{"id":1713,"date":"2011-06-19T22:47:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-20T02:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2013-04-22T09:56:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T13:56:28","slug":"nats-rotation-cycle-15-goodbadsoso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1713","title":{"rendered":"Nats Rotation Cycle #15: good\/bad\/soso"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1735\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/zimmerman_ryan_batting.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1735\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1735\" title=\"zimmerman_ryan_batting\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/zimmerman_ryan_batting-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/zimmerman_ryan_batting-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/zimmerman_ryan_batting.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1735\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">It is good to have the Face of the Franchise back.  Photo unknown credit via fantasyknuckleheads.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Nats finally get <strong>Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong> back into a suddenly potent lineup, and continue their longest winning streak in several years.\u00a0 How&#8217;d our guys fare heading into the weekend Interleague series with the Orioles?<\/p>\n<p>Good<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> pitched perhaps his best game in a Nats uniform on June 15th (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_15_slnmlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) against the powerful St. Louis lineup.\u00a0 A 3-hit shutout.\u00a0 Three errors and 4 bombs from his improving offense definitely helped, but he would have won this game even with his typical crummy run support.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/\">Game score<\/a> on the night: 87.\u00a0 Nice.\u00a0 (<strong>Verlander<\/strong>&#8216;s no hitter on May 7th <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.cgi?id=verlaju01&amp;t=p&amp;year=2011\">scored a 90<\/a>, for comparison purposes).\u00a0 For a nice overview of the Bill James Gamescore, and a list of the greatest pitching performances in National&#8217;s history, read <strong>Zuckerman<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.natsinsider.com\/2011\/06\/vintage-livo-no-even-better.html\">piece here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>John Lannan<\/strong> continues to look like a different pitcher than earlier this season, throwing his sixth straight quality start in the St. Louis series finale on 6\/16 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_16_slnmlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He was denied the spoils of victory though, with <strong>Danny Espinosa<\/strong>&#8216;s walkoff 3-run shot giving <strong>Burnett <\/strong>a victory.\u00a0 The win pulled the Nats out of last place in the NL east for the first time this late in the season since perhaps 2005.<\/li>\n<li>While not quite as dominant as his past few starts, <strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> threw yet another quality start in saturday 6\/18&#8217;s game versus Baltimore (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_18_balmlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He went 6 1\/3, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits for his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.cgi?id=zimmejo02&amp;t=p&amp;year=2011\">9th consecutive quality start<\/a>.\u00a0 In that time he&#8217;s driven his ERA from 4.55 to its current 3.08, good enough for <a href=\"http:\/\/sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/baseball\/mlb\/stats\/2011\/pitching\/nl_0_byEARNED_RUN_AVG.html\">12th in the NL<\/a> as of 6\/19.\u00a0 Can we say &#8220;second Ace&#8221; yet?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bad<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jason Marquis<\/strong> somehow willed his way out of 12 hits in less than 6 innings without giving up a dozen runs, settling for 4 against the Orioles on friday night (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_17_balmlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap_home&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 The Orioles certainly did not hit well with RISP, and it cost them as the Nats bats continued to be hot and they extended their winning streak.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tom Gorzelanny<\/strong>&#8216;s return from the DL was poor: he failed to get out of the 5th inning and got pounded by the Orioles to end the Nats 8-game winning streak on 6\/19 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_19_balmlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He gave up 10 hits for 5 runs (4 earned) on the afternoon.\u00a0 No strikeouts for the team&#8217;s leading k\/9 guy, making you wonder if he&#8217;s rushed back from his injury.\u00a0 His velocity seemed ok and he was pitching to contact &#8230; but the Orioles aren&#8217;t exactly a weak-hitting team.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll have to hope for a stronger start next time out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Starter Trends<\/strong>: Lannan and Zimmermann continue their hot streaks, Livan continues his yo-yo-ing of performances, and Marquis gets a win on a day he got hit around pretty badly.<\/p>\n<p>MLB Trends (through gorzelanny 6\/19)<br \/>\nLhernandez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 soso,soso,good,bad,great<br \/>\nMarquis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 soso,good,good,good,bad<br \/>\nLannan\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 great,good,good,good,good<br \/>\nZimmermann \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,good,good,great,good<br \/>\nGorzelanny\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,bad,soso,bad-&gt;dl,bad<\/p>\n<p>Relievers of Note<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Boy its nice to see a bullpen full of shut-down arms.\u00a0 A quick glance at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/WSN\/2011.shtml\">ERA+ stats of our bullpen<\/a> as of 6\/19 offers up some pretty dominant figures.\u00a0 Storen-159, Clippard-197, Rodriguez-219, Coffey-183, Mattheus-infinite (he&#8217;s yet to give up a run in two appearances).\u00a0 Only Balester and Burnett have sub 100 figures.\u00a0 The ERA+ is a bit deceptive for certain people (for example, Doug Slaten has a 179 figure despite a god-awful WHIP and a horrible inherited runners-scoring track record) but for the most part does a good job characterizing the performance of pitchers over the long haul.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thoughts on the offense<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rick Ankiel<\/strong> can&#8217;t seem to catch a break this season, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/blog\/nationals-watch\/2011\/jun\/19\/ankiel-heads-dl-retroactive-june-15\/\">going back on the DL<\/a> to let a strained rib cage muscle heal properly.\u00a0 The move was fortuitous for the Nats, who needed to activate <strong>Tom Gorzelanny<\/strong> to make his 6\/20 start and offers a stay of execution for (likely) <strong>Brian Bixler<\/strong> on the active roster.<\/li>\n<li>6 of the 8 starting hitters for this team now feature OPS+ stats &gt; 100.\u00a0 Only <strong>Desmond <\/strong>and <strong>Bernadina <\/strong>(who just missed out with a 95 OPS+) are struggling to join the hit parade.<\/li>\n<li>More importantly for our power-starved team, with 43% of the season gone we&#8217;ve got 4 players on pace to eclipse 20 homers on the season (Werth, Nix, Morse and Espinosa), and Zimmerman may pick up the pace and threaten that same mark.\u00a0 Espinosa is noteworthy as the team leader, currently on pace for 27-28 homers during his rookie season, from the 2nd base position.\u00a0 He may become a very valuable player indeed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nats finally get Ryan Zimmerman back into a suddenly potent lineup, and continue their longest winning streak in several years.\u00a0 How&#8217;d our guys fare heading into the weekend Interleague series with the Orioles? Good Livan Hernandez pitched perhaps his best game in a Nats uniform on June 15th (box\/gamer) against the powerful St. Louis [&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":[259,101,135,80,52,181,114,42,115,39,43,44,177,41,301,136,179,167,86,36,108,172,176,128],"class_list":["post-1713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsrotationreview","tag-brian-bixler","tag-collin-balester","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-doug-slaten","tag-drew-storen","tag-henry-rodriguez","tag-ian-desmond","tag-jason-marquis","tag-jayson-werth","tag-john-lannan","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-justin-verlander","tag-laynce-nix","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-mark-zuckerman","tag-michael-morse","tag-rick-ankiel","tag-roger-bernadina","tag-ryan-mattheus","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-sean-burnett","tag-todd-coffey","tag-tom-gorzelanny","tag-tyler-clippard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713","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=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1737,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions\/1737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}