Nationals Arm Race

Rodriguez getting ready to fire in another pitch that he has no idea where its going. Photo via humorfeast.blogspot.com

Here’s Henry Rodriguez‘s outing on Sunday 5/8: 6 batters faced, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches, one weak grounder and two strike outs.  1 inning pitched, 1 earned run on zero hits.  27 pitches but only NINE for strikes.

This gives him, as of Sunday, a grand total of 5 innings pitched on the year.  In those 5 innings he’s only given up 1 run (today’s) and three hits.  He also has 7 strikeouts in those 5 innings.  But he now has 6 walks and 3 wild pitches in those same 5 innings.  His ERA may be nifty (1.80) but his WHIP is the same (1.80), which is really bad for a late-innings reliever.

Adding insult to injury, as Steven at FJB pointed out tonight, Steve McCatty and Jim Riggleman’s comments about the reliever are rather ridiculous.  Per WashingtonTimes.com beat reporter Amanda Comak‘s story, Riggleman said that Rodriguez “needs to get sharper before we can get him into bigger spots.”  Hmm; isn’t that what spring training is for?  Oh yeah, Rodriguez showed up 3-weeks late, but the Nats couldn’t do jack about it except invent an injury to stash him on the DL to start the season since he’s out of options despite a grand total of 36 mlb innings in his career.

He’s now replaced Brian Broderick as the lowest-leverage use reliever in the Nats bullpen.  In other words, the guy you would be least likely to bring into a close game.  For a team already carrying a rule-5 reliever, this shortening of the bullpen means that manager Jim Riggleman is now basically playing with a 5-man pen on any night where the team has a lead or the game is close.  And, as noted several times in this space, Rodriguez’s lack of options handcuffs the team’s roster flexibility.

How about the other player we got in the Willingham deal?  Corey Brown?  Oh, he’s hitting .202 in AAA.  But, he’s gotten hits in his last four games, so there’s that.

Yes, we are talking about small sample sizes.  We’re only 5 weeks into the season.  But no matter how slowly Willingham is starting off himself in Oakland, he’s still out-performing our current left field platoon.  Oh, and his 5 homers would be leading the team, and his 104 ops+ would be 3rd best on the squad (behind injured Ryan Zimmerman and part-time catcher Wilson Ramos).

Did Rizzo make a god-awful deal?  Or is it too early?  Or do I keep needing to tell myself, “hey, this team isn’t winning in 2011, so this is the best season to experiment with guys like Rodriguez to see what you have?”  Sure; i tell myself that all the time.  But this team has potential; they’re nearly .500 despite their horrible offense.

But in the end, it seems to me that we’ve traded our #5 hitter, a guy who always produced for us and who was a popular clubhouse guy, for a reliever we can’t use, and a minor league outfielder who’s in danger of getting benched in Syracuse.

Gorzelanny, our #5 pitcher, is starting to look like our #1. Photo Ed Wolfstein

After a surprising 3-1 series at home against San Francisco, and after a fantastic run through the rotation, the team hits the road for 3 straight divisional series away and a set of games that could easily define their season.  How did our pitchers fare?  Not terribly well.  A sweep in Philadelphia gave the team a worst-case start to this critical road trip, but they then took two of the first three in Florida (surprisingly; they’ve been awful in Miami for years).

Here’s how our pitchers looked this go-around:

Good

• Jordan Zimmermann may not have gotten the win for his 5/6 outing (box/gamer) but he pitched pretty well.  6ip, 2 runs for a “real” quality start.  Zimmermann’s k/9 rate is way way down from his performances in the past; he’s only got 24 in 41 innings.  By way of comparison in 2010 he had 27 in 31 on the comeback trail, and in 2009 he had 92 in 91 innings.  Unless he’s purposely pitching to contact this drastic reduction in Ks/9 is worrisome.
• Tom Gorzelanny had his third straight good-to-great outing, beating the Marlins on 5/7 (box/gamer).  He only gave up 2 hits through 7 innings, though a walk and a homer tagged him with 2 earned runs.  Gorzelanny is turning into a find for this team.  He’s the only starter who has yet to really have a bad outing and continues to pitch really well.

Bad

• Jason Marquis couldn’t follow up on his 5-hit gem and got pounded at the “Link” in Philadelphia on 5/4 (box/gamer).  Line: 5ip, 10hits (!), 7runs (6 of which were earned) and only 2ks.  Ugh.  His first “meltdown” of the season.
• If Marquis’ start was bad, then I guess John Lannan‘s needs a new category.  Lannan becomes the first Nats pitcher not to complete the 5th inning this season, only lasting 2 innings in an ugly 5/5 loss (gamer/box).  Line: 6runs on 7 hits in 2innings completed (he faced 6 consecutive batters without retiring one to open the 3rd inning).

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• Livan Hernandez is Mr YoYo.  One good outing, one medicore one.  One great outing, then one bad.  On Tuesday 5/3 he had an off night (gamer/box), getting battered around for 10 hits and an additional 4 walks (two of which were intentional, and one of THOSE was clearly against his wishes when facing Ryan Howard).  In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered since his offense mustered only one run (on a solo shot from Michael Morse).  Final line: 6 1/3, 10hits, 4 runs, 4 bb, 4ks and a loss.

Starter Trends

MLB Trends (through 5/7)
Lhernandez    good,bad,good,good,bad,good,soso
Marquis    good,good,good,soso,great,bad
Lannan    good,soso,soso,bad,soso,good,really bad
Zimmermann     good,good,good,bad,bad,good,good
Gorzelanny    soso,good,soso,good,great,good

Relievers of Note

• One day after a relatively electrifying MLB debut for the team, Henry Rodriguez showed what we can probably expect in the longer term.  On 4/30, he threw 11 fastballs that averaged 98.7mph and got two strikeouts in a clean 1 inning of work.  On 5/3 he threw 24 pitches, walked two guys, allowed a hit and got no strikeouts.  He showed a change up (a 90mph changeup, nice), but could not control his slider.  I think the jury is still out on this guy.  But he had to be a pretty amazing change of pace after Livan for 6 innings.  On 5/5 he got stretched out a bit but had another typical up and down session; 2 hits and a walk and 3Ks in 2 innings.
• Tyler Clippard had a pretty good line on friday 5/5: 6 batters faced, 6 strike outs.  Adam Kilgore reviewed the outing here.  He now has 27 Ks in 21 innings so far and an ERA+ of 301 on the season.
• Storen continues to be electric in the closer role.  He’s given up just one earned run in 17 appearances thus far, good for an 805 ERA+.  Can’t ask much more out of your fireman.

Thoughts on the offense

The continued deficiency of the offense is reaching troubling areas.  We’re a month into the season; no more excuses about “slow starts” or “getting back into the swing of it.”  As of 5/7, the team is 5-17 when scoring four runs or less (and 10-0 when scoring five or more).  This sounds great; all we need to do is score 5 or more runs a game and we’re the ’29 Yankees.  If your offense is already struggling, and they know they have to score a ton of runs to have a shot, team morale could fade fast.

Overall Summary

Amazingly, the team hovers near .500 despite having the 15th or 16th NL ranked offense in most categories.  They’re batting as a team 79 OPS+, putting them 20% below average.  Rick Ankiel is taking his .221 batting average onto the DL for a couple weeks, giving Roger Bernadina his best yet chance to own Center field and the leadoff position.  If he were to succeed, it may be a great kick start for the team.

Marquis' 5-hit shutout is the best outing we've seen since Strasburg. Photo: Ap via silive.com

The team is rocked by the news that star Ryan Zimmerman will miss another 6 weeks, on top of the last 17 games he’s already missed, due to a torn abdominal muscle.  To add insult to injury, the team is in a very difficult part of the schedule (SF at home, then away to Philadelphia, Florida and Atlanta 3 series in a row) that could very well see them plummet to the basement of the division.  Can their rotation help keep them near .500?

Good

• As he tends to do, Livan Hernandez followed up a sub-par outing with an excellent one, going 8 complete innings (Washington’s longest starter outing of the year), giving up 3 runs (2 earned) and spelling the burned-out bullpen in a 4-3 win over the Mets in the 4/28 series finale (box/gamer).  Livan gave up 7 hits and a walk to go with 5 strikeouts on the night.  He’s now averaging 6.5 IP per start (best on the staff) and though his Fip/Xfip are slightly worst than MLB median he’s holding steady for the team.
• Jason Marquis put in easily the best start of the season, and his best start for this team, pitching a 5-hit shutout on 4/29 (box/gamer).  He struck out 7, walked none, and needed just 96 pitches to finish off the light-hitting Giants.  The defeat of the Giants and ace Tim Lincecum continued an interesting pattern for the team of competing well against the opposing team’s ace (they’re 4-2 against the nominal “ace” of opposing rotations, beating Lincecum, Josh Johnson, Yovanni Gallardo, and Kevin Correia while falling to Derek Lowe and Roy Halladay).  If Marquis continues to pitch this well, the Nats could face a difficult decision later on in the season (trade or re-sign?).
• John Lannan pitched 6 very efficient innings before fading in the 7th long enough to give up a 2nd run, which proved to be enough to get him the loss on Saturday 4/30’s day game (box/gamer).  Final line: 6 2/3, 6 hits, 3 walks (one intentional) and 2 runs.  But he had given up just 4 hits and zero walks through 6 complete, a very dominant performance.  The 7th came apart on him very quickly, and he managed to load the bases and walk in the go-ahead run before Clippard could take the mound and escape the jam.  Riggleman called for a somewhat questionable intentional walk before Lannan managed to walk in the winning run.
• Jordan Zimmerman‘s line wasn’t that dominant for Sunday 5/1’s game (box/gamer); 6ip, 6hits, 2 walks, 4ks and 2 runs.  However watching the game you got a different story.  Both runs scored by virtue of a fluke-y bloop double that hit the left field line from a weak-hitting left-handed hitter.  One of the walks was intentional.  And 3 of the 6 hits he gave up were either infield singles or weakly hit balls.  So Jordan gets a quality start and his 2nd best game score of the season.
• Tom Gorzelanny nearly matched Marquis’ gem with his 8-inning, 3-hit and no walk performance on Military night, 5/1 (box/gamer).  The game took his season ERA down a full run (from 3.97 to 2.93).  I had to quibble a bit with the in-game management though from Riggleman; see this op-ed piece for my thoughts.

Trends

MLB Trends (through 5/2)
Lhernandez    good,bad,good,good,bad,good
Lannan    good,soso,soso,bad,soso,good
Zimmermann     good,good,good,bad,bad,good
Marquis    good,good,good,soso,great
Gorzelanny    soso,good,soso,good,great

Thoughts on the offense

• Laynce Nix is starting to make a statement for this team, putting up a 150 OPS+ through part time action thus far.  He made his biggest statement yet in Friday’s start against Lincecum, punishing an 0-2 mistake from the young San Francisco Ace for an early 2-run homer.  However it was a foul-ball blast later in the game that everyone is talking about; Nix absolutely crushed an inside fastball about 10-feet foul, but it glanced off the THIRD deck of the Nats stadium.  Estimates put it at 450 feet or so, an incredible distance at a stadium that has seen scant balls hit in that area.  WP beat writer Adam Kilgore discussed this same point in the NatsJournal blog friday.  Nix gets so few at bats versus lefties that it is difficult to ascertain how his splits look, but with Mike Morse continuing to struggle (he’s not even slugging .300 from the left fielder spot) it may behoove the team to roll the dice and give Nix some full time opportunities.
• Can someone explain the role that Matt Stairs so excellently fulfills that he deserves a 25-man roster spot and $850k?  He gets 4 at bats a week, has yet to get a hit, and has more strikeouts than walks.  Wouldn’t there be more value in putting a player on the roster in his place who could actually *help* the team?

Overall Summary

All 5 starters threw what i’d call “good” or “great” starts, and the team went 4-1 in those starts.  That’s great news.  The hitters continue to struggle, with 6 of our 8 regulars hitting .233 or below.  These guys need to snap out of it soon.

If you let Gorzelanny bat in the 7th .. then why don't you let him finish the game? Photo: AP

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at Monday, 5/1’s Nats win over the Giants and saw Tom Gorzelanny‘s best performance of the year.

However, once again I had to question the in-game management from Jim Riggleman.  Gorzelanny was cruising along and sat at somewhere around 78 pitches through 7 innings, having only given up 2 hits.  Meanwhile Madison Bumgarner had absolutely shut down the Nationals, perfect through four and having only given up one hit through 6.  In the bottom of the 7th, Miguel Tejada blows a simple 2-out grounder that opened the floodgates and allowed 2 runs to score (I was there; it was a blatant error and the crowd actually boo’d the official scorer giving the play a hit).

Suddenly, the Nats have the bases loaded situation against a pitcher clearly on the ropes … only the pitcher’s spot is coming up.  What does Riggleman do?  He lets Gorzelanny bat, lefty-against-lefty, with the bases loaded and 2 outs.  Predictably he weakly grounds out to the pitcher to end the rally.

So, old-school types would say, “ok well Riggleman thinks Gorzelanny is going to finish the game, if you’re leaving him in to clearly end a big rally.”

But here’s what I didn’t get: Gorzelanny starts the 8th inning and ONLY THEN does the bullpen get working.  Coffey is up, Burnett is up.  Gorzelanny gets into some trouble in the 8th, giving up a hit and a walk, but gets through the inning and is sitting at 95 pitches.  You look out into the bullpen now, and Storen is warming up.  The Nats go down in the eight inning, and suddenly you see Storen trotting to the mound.

What the heck is going on?  If you were NOT going to let Gorzelanny finish the game, then why did you let him bat in the 7th?   But, by letting him bat you were tacitly telling your pitcher, ” you did a great job tonight, go get the complete game.”  Only you yank him with 95 pitches and without even going back out to start the 9th inning.

Something’s inconsistent here.  As far as I could tell, one of 3 things was going on:

1. Riggleman just forgot to get someone warmed up and was caught off guard by the Nats rally in the 7th.  Suddenly Gorzelanny was at the plate but nobody was warmed up and he had to bat.
2. Riggleman has no right-handed pinch-hitting options, only Stairs and Nix on the bench (he couldn’t burn Pudge as the 2nd catcher), so he figured neither of them would give a good at-bat against Bumgarner, so why not go with Gorzelanny.
3. He fully intended to allow Gorzelanny to go for the complete game, only he saw something during the 8th inning that told him, “hey, Gorzelanny is spent and we need to get him out of there.”

As it turned out, the team won the game.  But in my opinion you trade an inning of your starter in that situation for a chance to blow open the game.  Why else do we have a highly paid pinch hitting specialist sitting on the bench all game??  If the Nats had blown that game by not trying to get a hit in that bases-loaded situation, I would have been pretty irritatated.

At the same time … I understand the veteran mentality mentality of letting guys finish games, or letting them try to get complete games.  Its shows a level of respect and professionalism to your players.  But if that’s what you’re doing … then do it!  Don’t yank the guy after one more inning like its just another ball game.

What do you guys think?

Marquis is putting himself in a very enviable position with his great start to 2011. Photo Al Bello/Getty images via bleacherreport.com

As Jason Marquis was putting the finishing touches on his 5-hit shutout last Friday, I got a hypothetical question from Jason, a buddy of mine: If Marquis continues this great start, what should the team do with him?

To review the facts at hand:

• Through 5 starts, he’s 3-0 with a 2.62 era and 1.165 whip.  That’s good for a 149 ERA+.
• More importantly,this performance does not seem to be the product of luck or chance; his FIP and xFIP are excellent (2.47 and 3.13 respectively).  By way of comparison, the MLB best FIP last year was 2.41 (Josh Johnson), and the best xFIP was 2.92 (Roy Halladay).  Lastly his BABIP is .306, so if anything he’s been slightly unlucky on batted balls.  So he’s definitely pitching at a very elite level.
• He’s in the 2nd year of a 2yr/$15M deal ($7.5M each year).
• He’s 32, and turns 33 in August.

I think the answer is, “trade him for prospects” and here’s why.

1. I don’t think he’s part of the long term solution for this team.  We’ve got too many up-and-coming arms in the minors to block them with a veteran.
2. He’ll be 33 at the end of the season, and may be looking for a 3 year deal if he pitches well enough.  I’m not sure the team wants to commit to a career 98 ERA+ guy for 3 years.
3. Despite his fantastic start, and even if he continues, I just don’t think he’s that good of a pitcher.  He’s got a career ERA in the 4.50 range.  He’s generally been considered a durable, low K/9 but high K/BB innings eater, the kind of guy you make your 4th or 5th starter.
4. He’s in a contract year, and he’s shown some tendencies to pitch better when he’s playing for his next contract.  The best season of his previous 3year deal was in the final year of that deal in Colorado.
5. The Nats are not going to compete in 2011.  We’re struggling to stay at .500, have very little offense right now, and are certain to trade their veteran/one-year contract guys at the deadline.  This is one of the main reasons we made room and retained guys like Chad Gaudin and Laynce Nix at the expense of Balester and Bernadina.

The counter arguments?  If Marquis’ 2011 performance is really more in line with what he’s capable of, then he could be a really valuable addition to a 2012 rotation that (at this point) seems to include Strasburg, Zimmermann, Lannan, and Gorzelanny.   He’s throwing 91-92 with serious downward movement (sink) right now and he’s really difficult to hit against.  Perhaps he’s turned a corner and escaping the altitude in Colorado really has enabled his sinker to become closer to unhittable.

He’s pitching at a higher level than his $7.5M AAV contract (seemingly on pace for another 14-15 win season), and could be considered a real bargain if we could sign him to a comparable number for 3 more years.

But, if Marquis is retained it leaves little room for advancement for any of a slew of AAA and AA prospects we have overachieving right now in the organization.  The question becomes this; would you rather pay for the proven starter or roll the dice with rising prospects who cost one-twentieth the salary?  Honestly, the most valuable commodity in baseball is the pre-arbitration ace starter (think Clay Buchholz going 17-7 in 2010 and getting paid $443k) and it may be worth the gamble.  But these AA arms are just prospects; despite having sparkling k/9 numbers in AA, there’s no guarantee that translates to the majors.  Some GMs want the known quantity versus the unknown gamble, and there’s a very legitimate argument that keeping Marquis gives us the “known quantity.”

I think the move is to flip Marquis to a contender at or before the trade deadline.  Honestly, wouldn’t the New York Yankees LOVE to have him to shore up their rotation?  And wouldn’t he love to go to New York, since he hails from New Jersey and reportedly still lives there in the off season?  Trade him, get some higher-end prospects that are quick to the majors (think the Wilson Ramos–Matt Capps deal last year) and prepare for 2012.

Gorzelanny puts in his best outing of the year. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II via sbnation.com

Rotation Cycle #5 notes: The team gets back Todd Coffey from the DL and says good-bye (for now) to Collin Balester.  Because of the rain-outs from last week, Jason Marquis‘s turn got skipped, which is unfortunate since he’s the most effective starter we have right now.  Meanwhile, another rain-out on Friday 4/21 was rescheduled to a previous off day on Monday 4/25, a gift for John Lannan, who got to pitch on normal rest.  Lets see how these guys fared.

Good

• Depending on how much credence you give to stadium guns, Drew Storen hit 97 during his 4/24 save.  Just to make sure, I looked up the pitch f/x data, and sure enough he maxed out at 97.1 while averaging 96.1 for his 7 four-seamers on the day.  For some reason, I didn’t realize he could bring it that heavy.  If he’s gaining speed, that’s great news for his closing career.  He’s got a fantastic start to the season; an ERA and Whip below 1.00, 3 saves and a slew of dominant performances.  As a side note, boy i’d love to see him in the rotation…
• Tom Gorzelanny put in his best performance of the year in the opening game of the Mets series (box/gamer) only to watch Sean Burnett melt down in the 9th (well, technically Tyler Clippard blew the “win” for Gorzelanny first) and cost both him and his team the win.  Line: 6 1/3, 5 hits, 1walk 1run and 4Ks.  Amazingly (for Gorzelanny) he was only at 85 pitches when he was pulled.  Normally he’s nearing 100 pitches at the end of the 5th.  He lowered his ERA by a full point and took his ERA+ from 74 to 101 with this one outing.  His fip/xfip are starting to look better as well.  One area of concern is his BABIP; currently at at amazingly low .200.  At some point this will rise and he’ll take some lumps.

Bad

• Livan Hernandez‘s 450th career start is one he’d like to have back.  He gave up 5 runs in the first, 7 overall (4 earned thanks to several errors by his defense) and he took an ugly loss on 4/23 (box/gamer).  Line: 6ip, 9hits, 7 runs (4 earned), 4bbs and 2ks.  Livan, a creature of habit, had his typical pre-game routine thrown off by an hour-long rain delay and then apparently short notice to get ready to go.  He commented as much to beat reporters and even pseudo-accused the Pirates of playing some gamesmanship with the notification timing (seemingly, his opposite number Jeff Karstens got plenty of notice to begin his warmup).  Either way, it was only the 2nd “meltdown” our starters have thrown all year (I define a “meltdown” as a pitcher who gives up as many or more runs as innings pitched during an outing) as opposed to the FOURTY they managed to throw in 162 games last year.
• Chad Gaudin managed to get through 2/3 of an inning without giving up a run on monday, but not without some embarrassing moments.  He managed to throw not one but two balls behind the backs of opposing hitters.  He was flat-out aiming several other pitches, including a slider that probably would have been disintegrated by better hitters.  Unfortunately, he just looks like he’s lost confidence in his command, and he must be reading the writing on the wall (i.e., that he’s most likely gone when Henry Rodriguez is done with rehab).  Update: he was placed on the 15-day DL when Rodriguez was re-instated on 4/27, and I commented about the move here.
• Not a good start from Jordan Zimmerman, who continued the Nats starter streak of pitching into the 5th inning on 4/26 against the Mets (box/gamer), but only barely.  He gives up 5 runs on 9 hits in just 5 1/3 inning.  On the bright side, he was throwing lots of strikes (53 of 73 pitches for strikes) and his pitch count was very low (73 through 5 1/3, putting him on pace to at least finish 7).  Perhaps he was trying to pitch to contact tonight instead of trying to blow guys away.  Zimmermann still has 2nd best FIP and xFIP values of the rotation, so he’s not the real problem right now.
• Doug Slaten may have a 0.00 era at current, but he’s got a 1.80 whip and allowed both runners he inherited from Zimmermann to score on 4/26, essentially sealing the 6-4 loss for the team.  1.80 whip is just too many baserunners for a matchup-guy and he needs to work on getting clean outings.  In his defense, his BABIP is absurdly high (.438), so he may just be unlucky in the early part of the season.
• Sean Burnett and Tyler Clippard both conspired to waste Gorzelanny’s great start, each getting a blown save on 4/27.  Burnett’s was completely egregious; he blew a 1-run game in the 9th, gave up FOUR runs and forced the team to burn Storen on a night he was scheduled to have off.  If there’s any question who the “closer” is for this team now, I think we have our answer.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• Jason Marquis struggled with his control all day on 4/24 (gamer/box), but scattered 10 baserunners over 6 innings and managed to only give up 3 runs.  Meanwhile his hitters backed him up enough to get the win.  He nearly didn’t make it out of the 5th inning; he was probably one more baserunner from getting yanked before qualifying for the win.  But he gutted the inning out and finished the 6th upon throwing his 100th pitch.  His day included a 55-mph floater that he just tossed in to avoid a balk after slipping mid-way through his rotation … the  batter (Neil Walker) just watched it into the mitt for a called strike and then looked as if he’d just passed up on the pitch of a lifetime.
• John Lannan was victimized by a short rain delay, which seemed to throw him off his game, leading to a 4-run 4th inning and a loss on 4/25 (gamer/box).  He went 5 2/3 all told, and was bailed out of the 6th inning by reliever Todd Coffey.  Not his worst start, but enough to cost his offensively-challenged team a win.  Lannan is putting a lot of guys on base (whip of 1.538 on the season) and is probably our least effective pitcher right now.  He’s only had one really “good” outing out of 5 so far this year.

Trends

As with the minor league rotations, here’s the trends of our starters so far.  Livan is doing what we normally expect; throwing in a really bad outing intermixed with good ones.  Lannan’s trends are troublesome; he’s only really had one dominating outing all year.

MLB Trends:
Lhernandez    good,bad,good,good,bad
Lannan    good,soso,soso,bad,soso
Zimmermann     good,good,good,bad,bad
Marquis    good,good,good,soso
Gorzelanny    soso,good,soso,good

The Nats fans finally get to see what our flamethrowing reliever can do. Photo Ezra Shaw/Getty Images via bleacherreport.com

The Nats re-instated reliever Henry Rodriguez from the 15-day DL today, and as expected removed their least-performing reliever (Chad Gaudin) from the active roster.  In a slightly surprising move, instead of DFA-ing Gaudin (as I suspected they may have done), he himself was put in the 15-day DL with “right shoulder inflammation.”

This move continues a trend we’ve seen out of the Nats organization this season of putting pitchers onto the Disabled List with nebulous “soft tissue” injuries when they under-perform.  Lets be honest; every single major league pitcher probably has “shoulder inflammation” or “tendinitis” at any point in the season.  Pitching is an unnatural act that puts tremendous strain on the shoulder, rotator cuff, elbow and forearm tendons of every hurler.  So perhaps every pitcher could convince a doctor that 2 weeks off could be beneficial.

One can make the argument that, in addition to Gaudin and Rodriguez himself (coming out of spring training, after severely under-performing, showing up late because of visa issues and without any minor league options to use), the Nats have also done this with Garrett Mock and Luis Atilano after they both underperformed in their first few minor league starts.  Additionally, instead of just outright assigning guys to extended spring, the likes of Oliver Perez, Shairon Martis, Atahualapa Severino, Rafael Martin, Zech Zinicola, Patrick Arnold, and Dean Weaver all have been listed on various level’s DLs with “injuries” that could probably better be defined as “didn’t make the team” instead of something legitimate.

I guess I don’t have a problem with the moves, since they enable the team to retain players that may still have value to the franchise, even if they seem slightly disingenuous.  Gaudin, for example, probably earned his way onto the 25-man roster out of spring and still could hold some trade value if he can improve on his early season performances.  I don’t believe he’s part of the long-term plans for the team (not with the host of decent arms we seem to have at the AAA and AA level right now).

In other cases, I question why we’re bothering with the subterfuge.  Certainly Nats fans have exhausted patience with certain players (Mock in particular) and openly question why we don’t move on.  Perhaps the answer is really, “we don’t have to make a move so why bother.”  And that’s certainly fair.  Mock can continue to hold a spot on the 40-man for the time being because there’s nobody coming off of the 60-man DL anytime soon, and there’s no hitters at the AAA or AA level who are hitting their way onto the active roster.

Livan continues his mastery of the National League.

The team fights through two doubleheaders in a weeks time with continued great starting pitching.  As of the time of this posting, the Nats rotation is the only rotation in baseball that has yet to see a sub-5 inning outing.  Our team ERA is 5th in the NL and is keeping the team in games (our team batting average has been either last or 2nd to last in the NL most of the season).

(Note; because of the double-headers, Jason Marquis‘s turn got skipped in the rotation.  Honestly, I would have thought Riggleman would have figured out a way to get him a start and skip Gorzelanny in the rotation instead of the other way around.  He’ll go against Pittsburgh this coming weekend).

Good

• Livan Hernandez pitched the 2nd game of Sunday’s double header (blog/gamer/box) and seemed to enjoy pitching in and out of the shadows cast from the stadium in the later afternoon.  He continues to put in effective performances despite not having lights-out stuff, going 7pm, 6hits, 1r, 3ks and no walks for his 3rd quality start out of four and his 2nd win on the year.
• I liked Drew Storen‘s 2 inning save against Milwaukee on 4/17; I like having relievers who are comfortable going more than one inning when called upon.  He earns the save on a day where supposed closer Sean Burnett gets the day off.  On 4/20, he bailed out Burnett’s bad outing and got a 4-out save in St Louis.
• Third straight scoreless outing for Brian Broderick in St. Louis.  Hmm; perhaps his initial struggles were just nerves.

Bad

• Chad Gaudin‘s 2BB, 1hit appearance in the first half of Sunday’s twin-bill rightfully has some observers calling for his head.  He’s just putting too many guys on base (his WHIP sits above 2.00 now; in 7 innings pitched he’s given up 10 hits and 7 walks) for a late-inning reliever.  He appeared again on 4/20; 2/3 of an inning, 2 hits and a walk.  He may have pitched great in the spring, but he may be making way once Henry Rodriguez completes his rehab assignments.
• John Lannan‘s effort in the top half of their St Louis DH (blog/gamer/box) was enough to get the win on a day where he didn’t really pitch that well.  7 hits and 3 walks in 5 innings but he only managed to give up 2 runs (on two solo homers to Pujols and Rasmus).   He threw more pitches than he normally needs (101 pitches for 5 innings and a batter) and struggled to find the plate (59 strikes).  I’m listing this as a “bad” outing because he failed to go deep into a game where the bullpen needed a break.  His offense gave him a SEVEN run lead and his short outing forced the team to burn 5 of their 7 relievers.
• Jordan Zimmermann struggled in the nightcap on 4/20, giving up 5 runs in 6 innings to take the loss.  He didn’t have much of a safety net from his bullpen and knew he had to go deep.  He struggled with his spots most of the game but couldn’t get Lance Berkman out.  He looked good early, but took his third loss of the season.

Mediocre

• Tom Gorzelanny demonstrated yet again one of my primary concerns with him as a starter in the St Louis series finale (gamer/box).  He just throws too many pitches.  His final line wasn’t egregious: 5ip, 2runs on 2 hits, 4 walks with 3 ks.  However, it took him 108 pitches to complete the 5th inning.  By way of comparison, the opposing starter Kyle Lohse (who is not exactly a Cy Young candidate), needed just 111 pitches to pitch a complete game.  Gorzelanny walked a batter in each of the first 4 innings.  He only threw 63 of those 108 pitches for strikes.  The 2 run homer that he gave up to Matt Holliday came on an 0-2 mistake, and he only gave up one other hit in 5 innings.  That may sound good, but the ancillary evidence is against him.  This outing lowered his ERA to 4.96, but his FIP is 6.20.  By way of comparison, the HIGH FIP for qualified 2010 starters in either league was Rodrigo Lopez‘s 5.21.  Gorzelanny needs to learn how to pitch more efficiently and not be a complete bullpen killer every time he takes the mound.
• Collin Balester‘s poor outing in St. Louis did him no favors with the team.  It wasn’t as if the team was threatening to win that game  hitting as badly as they have been, but your job as a reliever is to pitch shutout innings.  Balester needs to show lights-out stuff to prove to management that he’s a better alternative going forward than Chad Gaudin.

Thoughts on the offense

The offense is going through highs and lows.  They pounded Milwaukee’s Ace and hung 7 on St. Louis’ Westbrook.  But then they meekly allowed the very mediocre Kyle Lohse to put a complete game 2-hitter on them.  A quick look at the hitting stats shows some alarming stats; only one regular right now shows an OPS+ above 100 (Espinosa).  We know Werth and LaRoche are slow starters, but enough is enough.  Meanwhile Morse has exactly 1 extra base hit in 46 at bats and may be due for a demotion.  I’d like to see Laynce Nix full time in left field for the time being.  I know the theory is that he can’t hit lefties so you platoon him, but at this point I’d rather see him full time out there.  So far the Ankiel experiment is failing too; good for the Nats to be scouting CFs.  And why are we giving MORE at bats to Pudge?  I realize he’s a hall of famer and all, but the man is clearly a once-a-week starter now.

Overall Summary

Amazingly, the team sits at .500 after the series loss in St. Louis.  I’d like to see at least two wins in Pittsburgh.  That would be a sign of progress.

Jordan Zimmermann is starting to look like a very valuable starter.

Good

• Livan Hernandez kicks off the 3rd turn through the rotation with a great start against the NL favorite Phillies (running blog/gamer/box).  Final line was 6 2/3, 7h, 1er, 6Ks and 0 BBs.  His one run was on an opposite field smash by Ryan Howard on a pitch that wasn’t that bad (remember; Howard is a dead pull hitter so for him to put a ball out to left is an aberration, not a sign).  Livan’s line would have looked even better had he not given up 3 straight singles in the 7th inning, leaving a bases loaded jam for Tyler Clippard to get out of.  Livan was in control all night, following his typical pattern of hitting the corners and frustrating hitters with ridiculously slow curve balls.  (Side note on this start; I had a real problem with the way Riggleman handled the bullpen this night; see this post for my thoughts).
• Jordan Zimmerman was perfect through 5 innings on 4/14 (blog/gamer/box) before hanging a curveball for a homer in the 6th and loading the bases in the 8th.  It wouldn’t matter; his counterpart Cliff Lee threw a 3-hit shutout.  Final line: 7ip, 5hits, 0bbs, 4rs (only 1 earned) with 4ks.  When he was removed in the 8th he had only thrown 85 pitches, showing the best efficiency of any starter yet this season.  His one earned run line slightly flatters what happened to him in the 8th; the two guys who scored both got on base via hits.  Either way, the most dominating pitching performance of 2010 from our starters.
• Doug Slaten pitched very effectively in his lefty-lefty matchups against Philadelphia, getting Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez very effectively when presented with opportunities.
• Tom Gorzelanny‘s 4/15 start (blog/gamer/box) indicated to me that he’s still not quite in his mid-season groove.  He cruised through 4 innings with just two weak hits (an infield bouncer and a liner to left that Michael Morse really should have caught).  Then in the 5th he gave up a hard-hit double to weak hitting former Nat Wil Nieves and then Richie Weeks just pulverized a ball that Gorzelanny left over the plate for a 2-run double.  Gorzelanny seems to really lose his typical rhythm when runners get on base; he slows down his normally fast tempo, pays too much attention to the runners, and suddenly loses his ability to command his pitches.  Final line: 6ip, 5h, 2runs, 2bbs and 4ks.  A quality start for sure, but I’d still put it as a slightly inconsistent outing.
• Jason Marquis went against Milwaukee’s ace Yovanni Gallardo on Sunday 4/17 (blog/gamer/box) and came away an 8-4 winner.  Marquis pitched like a veteran for his team, knowing that they needed a long outing so as to save the bullpen for the 2nd game and the rest of the week.  He scattered 9 hits and a walk through 7ip plus, got a couple of double plays from his defense and watched the offense get to one of the better pitchers in the league for a win.  Final line: 7ip, 9hits, 2runs, 1bb and 4ks.

Bad

There really wasn’t anything “bad” to report out of any of our relievers on the week.  Todd Coffey was placed on the DL with a calf strain, clearing the way for Collin Balester to join the team for 10 days or so.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• John Lannan‘s 4/13 (blog/gamer/box) outing versus Philly ace Roy Halladay was always going to be a tough game to win.  His line ended up looking better than his performance (6ip, 3r, 2er, 6hits and 3bbs).  He struggled with his control all night, throwing 100 pitches but only 55 for strikes.  He gave up a lead-off double but scattered 5 other singles throughout the evening.  He worked around multiple mental mistakes and errors from shortstop Ian Desmond (including; an obstruction call, hesitation on a grounder in the first that turned a routine ground ball into a hit, dropping an easy grounder, and then failing to throw home on an infield-in situation, allowing one of the runs to score).  Some would look at the end result and claim this is Lannan effectively working through a very strong lineup and working around defensive mistakes to keep his team in the game.  And I wouldn’t be able to argue against it.

Thoughts on the offense

The Nats are being carried right now by the two rookies Danny Espinosa and Wilson Ramos.  With Ryan Zimmerman on the DL we’re now missing our 3-4-5 hitters from last season, and it is showing.   Zimmerman’s replacement Hairston is (as of 4/15) 1-22 at the plate.  The Nats really pulverized a #5 pitcher (Joe Blanton0 but were completely shut down by better pitching.  We seem to have no answer to replace struggling hitters like Morse, Desmond, and Ankiel.  Ankiel in particular seems completely overmatched against lefties right now.   5 of our 9 starters are at or near the mendoza line.

Overall Summary

Well, Its a miracle we’re even near .500 as a team.  Our starters have really been stepping up.  MASN had a pretty startling stat comparing the team ERA of our staff through the first 13 games of this year (3.55 versus something north of 6.5).  Unfortunately, we just have to wait for the lineup to come around, since we don’t have much of anything in the minors to help out.

Why leave your best reliever in a game you're winning by 5 runs?

I promise this is not “hindsight is 20-20” analysis; had you been in my basement watching last night’s game with me, you would have heard me yelling all the things I’m about to say.

I have a real problem with Riggleman’s bullpen management last night.  Now, perhaps the off-day on Monday 4/11 enabled all the relievers to get enough rest to enable what we saw last night.

Here’s the sequence of events i’ll be commenting on:

• Livan Hernandez starts the 7th with a 4 run lead and having only thrown about 75 pitches at the time, but is facing the top of the Phillies order.
• We see Brian Broderick warming up.  (see comment #1)
• Suddenly Livan gets into trouble.  We see Tyler Clippard jump up and start throwing.
• Livan loads the bases, looking as if he had run out of gas.  Clippard comes in and gets out of a bases-loaded jam.
• We look back and Todd Coffey is warming up.  (see comment #2)
• To start the 8th (by which point the Nats have scored again, giving the team a FIVE run lead), Clippard comes back out!  (see comment #3)
• He can’t get out of the inning though, so Riggleman brings in his closer Sean Burnett to get out of an 8th inning jam.  The score is now 6-3 though.
• The Nats score another run in the bottom of the 8th to make it 7-3.  That’s a 4 run cushion going into the 9th inning.
• Riggleman leaves Burnett in!  (see comment #4).   Burnett gives up another run but finishes the game, getting a save for his troubles. (see comment #5).

Comments in order:

1. Ok, I was happy to see Broderick warming up.  This was the perfect game to bring him in; a 4 run lead on a colder night when the Nats seemed frisky.  Unfortunately, Livan got into trouble so quickly that Clippard had to be pushed into service.
2. Why did Coffey warm up?  He clearly wasn’t going to come into the game, since the dangerous hitter in the Phillies lineup is Ryan Howard, and Slaten is the loogy.
3. Why did Clippard return for the 8th inning??  Coffey had warmed up, as had Broderick.  You have a 4 run lead.  I suppose the reasoning was because the meat of the Phillies order was coming up.  But its a 4 run lead with 2 innings to play; the odds of a team coming back from that deficit are relatively small (remember, teams score 0 or 1 runs in an inning and no more a very large percentage of the time; 86% per this 2007 study).
4. See point #3: why bring back your closer, who you’re going to need for the next 6 days, with a 4 run lead in the 9th inning??
5. General point about the uselessness of the save situation: Burnett came into the game in the bottom of the 8th inning and allowed 2 of the 3 base-runners he inherited to score.  That’s the definition of a failure as a reliever.  Then, given a 4 run lead in the 9th he allows another run but eventually closes out the 9th and gets a save.  Yes, by virtue of the bases being loaded with a 5 run lead, the tying run was on deck therefore it was a save situation by definition.  But how exactly was his performance on the night worthy of any “positive” statistic whatsoever?  I have a post coming up about the use of relievers in general where I touch on the definition of the Save, and this game highlights everything I can’t stand about the stat.

In summary, in a game where the Nats held the lead by 4-5 runs most of the night, we pitched 2 of our 3 best relievers, both throwing more than an inning.  Burnett threw 28 pitches, enough for 2 innings.  We also warmed up Coffey and Broderick (which may not show up in the box score but they certainly were throwing).  We never bothered to use our LOOGY against one of the most susceptable lefty-lefty matchup hitters in the league (Ryan Howard).  We have two more games against the Phillies, games in which we face their two aces and certainly would expect the games to be closer.  Does this mean that Clippard and/or Burnett won’t be available later this week because they pitched on tuesday?  Wouldn’t you want to save these guys for better opportunities?