Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
D.C. Police Seek Suspect in Series of Bank Robberies
Suspect in 9-Year-Old's Murder Found Dead in D.C. Jail
Wizards Owner Abe Pollin Dies at 85
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!
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If you're relying on Jason Simontacchi to be the rotation's saviour, you've got a looooong season ahead.
learn the difference between "its" and "it's", please.
Oooooooooh...if you want to use a possessive, it's just "i-t-s," but if you want to use a contaction, then it's "i-t-apostrophe-s."
Scalawag.
Realtively unrelated question, but: How come in the new stadium renderings, all the seats are blue? Is that really the plan? I realize that's a secondary color for the team, but why wouldn't they choose red? I think Busch Stadium looks great with all their red seats (and passionate fans who all wear red).
Nate-
Thanks... I think. Typo fixed.
Perhaps it's to differentiate the new ballpark from the other two NL parks with red seats, St. Louis and Philly.
Perhaps it's to differentiate the new ballpark from the other two NL parks with red seats, Cincy and Philly.
Is there anything Strong Bad can't teach us?
Umm, that's St. Louis and Philly. I actually tried posting comment #7 before I posted #6, but I got the all too typical "Internal Server Error" message, so I assumed it didn't go through.
Philly's park has blue seats, too.
Okay, maybe I can get it right this time: The new ballparks in Cincinnati and St. Louis have red seats.
"The new ballparks in Cincinnati and St. Louis have red seats."
Yes, because they're red colored teams. If we had red seats, I don't think people would enter the stadium and be like "Ewwww, red, again?" [and for that matter, I think only a small minority would've felt the same way had we build a retro-park instead of a K St. office building] I just think red seats look great in contrast to the green field (and that color contrast is played up even more in Fenway, to great success). We're a red team. We should take advantage of that to use such a vibrant color. With the awful modernist design, the stadium is going to start out looking pretty souless, adding some bright color is the least we should do.
As for the color of the seats in the new ballpark, at least they did not go with a mish-mash of colors a la 1970's-era stadiums & arenas...Ever been to the Superdome in New Orleans? Just looking at that early 70's color pallete gives me a migraine.
Some say that the new park will look like a K St. office building or an airport terminal, but I commend the stakeholders in trying to create a 21st century model of what a baseball stadium should be, rather than create the umpteenth knockoff of Camden Yards/Disneyland. I prefer our design that tries to strike a balance between the need of the owners, fans and architecture critics. Look at Great American Ballpark in Cincy. They threw every idea in the pot and out came a park that feels like a giant Chuck-e-Cheese (except for the chili--Skyline is the best in the world!). The new ballpark's most important design feature will be that it has an almost translucent quality--that is one will be able to see from the outside-in; and just by looking at the construction pics, the detached upper tiers seem to use less steel and appear to be floating that a previous stadium's upper deck does not do. This design also lends itself well to making modifactions decades from now when the design is passe and people want to update it.
Speaking of Camden Yards, how about dem Birds? Its about (9 years??) time they kick some ass. Even though I have never been and never be a real O's fan, I may just head up to Bawlmer for the O's-Red Sox match up. There are still tickets available.
"but I commend the stakeholders in trying to create a 21st century model of what a baseball stadium should be"
Well we may disagree on the merit of the design (and really, who cares what architecture critics think about a baseball stadium? They're the ones who think the MLK Library is worth saving) but I think we can at least agree that the design was not chosen by stakeholders, but rather Tony Williams. The Lerners had nothing to do with the design choice. There was no input from the public(the true stakeholder). It was just Williams' deciding that how he wants to be remembered. This is the same man who decided the key to the city would be better off as some Star Trek-looking prop costing thousands of dollars each rather than a simple brass key.
man, is the team so bad that people care more about the colour of the seats than the win/loss record????
my rant:
is Acta on drugs...Robert Fick starting over Snelling today??? seriously...does this guy even want to win...makes an example of Church over hustle (or lack thereof) and doesn't reward the player who would run through a wall for him (starting a guy who didn't hustle a bunt)...Acta forgets that snelling is only 25 i think...
and what is with the love for Kearns??? has never been so good that he deserves a guaranteed spot in right...
shake up the lineup Acta...bat snelling at 2 and belliard at 5...
that's my rant anyway...