{"id":1738,"date":"2011-06-28T09:52:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T13:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2011-06-28T09:52:10","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T13:52:10","slug":"nats-rotation-cycle-16-goodbadsoso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"Nats Rotation Cycle #16: good\/bad\/soso"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1827\" style=\"width: 262px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/MarquisJason_DrewHallowell_GettyImages_bleacherreport.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1827\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1827\" title=\"MarquisJason_DrewHallowell_GettyImages_bleacherreport.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/MarquisJason_DrewHallowell_GettyImages_bleacherreport.com_-252x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/MarquisJason_DrewHallowell_GettyImages_bleacherreport.com_-252x300.jpg 252w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/MarquisJason_DrewHallowell_GettyImages_bleacherreport.com_.jpg 421w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1827\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marquis pitches his best game in a Nats uniform.  Photo Drew Hallowell\/Getty Images via bleacherreport.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The big news this cycle was the manager situation clearly, but the team is playing some serious baseball right now.\u00a0 Cycle #15 ended with a loss, breaking an 8-game winning streak that pulled the team out of last place in the NL East (and nearly got them to .500 on the season).\u00a0\u00a0 We have 3 interesting series coming up against teams with similar records to us (including the suddenly decent Pittsburgh Pirates), and it should be telling how the team does over the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Good<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John Lannan<\/strong> pitched a pretty clean game on 6\/22 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_22_seamlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), giving up 1 run on 3 hits in 5 2\/3s innings against Seattle, then handing off the ball to his bullpen of hard-throwers, who held and closed out the win for him.\u00a0 Lannan has had a pretty amazing turnaround over the past month, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.cgi?id=lannajo01&amp;t=p&amp;year=2011\">lowering his ERA<\/a> from 5.03 to 3.40 in 6 starts.\u00a0 Lannan is such an enigma; his career ERA now stands almost exactly at 4.00, with an ERA+ just over 100.\u00a0 He&#8217;s pretty much the definition of a MLB average pitcher.\u00a0 The problem is, the team needs guys who are consistently better than average in order to make the next step.\u00a0 I can see Lannan getting tendered next year but eventually getting beat out by one of our rising starters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jason Marquis<\/strong> put in perhaps his best outing as a National on 6\/23 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_23_seamlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), taking a no-hitter into the 6th and leaving the game having pitched 8 scoreless innings of 3-hit ball.\u00a0 He was at 108 pitches (70 for strikes) and (from what I could tell from the stands) was getting squeezed on the strike zone.\u00a0 Too bad this great outing was out-shined by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1803\">abrupt resignation<\/a> of manager <strong>Jim Riggleman<\/strong> immediately following the game.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> continued his excellent streak of starts, going 7 scoreless innings friday 6\/24 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_24_wasmlb_chamlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) before watching his bullpen blow his Win, then blow two more leads before the team finally won in 14 innings.\u00a0 Ironically it was (arguably) our 3 best relievers who each blew saves (Storen, Coffey, Clippard).\u00a0 The team also managed to use every single arm in the bullpen in the process.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tom Gorzelanny<\/strong> was an unlucky loser, pitching 7 strong innings on 6\/25 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_25_wasmlb_chamlb_1&amp;mode=recap&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) but getting tagged for the loss when <strong>Henry Rodriguez<\/strong> let inherited runs score.\u00a0 The Nats squandered a golden opportunity when opposing starter <strong>John Danks<\/strong> had to leave the game early, a night after both teams emptied the bullpens in the 14-inning wild affair.\u00a0 They couldn&#8217;t get to <strong>Bruney<\/strong> and they certainly couldn&#8217;t get to <strong>Peavy<\/strong>, getting a grand total of 2 hits in 9 innings.\u00a0 Hard get your pitcher a win in those circumstances.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bad<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the first game of the Seattle series on 6\/20 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_06_21_seamlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=recap_home&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), <strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> continued his up-and-down season with a &#8220;down&#8221; start, giving up 5 runs (4 earned) on 10 hits through 4 innings and a couple of batters in the 5th.\u00a0 The game looked like a 5-1 wipeout before the Nats improbably scored 5 in the 9th inning to get a walk off win and rescue a ND for Hernandez.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Starter Trends: last 5 starts.<\/p>\n<p>MLB Trends (through gorzelanny 6\/25)<br \/>\nLhernandez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 soso,good,bad,great,bad<br \/>\nMarquis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,good,good,bad,great<br \/>\nLannan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,good,good,good,good<br \/>\nZimmermann \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,good,great,good,great<br \/>\nGorzelanny\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 bad,soso,bad-&gt;dl,bad,good<\/p>\n<p>Relievers of Note and other News.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So far, so good for <strong>Ryan Mattheus<\/strong>, who hasn&#8217;t given up a run in 3 appearances through 6\/21.\u00a0 He&#8217;s throwing the ball hard, he&#8217;s stranding inherited runners and he&#8217;s getting outs.\u00a0 Everything you want from a middle reliever.<\/li>\n<li>Not good news for reliever <strong>Cole Kimball<\/strong>, who pitched through arm pain for weeks before &#8220;fessing up,&#8221; and now is being &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/blog\/nationals-watch\/2011\/jun\/22\/kimball-shut-down-two-weeks-and-other-injury-updat\/\">shut down<\/a>&#8221; for a couple of weeks because of continued pain.\u00a0 Its still being reported as shoulder inflammation, but it sounds like it could be something much more serious.\u00a0 Guys with 95mph fastballs and shoulder injuries don&#8217;t usually recover either.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chein-Ming Wang<\/strong> is *finally* going out on rehab, with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/blog\/nationals-watch\/2011\/jun\/24\/wang-pitch-hagerstown-monday\/\">planned appearance in Hagerstown<\/a> monday 6\/27.\u00a0 It is slightly surprising that he&#8217;s going to Hagerstown,  meaning that our 5 excellent prospects there will have their rotation  scrambled slightly.\u00a0 I think he would have made more sense in Potomac,  where the starters have been less impressive all season.\u00a0 Wang&#8217;s  beginning of rehab is significant; it starts the clock from a month  downward before a major decision has to be made; he has no minor league  options so at the end of the period he either joins the 25-man roster,  goes back on the DL or gets released.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The big news this cycle was the manager situation clearly, but the team is playing some serious baseball right now.\u00a0 Cycle #15 ended with a loss, breaking an 8-game winning streak that pulled the team out of last place in the NL East (and nearly got them to .500 on the season).\u00a0\u00a0 We have 3 [&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-1738","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\/1738","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=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}