{"id":1319,"date":"2011-05-16T09:51:27","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T13:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2011-05-16T09:51:27","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T13:51:27","slug":"nats-rotation-cycle-8-goodbadinconclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1319","title":{"rendered":"Nats Rotation Cycle #8: good\/bad\/inconclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington won the first two games of the Florida series, but still faced a very difficult trip to Atlanta, where they are set to face the cream of the Braves&#8217; rotation.\u00a0 How did they do?<\/p>\n<p>Good<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jason Marquis<\/strong> got the Atlanta Series off to a nice start, pitching into the 8th on 5\/10 for a victory over <strong>Tim Hudson<\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_10_wasmlb_atlmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He retired the first 9 he faced, made a mistake to <strong>Martin Prado<\/strong> that turned into a 4th inning homer, worked out of a jam in the 5th then cruised through 7 complete.\u00a0 Two hits in the 8th turned into 2 more runs, spoiling his otherwise good line: 7 1\/3, 7 hits, 2 walks, 3 runs, 3ks.<\/li>\n<li><strong>John Lannan<\/strong> is an enigma; he followed up last week&#8217;s abomination with a good quality start against a playoff team in Atlanta on 5\/11 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_11_wasmlb_atlmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 Line: 6ip,5hits, 2 runs, 3bbs and 3ks.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> had a very dominant 103 pitch outing on 5\/12 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_12_wasmlb_atlmlb_1&amp;mode=recap_away&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>): 6 1\/3, 5 hits, 3 runs, 2bbs and 11Ks.\u00a0 Two of those 3 runs were inherited and allowed to score by Burnett.\u00a0 The other was a solo HR from <strong>Chipper Jones<\/strong> that he absolutely crushed after Zimmermann *barely* missed with two well thrown sliders to run the count 2-0.\u00a0 He missed his spot by a foot and Jones crushed it.\u00a0 Our the poorly constructed bullpen conspired to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1387\">blow the 4 run lead<\/a> they had been given in the 7th and eventually leaked in the winning run to blow one of the better outings we&#8217;ve had out of a starter all year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bad<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> may have reached 5 complete innings in Florida on Sunday 5\/8, but he got hammered on the way there (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_08_wasmlb_flomlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 Final line: 5ip, 8hits, 2 walks, only 2Ks and 6 earned runs.\u00a0 The Umpire wasn&#8217;t giving Livan the corners, and the Florida hitters just waited out his batting practice-speed fastballs to come over the plate.\u00a0 Livan&#8217;s counterpart didn&#8217;t seem to mind the umpiring; <strong>Anibel Sanchez <\/strong>had a no-hitter through 7 and struck out 11.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tom Gorzelanny<\/strong> couldn&#8217;t get out of the 5th on 5\/13 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_13_flomlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), putting up an unsightly line: 4 2\/3ip, 8hits and a walk leading to 4 runs.\u00a0 He got torched by the (very tough) first half of Florida&#8217;s lineup in the first and Riggleman yanked him when he got into trouble again in the 5th.\u00a0 He was already on 88 pitches when departing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Starter Trends<\/p>\n<p>MLB Trends (through gorz 5\/13)<br \/>\nLhernandez\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0good,bad,good,good,bad,good,soso,bad,good<br \/>\nMarquis\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0good,good,good,soso,great,bad,good<br \/>\nLannan\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0good,soso,soso,bad,soso,good,really bad,good<br \/>\nZimmermann \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0good,good,good,bad,bad,good,good,great<br \/>\nGorzelanny\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0soso,good,soso,good,great,good,bad<\/p>\n<p>Relievers of Note<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Here&#8217;s <strong>Henry Rodriguez<\/strong>&#8216;s outing on Sunday 5\/8: 6 batters faced, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches, one weak grounder and two strike outs.\u00a0 1 inning pitched, 1 earned run on zero hits.\u00a0 27 pitches but only NINE for strikes.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1321\">This is just NOT going to cut it<\/a>.\u00a0 Further evidence as seen in the 5\/12 game, further commented <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1387\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Is <strong>Sean Burnett<\/strong> suddenly becoming a liability out of the pen?\u00a0 He retired no-one on 5\/10, helping to nearly blow a 6-run lead.\u00a0 He had several clean outings before that, but a stretch in mid-april has his season era near 6.00.\u00a0 He&#8217;s not getting nearly the K\/9 rates that he was last year (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/burnese01.shtml\">4.0 this year versus 8.9 last year<\/a>).\u00a0 Is his arm hurt?<\/li>\n<li>How about <strong>Drew Storen<\/strong>?\u00a0 Riggleman still <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/the_goessling_game\/2011\/05\/is-drew-storen-the-nationals-closer-not-officially-riggleman-says.html\">won&#8217;t commit<\/a> to him as the closer, but actions speak louder than words.\u00a0 As of 5\/11&#8217;s game (where he earned the win by being the pitcher of record when the team scored 4 in the 11th) he&#8217;s pitched 20 2\/3 innings and given up ONE run.\u00a0 And we were worried about him coming out of spring training?\u00a0 For all those who are talking about whether or not he&#8217;s not as &#8220;good&#8221; as <strong>Aaron Crow<\/strong>, you&#8217;re crazy.\u00a0 Give me a shutdown closer over a middle reliever who couldn&#8217;t hack it as a starter in the minors any day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thoughts on the offense<\/p>\n<p>Riggleman is starting to make the right decisions by playing <strong>Wilson Ramos<\/strong> and <strong>Laynce Nix<\/strong> more and more, and they&#8217;re 2 of the best 3 producing offensive players we have right now.\u00a0 Its a small sample size, but <strong>Roger Bernadina<\/strong> looks like he may stick in the leadoff\/center field spot even when <strong>Ankiel<\/strong> is back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington won the first two games of the Florida series, but still faced a very difficult trip to Atlanta, where they are set to face the cream of the Braves&#8217; rotation.\u00a0 How did they do? Good Jason Marquis got the Atlanta Series off to a nice start, pitching into the 8th on 5\/10 for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsrotationreview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","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=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1426,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}