

Thanks to Michael for pointing out Joel Hanrahan's night -- which is undoubtedly ticking off beat writers who have to consider re-writing copy for a feckin' spring training game.

Threeoh Hanrahan has pitched 3 innings, while striking out 8 and walking none, a dominating night. And it came against the Braves' A team, not the D teams that sometimes populate these spring training games.

I've written a few times that you just need to ignore spring training stats. The exception, I said, was for pitcher's K/BB ratio. This outing definitely helps that! Hanrahan's now up to 12/1 there, a far cry from the scattershot pitcher we saw last year.

There's been some speculation that throwing him into the bullpen would allow him to focus on just one or two of his pitches, letting him concentrate on a repeatable delivery and improving his control. If that's what's happening, maybe the Nats have found themselves a secret weapon!

But let's not get ahead of ourselves!

In the meantime, Hanrahan's performance makes the Nats likely preferred option of sending him to the minors all the more difficult. I think he's out of options, which would mean he'd have to clear waivers. With that performance, that's not going to happen. So if he stays, who goes? Does Ray King get kicked out? Does his performance come at the expense of Chris Schroeder (10/2 K/BB)? Does Saul Rivera (3/2) still have options?

Actually, Jesus Colome only recently got his work visa, so he's probably behind schedule. That might be a possibility.

It definitely makes Bowden's decisions a little more difficult, but it's a good problem to have!

Well, one beat writer doesn't worry about re-filing it, using the blog instead. Now featuring rosterbation and a soliloquy on Patterson's velocity.

Others play it straight.