So, Um, Any Good Games Lately?
I was busy spending $300 at Wegmans, so I missed tonight's game. Anyone have a recap?
After thinking about the post below, here's what caught my eye when I thought about it a bit: the Nats are 10th in runs. Now 10th isn't anything to write home about, but that's a marked improvement from where they were a month ago. And it's at the high end of what reasonable expectations were.
Yet, if you look at what the team's doing, there's nobody really vastly exceeding expectations. I guess Nix is, but he's certainly not been propelling this latest streak. Morse is hitting terrifically, a bit above his head, perhaps. But it's not something you couldn't imagine, no matter how unlikely you thought it would be.
So here they are... as close to .500 as they've been this late in the season since what? September of '05?
We've said it a million times before: you're never as good as you look when you're on a hot streak. This Nats team -- not even Philly or Boston -- is going to keep this pace up. But enjoy it dammit. We're playing quasi-meaningful games... and that's more than most of us envisioned this season.
___
I said this on twitter the other night... I'm certainly not Riggleman's biggest fan. If you played Strat or OOTP or DMB against him, 3/4 of the people reading this would beat him 7 times out of 10.
But this team plays consistently hard. They usually play smartly. They make errors, but they're usually ones of physical talent, not mental mistakes. Think about Desmond, and how many of his errors last year were on balls he should've eaten had he known the game better. He's not doing that this year. Sure, Jerry Hairston still makes bad baserunning plays, but that's his talent: he sucks.
More or less, this team shows up, plays hard, plays smartly. It doesn't do all the little things right. But no team does. An obsession with that is one of those empty BS dumps people use when they can't really point to other things. (Much like statheads wave away things by citing "luck".
Tonight's game was an example. If this were Manny Acta's team, they'd have rolled over, played dead, been buried, and turned to tasty little piles of nitrogen by the time the 9th rolled around.
But not under Riggles.
For whatever his faults are -- many, many! -- he deserves quite a bit of credit for that. (See also: Robinson, Frank)
After thinking about the post below, here's what caught my eye when I thought about it a bit: the Nats are 10th in runs. Now 10th isn't anything to write home about, but that's a marked improvement from where they were a month ago. And it's at the high end of what reasonable expectations were.
Yet, if you look at what the team's doing, there's nobody really vastly exceeding expectations. I guess Nix is, but he's certainly not been propelling this latest streak. Morse is hitting terrifically, a bit above his head, perhaps. But it's not something you couldn't imagine, no matter how unlikely you thought it would be.
So here they are... as close to .500 as they've been this late in the season since what? September of '05?
We've said it a million times before: you're never as good as you look when you're on a hot streak. This Nats team -- not even Philly or Boston -- is going to keep this pace up. But enjoy it dammit. We're playing quasi-meaningful games... and that's more than most of us envisioned this season.
___
I said this on twitter the other night... I'm certainly not Riggleman's biggest fan. If you played Strat or OOTP or DMB against him, 3/4 of the people reading this would beat him 7 times out of 10.
But this team plays consistently hard. They usually play smartly. They make errors, but they're usually ones of physical talent, not mental mistakes. Think about Desmond, and how many of his errors last year were on balls he should've eaten had he known the game better. He's not doing that this year. Sure, Jerry Hairston still makes bad baserunning plays, but that's his talent: he sucks.
More or less, this team shows up, plays hard, plays smartly. It doesn't do all the little things right. But no team does. An obsession with that is one of those empty BS dumps people use when they can't really point to other things. (Much like statheads wave away things by citing "luck".
Tonight's game was an example. If this were Manny Acta's team, they'd have rolled over, played dead, been buried, and turned to tasty little piles of nitrogen by the time the 9th rolled around.
But not under Riggles.
For whatever his faults are -- many, many! -- he deserves quite a bit of credit for that. (See also: Robinson, Frank)
posted by Chris Needham at
11:18 PM
4 Comments:
So... 3 people? Hey-oooo! Just kidding. But seriously. Do you think the "fire under their asses" thing is worth the sac bunting and the rest of the old-school stuff we put up with from Riggles?
By
Anonymous, at 6/21/2011 11:39 PM
Damn, sorry you missed tonight's game. I started following the team seriously at the beginning of the '07 season and this was, I'm pretty sure, the best win I've seen. Zimmerman's three GDPs made the rally all the more sweet. Finally we have a team that can win when the Franchise Face shuts the bed.
Enjoying it.
By
Hb, at 6/22/2011 12:42 AM
Imagine how the team would look if Werthless was coming anywhere close to earning his ridiculous contract!
By
Anonymous, at 6/22/2011 9:15 AM
What does this have to do with Basil giving up cable?
By
Harper, at 6/22/2011 11:38 AM
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