Week 1 April 9, 2007
Week one is over and the Nationals are 1-6 and heading to series against Atlanta and New York. Like the weather this week, the outlook is pretty damn chilly. That isn’t to say, however, there wasn’t positives to be found:
- Ryan Church — I hate seeing Church in a Nationals uniform. He is arrogant and weak willed but I have to give him credit for closing the hole in his bat. After watching Ryan swing and miss too many times the last 2 seasons, I am very impressed with his plate discipline so far. In 28 plate appearances, he has 1 single, 4 doubles, 2 home runs and 4 walks. In those 4 walks, his average count is 7 pitches–that isn’t the Ryan I remember.
From MLB.COM: “If I miss a pitch, [hitting coach] Mitchell [Page] is always doing these hand gestures. That’s the biggest thing for me — relax and not try to do too much,” Church said.
He needs to move back to LF as soon someone serviceable is available for CF and traded as soon as an decent offer is made before Ryan, who is more streaky than generic window cleaner, forgets to relax and tries to do too much.
- Dmitri Young — He is hitting .292 and has made more good defensive plays than he has blown. The question remains what to do with him when Nick Johnson returns. If he doesn’t play everyday, he can’t keep his bat happy but he can’t really play anywhere other than 1B. I can’t believe that Nick will remain healthy all season long, so it would be nice to have a solid insurance policy sitting around but if he keeps up his production he needs to be traded too.
- Bullpen — Pick up any newspaper article about one of our games and somewhere deep in it will be a mention of another solid turn by our relievers (outside Cordero).
- Shawn Hill and yes John Patterson — Shawn has turned in two good-to-great performances, but thanks to horrible defense you will only remember Sunday’s start. John Patterson is a head case but he threw good pitches after the first couple innings of Saturday’s start and that is usually enough to keep him sending batters back to the dugout for about 4 starts until something upsets his delicate sensibilities.
Now for the bad, which I will limit mercifully to the top 3:
- First Innings – we have been down 13-0 after the first innings of our 7 starts.
- Mental Errors — I can forgive the physical errors in the cold and fresh season but the mental errors are tough to swallow. Things like Kory Casto throwing to third instead of his cut-off man which let an extra-base pile up for the DBacks, or Belliard (and the whole IF) missing the runner trying to stretch out a double that would have been an easy out or Ray King not even covering first and letting the batter reach without any effort (Yay to Manny for pulling him immediately).
- RISP horrors — Going into Sunday’s game, in the previous 5 games, the Nationals were 5 for 40 with runners in scoring position. Sad. Really sad.
 
- Posted in : Nationals
- Author : Jol
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