7 and 13 and in the dumps

The Nationals lost to the Reds today, 5-0, swept in the 3-game series, and falling to 1-6 or 1-7 at home, does it really matter enough to look it up?

There are periodic flashes of a club that could be better than last year's. They hit better than last year's club, today's shutout notwithstanding.

Ryan Church was called up on Easter Sunday and led the Nats to a win with two homers against the Braves. That's exciting, but you wonder why he wasn't with the club to start the season? He hit something like .220 in the spring, and .130 in a handful of games in New Orleans, but when Brandon Watson struggled, the club turned immediately to Church.

Don't you have an obligation to put your best club on the field, whether or not Watson outplays Church during the spring? Did the brain trust really believe Watson was better than Church? It reads well: Church is sent down and comes back up rededicated. But I'm not sure that's the most accurate way to look at it. I think we could focus on how poor the choice was to start the season.

The Nationals have two pitchers going well, and that's it. Livan Hernandez has fallen apart. His games seem to be exciting, but they are high-scoring affairs. Thank God he can hit. He will be back, though. Patterson is going well, and John Rauch. Who knows whether Cordero is going well? With no leads, we don't see him in his natural environment. Ortiz, Drese, Traber-- are those the other starters? Not Drese-- he's injured again. Not Traber. He was just sent down. I don't even know who is in the Nationals rotation any more. Oh yeah, Zach Day is coming back, via the waiver wire, and there is an O'Connor coming up from New Orleans. I've got nothing on him. There are no statistical data available for this query. That's from the Nats' website when you click on O'Connor.

This is bush league. It was nice to hope for good things from Ortiz and Drese before the season, and for pete's sake I can't even remember if Traber started on the opening day roster or replaced someone else. Everyone knew this club had but two reliable options in starters: Hernandez and Patterson.

That's really the worst thing about it. Last year Esteban Loaiza made for three solid starters with Hernandez and Patterson, and that was barely enough to be competitive with a bullpen that faithfully held opponents scoreless game after game, turning early deficits into thrilling one-run wins.

This year's club has no answer for the loss of Hector Carrasco, much less Loaiza. When they are hitting, you imagine last year's 81-81 club with this year's bats and you get excited. Then you remember that some guy named O'Connor starts tomorrow. This year's club isn't reliable on the mound, and by the way doesn't field very well, either. Guillen has been injured and hasn't flashed the leather or arm yet. Soriano is fun to watch no matter what he's doing, and I give him the benefit of the doubt. It's nice that he led the NL in assists as of last week, with three, but you know that's because people are running on him as gleefully as Pamplonans run before the bulls. Patterson failed to cover first once already. Vidro is solid at second, but appears to have lost range.

The defense, and even the 7-13 start, I can stand. The men left on base I can stand. These things have a way of resolving themselves when a club can hit. What's going to make this a long summer is the stream of journeymen who take the mound in the first inning.

2-3 Livan!

A ho hum 6-1 loss to fall to 1-3. Livan Hernandez starts the next day and lays a 5-spot in inning number 1. Frank leaves him in the game. Nats win.

These Washington Nationals are taking on Frank Robinson's personality. I'm a youngster. I know nothing about Frank Robinson the player, to tell the truth. To me, he has always been an angry 70-year-old man. What makes him angry: steroids; not running out a pop up; ball one; surrender.

Livan Hernandez never surrenders. He can lay a 5-spot in the 1st and live to tell about it. Robinson lets him pitch through it, and I think it's safe to say at this point he's the only one on the staff requested to go on after the opening act bombs like that. Tonight he pitched through 6 innings, and he actually got the win, over Roy Oswalt, no less. The Nats came back with a storm of late hitting, to win 12-8. This club should probably be 0-5.

But they're not.

1-2 What a mess

Sometimes you win ugly. Sometimes you lose ugly. Guess which is uglier? The Nats lost ugly tonight, a 10-5 thumping by the Mets. Four Nats batters were hit by pitches, actually two, but Guillen and Johnson were each hit twice. It was the Nats who were penalized, however, when Rodriguez hit Lo Duca in the 8th. I think you could say it was the lone bright spot when Nick Johnson tied the game at 5 with a 3-run blast off Pedro, right after Guillen was plunked for the second time, but the Nats bullpen was tagged for 4 runs after Ramon Ortiz was roughed up for 6, and Joey Eischen couldn't hold the Mets in a bullpen letdown that one hopes is as rare this year as last.

Ryan Zimmerman struck out 4 times. Ramon Ortiz's starting performance makes this club look like a team in search of a number 3 starter. And maybe a number 4 and a number 5. Where is Hector Carrasco when you need him?

At least Alfonso Soriano ran the bases today. That's a low blow. Soriano is a joy to watch. He went 2 for 5 tonight, and at the plate he's the best looking player on the club: fluid, at ease, and tough. There are other good hitters, but Soriano is special.

It was an ugly game, but yesterday's comeback allows me to feel like the squad made the most of a bad opening. These clubs will face each other 19 times before the year is out, and we'll take the one rally and try to get them in Washington.

1-1 in New York City

Immediately after Chad Cordero walked Jose Reyes to load the bases in the bottom of the 9th inning, I said to myself, "Now we've got them right where we want them." When Paul Lo Duca hit a sharp liner to Guillen for the final out to take the game into extra innings, I didn't feel lucky-- that's just Chad Cordero's special brand of relief.

The Nats lost the first game of the season: half charity with their baserunning and defense, and half theft by the home plate umpire. They sent a bearded John Patterson to the mound in the second game. Something about John Patterson in a beard concerns me, and when the Nationals fell behind 4-0 even though he pitched fairly well, I was concerned that the season was taking shape before my eyes. Aggressive, botched play to lose the close ones, and overmatched in the rest of them. My fear is that the Nats lost talent before Opening Day while other clubs like the Mets got better. The Mets lineup seems pretty deep, contrasted against the weakest lineup in the Majors from last year, and the Nats have only the addition of a disgruntled slugger from the American League (the guilty party on defense on Opening Day on a ball into the corner in left) and taking into account the loss of a pretty good center fielder (Wilkerson) and our second best starter (Loaiza).

It occurred to me that maybe the Mets will suffer in their pitching. I liked our game 2 matchup, with Patterson against rookie Brian Bannister. But when it was 4-0, and Bannister didn't look scary, just fortunate to be facing the Nats, I was wondering if these Nationals don't resemble the 71-91 Expos more than the club that led their division at the All Star break last year.

But then the game fell into place in the same way so many games went to the Nats in 2005, with the bullpen holding the enemy while the offense eventually produced the key hits. Johnson hit a three run home run off a tiring Bannister in the 6th, and cool as a cucumber rookie Ryan Zimmerman (he of the .397 batting average in 58 at bats last year) smashed a line shot off Billy Wagner to tie the game leading off the 9th. Zimmerman took three balls to start his at bat, then took a strike, then fouled a pitch to see the count go 3-2. Odds are, the rook will be overmatched by the veteran flamethrower's heat on the next pitch, or he'll be weakly chasing a nasty curve. But instead, the high hard one comes in, and Zimmerman meets it with a high, hard, level one of his own, and the ball caroms off the upper deck in left to tie the game and the rook trots around the bases as if he's used to this. He isn't, not at this level at least, first time.

Cordero retires the side in the bottom of the 9th in his cardiac fashion. Jose Guillen knocks a two-run shot with one out in the 10th, and the Nats actually put the rout to the Mets, scoring 3 more for a 9-4 lead that Felix Rodriguez closes out in the bottom of the 10th for a 9-5 win.

Instead of writing about how the Nats couldn't score on Bannister with runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs in the 2nd, about how the Mets' leadoff hitter can steal a base and ours can't, about a John Patterson who seems so talented, yet so fragile, I'm writing about how the Nats bullpen-- just like last year's-- manages to pitch 6 innings of shutout ball if you don't count the meaningless balk in the 10th, and about clutch hitting by Nick Johnson and Ryan Zimmerman, two of the players who will have to hit well if our lineup is to be any more than three deep (the three: Vidro, Guillen, and Soriano). I'm writing about how our guy, Chad Cordero, who led the league in saves last year but let's face it doesn't scare people like Billy Wagner does, got the win while Wagner blew the save. Instead of complaining that Frank Robinson loves to play small ball, I'm writing about a 3-run homer and a solo shot to tie, and another 2-knocker in extra innings to take the lead, and a neat little thing called managing when Robinson brought Cordero into a tie game with the pitcher due up in the Nats half of the 10th. Instead of griping about whether an 0-2 team will be good enough to fascinate the way last year's team was, I'm dreaming tonight about a 1-1 team that looks like it could be way better than last year's team was. You remember that team, the one that went, what was it? 81-81?