The Nationals went 3-4 in the last week. The three wins came against the Seattle Mariners, the only team with a worse record than the Nats. Jose Vidro is their designated hitter, and they no longer have their manager. This is actually a good way to measure managers this year. If your team gets swept by the Nationals, then you deserve to be fired.

The Nats still have the worst record in the NL, and they currently are at the bottom of every meaningful offensive statistic in the NL. I could highlight their: batting average, OBP, OPS, Slugging, RBIs, Total Bases, but this week's measure of the Nationals' anemic offense is: the Nationals are last in the National League in intentional walks with 9.

Acta Covered, Coveted?
The big news in baseball this week was the Mets firing their manager, Willie Randolph. After Randolph was fired, many eyes turned towards Nationals manager Manny Acta. Manny was the third base coach for the Mets before being hired by the Nationals. In fact, his Wikipedia page still shows him in a Mets uniform, and there was some speculation that Acta could be Randolph's replacement. Manny has said that he has no interest in the Mets job, and he is under contract with the Nationals through 2009 with a team option for 2010. In addition, Jim Bowden has said that the team would not give the Mets permission to talk to Acta.

Since he is probably going to be the Nationals manager for a while, it is nice that the Post ran a profile of Manny on Tuesday. The article reveals that he doesn't believe in arguing with umpires, wants to foster a positive attitude in the clubhouse, and has a lot of patience. These are all good traits for the manager of a 29-45 team. He also prefers the National League style of managing, and doesn't believe in bunting. Also, his favorite color is blue. His opinion of long walks on the beach is unknown.

Must Wear Shirts
If you want to know how bad the Nationals are, and how tedious it is getting to write about them, look no further than the shirt controversy that has been brewing at the Post this week. It started with this letter to the editor from Benjamin Correia recounting how he was told to put his shirt back on at a recent Nationals game. Dan Steinberg picked up on the story and called up the Nationals VP of Communications. This then prompted David Segal to write this article about the differences between those people who like to wear shirts and those who don't like to wear shirts. Finally, Dan Steinberg got Correia on the phone and learned that he is 5-11, 175, and works out all the time.

Game of the Week
The game of the week is Friday, June 20 against the Rangers. This will mark the first time that the Rangers franchise has played in Washington since September 30, 1971, when Bob Short moved the team, then the Senators, to Texas. That was also the last game played in Washington until April 14, 2005, when the Nationals played their first game in the District.

Briefly Noted
Sunday's Kids Jersey Day promotion has been canceled, presumably because the team felt like it wasn't getting enough bad press... The Nationals website just noticed that Wily Mo Pena is off to a rough start... Garrett Mock will get his second start of the year.

Meaningless Statistic of the Week: Despite injury, Chad Cordero is leading the National League with a power finesse ratio of 4.50 while pitching in a day game. The power finesse ratio is (strikeouts + walks)/innings pitched.

Photo by andertho.