Nats Update: A Series Which Will Live in Infamy
Damn Barry Bonds.
Damn Cream’n’Clear takin’, media-manipulatin’, fan-hatin’ Barry Bonds.
With apologies to sister site SFist, who has stepped up their excitement in anticipation of Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record, my recognition of his record-breaking achievement has gone from tepid acknowledgement to thinly-veiled animosity.
It was bad enough that the Nats best baseball of the year – two straight series sweeps and a six-game win streak – was overshadowed this weekend by Balco Barry’s 755th homer. Now, though, the Nationals begin a series with the Giants in San Francisco, in which Bonds is all but certain to hit #756 and break the record, placing one of our own Nats pitchers in the ass-end of the history books.
The Nats, as you might imagine, are fairly conflicted about their anticipated place in history – from how rookie John Lannan should approach tonight’s start, to what right fielder Austin Kearns should do if the historic ball falls back to the field, to TV man Bob Carpenter’s on-air comments this weekend that he will not script the call of the historic homer.
Aside from the circus surrounding Bonds, there are plenty of good reasons to catch the Nats at 10 p.m. tonight on ESPN2. The team is on the verge of leaving last place for the first time since early last summer. Ryan Zimmerman is red-hot, having raised his batting average an astounding 15 points during the homestand to .274. Dmitri Young continues to chase the NL batting crown with his own hot hitting. Rookies John Lannan and Joel Hanrahan, both scheduled to start in the Giants series, have looked promising in winning their only two decisions thus far.
All of the focus, unfortunately, will be on Bonds. While the Nats are excited about all of the hoopla surrounding the games, you get the feeling that none of the pitchers have conceded the dinger just yet. Nobody wants to be the guy hanging his head in the background of newspaper photos all over the world. As Manny Acta has said, despite the surprisingly strong performance of the Nats rag-tag assemblage of pitchers, "we know whoever gives it up, it's probably going to be the only thing they're remembered for."