Nats Update: Sweating the Small Stuff
While D.C. was enjoying its glorious spring weather this weekend, the Nats were in Miami getting severely pounded by the Marlins. Many of the now-usual themes were present: big early deficits, too many walks, and baserunning blunders maligned the brief road trip.
The biggest culprit, the Nats much-maligned pitching, has been adequately covered by others, including Chad Cordero's two blown saves and the disasterous outings by Matt Chico and Jerome Williams. Really, in a just world, neither would be receiving these beatings at the major league level right now. Someday soon, mercifully, Jason Simontacchi or someone will come up and give them a break.
We'll leave it alone because we've been conditioned to take the long view to the Nats future success. By now, we all know that a playoff-caliber pitching staff takes years (and millions) to develop. On offense, too, we know that a few years down the road, Ted Lerner will drop some cash to pick up a big stick for the middle of the lineup (Andruw Jones, anyone?). In the meantime, though, there are a lot of games to be played, and the Nats could and should be playing better ball in the near future, doing the things that separate the .500 teams from the cellar dwellers: getting better end-of-the-order hitting and playing better defense.
Photo by Flickr user CH722.
With so many individual statistics and so much focus on pitcher vs. star hitter duels, it's easy to forget how much those guys batting 6th-8th affect the team's success. Take catcher Brian Schneider, for instance. Thus far in '07, Schneider's offensive start has been horrific to the tune of a .169 batting average and a .271 OBP. It affects the whole lineup; whoever's hitting seventh is lucky to ever see a decent pitch when Schneider's struggling. Austin Kearns and Ryan Church, hitting well earlier in the order, could write letters home while they're stranded on base. Late in games, they often press too much because of the black hole in the lineup's last third.
This is not to pick on Schneider - he's actually a DCist favorite. When he's got it going, he'll hit a perfectly serviceable .285, and there are few better defensive catchers in the game. But it goes to show that a team as thin as this year's Nats can't afford to have anyone, especially the veterans, not pull their own weight.
The situation is made far worse by the lengthy injury layoffs of Nook Logan, Cristian Guzman, and Nick Johnson. While their offensive production has been capably replaced by Chris Snelling, Ronnie Belliard, and Dmitri Young, they've set up a butcher shop behind the pitcher's mound on defense, with 17 infield errors already.
Do you know what happens when a pitcher is afraid to just throw strikes and let his defense work? They try to do too much. That can only lead to two things: tons of walks, and Cabrera moonshots. It's difficult to make a case relying on defensive statistics, but my guess is that if the Nats could put who they'd like out in the field, they'd be competitive in a lot more games. We might get to find out soon, too, as WaPo reports that Guzman and Logan might be playing again as early as next week. Get well soon, boys!