{"id":12037,"date":"2016-03-21T07:41:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T11:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12037"},"modified":"2016-03-21T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T11:42:08","slug":"how-about-something-positive-are-you-optimistic-for-the-new-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=12037","title":{"rendered":"How about something positive? Are you optimistic for the new season?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"How<\/a>

How much of an effect will Murphy have on this team? Photo via bleacherreport.com<\/p><\/div>\n

So, I happened to look at the Spring Training standings<\/a> the other day.\u00a0 I normally don’t ever bother looking at spring training stats since, well, they’re useless.\u00a0 But day after day, reading the summaries of our beat reporters, it just seems like the team wins every day.\u00a0\u00a0 As of this writing the team is 12-4-2 this spring, and more telling it seems like they’re also routinely winning the “first three innings” when both teams are at their best lineups.<\/p>\n

The other day the team bombed the Mets, hanging 8 runs on Bartolo Colon<\/strong>.\u00a0 Earlier this week they battered Wei-Yin Chen<\/strong> en route to a victory over Miami.\u00a0 They put 3 runs on the Astros’ Collin McHugh<\/strong>, and then tee’d off on a few of the Braves younger starters.\u00a0 Today Harper <\/strong>bombed two homers off of Justin Verlander<\/strong>, who I guarantee was trying to get him out on purpose.\u00a0 The second one *cleared the batter’s eye* in center, 420 feet away and 30 feet up.\u00a0 Wow; that’s a man’s homer.<\/p>\n

Quietly, this team seems to be flourishing under new manager Dusty Baker<\/strong>.\u00a0 Everyone’s healthy (well, except for Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong>‘s foot, but I guess you can’t get everything you want).\u00a0\u00a0 Baker has been showing his hand and putting out very professional looking lineups.\u00a0 We’re not hearing about a slew of guys who aren’t going to be ready for opening day like we did last\u00a0 year.\u00a0 We’re reading gushing reports about Lucas Giolito<\/strong>, including more than one baseball analyst being quoted as saying Giolito has the best stuff they’ve seen this spring … out of anyone in the game.\u00a0 They’re saying he’s this year’s Noah Snydergaard<\/strong>, a difference making ace who should be in the rotation by June.<\/p>\n

Looking at the beginning of the season’s schedule<\/a>, this team could jump out to a pretty fast start.\u00a0\u00a0 Their first 22 games are entirely against teams that are all threatening to lose 95 games this year: Atlanta, Miami, back against Atlanta, at Philly, at Miami, home to Minnesota and then three more against Philly.\u00a0 That’s 22 straight games that, honestly, they should be looking to win.\u00a0 At the end of April heading into May they have a heck of a road trip; at St. Louis, then at the defending WS champion Royals, then at potentially 100-game winning Chicago Cubs.\u00a0 Oof; if they take 3 games out of 9 on that road trip i’ll be happy.<\/p>\n

But heck; could this team start something crazy like 16-6?\u00a0 Could this team really take it to the Mets?\u00a0 I don’t have any stats or anything other than a gut feeling, but it really seems to me that NOT being the presumptive favorite and having a veteran players manager has really taken off the pressure.<\/p>\n

Are you feeling the same thing?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I happened to look at the Spring Training standings the other day.\u00a0 I normally don’t ever bother looking at spring training stats since, well, they’re useless.\u00a0 But day after day, reading the summaries of our beat reporters, it just seems like the team wins every day.\u00a0\u00a0 As of this writing the team is 12-4-2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[343,164,2913,845,44,852,2326,36,1029],"class_list":["post-12037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-bartolo-colon","tag-bryce-harper","tag-collin-mchugh","tag-dusty-baker","tag-justin-verlander","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-noah-snydergaard","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-wei-yin-chen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12037"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12042,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12037\/revisions\/12042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}