Feels Like the First Time

I don't want this to sound like the rantings of one of those 50-year old manchildren who pines for the days of Eddie Brinkman, but dammit, you know what the first thing I thought of when I pulled up the ol' MLB ap while wandering around the pet food aisle at target?

I saw the 1-0 win over LA, and instantly thought of Ryan Drese. Ah, those heady days of 2005. Drese's first start after coming over from Texas was against LA -- only the Angels in this case. You'll of course remember that series as being the FRobby/Scioscia/Guillen/Donnelly/Intimidator/Piece-of-human-garbage series. All that came later. But the first game was something special.

Drese came out of nowhere, throwing his turbo sinker and getting grounder after grounder. As the innings piled up, the hits most certainly didn't. And through 8, the Nats led 1-0 thanks to Brian Schneider's solo homer off Bart Colon.

The ninth came, and Chad Cordero entered for what was probably the wildest ride in what was a crazy season. He, as he tended to do, made things interesting. He gave up a quick hit followed by a walk. During one of the pitches in that sequence, he literally fell off the mound during his delivery. One more single, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. Then he did it. Strikeout. Fly to center, but not deep enough to send the runner, followed by another strikeout. Game over, 1-0, and you just felt (as you really had for a few weeks) that this team was capable of anything.

I'm not sure we're completely to THAT point yet, but watching them (muted), it sometimes feels that way.

I remember earlier in that season... day game against the Mets... had to be this game, I guess. We were 13-11, and had actually played a pretty difficult schedule. We had played Atlanta a bunch. The Mets didn't appear to be pushovers. We fought those stupid Phillies... This wasn't a death march, but it was a long stretch of intradivision games, and was a good test of where this team was.

As I was walking out on one of those never-ending concrete ramps, my friend and I talked bout the start. 13-11 isn't a pennant-winner, but considering the difficult schedule, it was a good sign. I vividly recall saying something to him like "if we can play .500ish against these guys, we're going to be in it for a while."

Little did I know that about a month later, Ryan Church was going to hit a three-run homer in the 8th inning of a game against the Marlins that would push the Nats into first place in the midst of an improbable winning streak. Man, I can still hear the roars of that crowd. I can still see Mark Kotsay taking a looping path to the ball on Nick Johnson's bases-clearing double.

Dammit... starting to sold like an old man... where was I?

The point is there are parallels. RFK was the perfect place for that team -- an extreme run-suppressor, it held down the scores, keeping the Nats in way more games than they should've been in. This team has that sort of feel; they may get blown out occasionally. They may not do much blowing out themselves. But they've got a chance more often than not.

This team isn't as good as the Phillies or the Cardinals. But that second tier of teams -- Padres (at least based on their start), Atlanta, Milwaukee, Colorado, Los Angeles, etc... You can squint your eyes and see this team among that group, can't you? We're probably at the bottom of that group, but if you can play with those guys, you've got a team that's playing mildly interesting baseball into the parts of the year where I'm perpetually sweating.

Then you throw in Strasburg (Just bring him up, dammit!), Storen... maybe (but I doubt) Wang has a tiny little something (snicker) left in his right shoulder... then what?

Really, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but it's fun to dream sometimes. And if nothing else, these last few games have let me dream back to '05 -- back when rooting for this team was all kinds of crazy fun.