{"id":2202,"date":"2011-08-27T17:40:40","date_gmt":"2011-08-27T21:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2202"},"modified":"2011-11-16T13:39:30","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T18:39:30","slug":"nats-rotation-cycle-26-goodbadsoso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2202","title":{"rendered":"Nats Rotation Cycle #26: good\/bad\/soso"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(apologies; i&#8217;m a week behind on posting this)<\/p>\n<p>Cycle #26 starts with a 3-game set at home to Philadelphia, one that set attendance records for the Nats Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>Good<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ross Detwiler<\/strong> put in perhaps his best appearance of the season in the opener against Arizona on 8\/22 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_22_arimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He gave up just one run on 6 hits and 3 walks through 6+ innings and beat Arizona&#8217;s nominal &#8220;Ace&#8221; and northern virginia native <strong>Joe Saunders<\/strong>.\u00a0 My opinion on Detwiler&#8217;s future use continues to waver; clearly he&#8217;s above Gorzelanny in the pecking order but I continue to doubt his ability to stick in the starting rotation.\u00a0 A few more quality starts should start to change my opinion.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong>&#8216;s 2nd to last start on 8\/23 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_23_arimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) was a tale of two pitches.\u00a0 He pitched 6 shutout innings, allowing just 3 hits and one walk.\u00a0 Four batters into the 7th; a ground out, a walk, a homer and a double erased his clean outing and tagged him with a loss.\u00a0 His horrible run support continues; his offense was completely shut down by Arizona&#8217;s ace <strong>Ian Kennedy<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bad<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Its hard to really knock <strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> for what he did on Friday 8\/19 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_19_phimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 After throwing just a handful of pitches before enduring a 2 hour rain delay, he dutifully came back out on the mound instead of burning a spot-starter for his team.\u00a0 Unfortunately the Phillies were ready for him; 4 runs on 7 hits in 4 ip.\u00a0 Luckily for all involved, <strong>Gorzelanny<\/strong> came out and pitched 3 innings of shutout ball before the team scored SIX runs in the bottom of the 9th to get the unlikely win.\u00a0 Unfortunately for Hernandez, its just one more piece of evidence that his days with this club are numbered.<\/li>\n<li><strong>John Lannan<\/strong> got bounced around by a feisty Phillies team on 8\/20 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_20_phimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) and took a loss in a game that nobody on the staff could have won.\u00a0 Counterpart <strong>Roy Oswalt<\/strong> pitched 8 shutout innings after getting an extra night&#8217;s rest and the team&#8217;s offense went to sleep.\u00a0 He gave up 5 runs (3 earned) on 7 hits and four walks in just 5 innings.\u00a0 The massive influx of Philadelphia fans set a new stadium attendance record, besting the previous record by nearly 3,000 fans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mediocre\/Inconclusive<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chien-Ming Wang<\/strong> drew the Phillies ace <strong>Roy Halladay<\/strong> in the 8\/21 series finale (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_21_phimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>) and pitched toe to toe with him before a rain delay knocked both starters out.\u00a0 Wang gave up 3 runs on 5 hits, including two shocking home runs that seemed out of character for his pitching style.\u00a0 Keeping the Phillies hitters to 3 runs over 5+ innings may seem herioc but I&#8217;ll just give him a mediocre outing on the day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Relievers of Note and other News<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>&#8216;s 4th rehab outing is scheduled for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.natsinsider.com\/2011\/08\/class-hickory-at-hagerstown.html\">Monday 8\/22<\/a> in Hagerstown.\u00a0 Results?\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csnwashington.com\/08\/22\/11\/Strasburg-returns-to-form-in-rehab-start\/landing_nationals_loud3r.html?blockID=552542&amp;feedID=280\">Better than the last time<\/a>.\u00a0 3 innings, 2 runs on 2 hits and 6 K&#8217;s while working mostly on off-speed pitches.\u00a0 The opposing team stole four bases, an indication to me that they knew Strasburg wasn&#8217;t really holding them on that well.\u00a0 60 pitches 40 of which were for strikes.\u00a0 Zuckerman seemed to think it was a successful outing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thoughts on the offense<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mr Walkoff Homer <strong>Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong> got his 8th career walkoff with a memorable grand slam on friday 8\/19.\u00a0 According to rather dubious google research, the career leaders in baseball history are a slew of hall of fame sluggers with 12 each.\u00a0 Ryan is 26 and in his 7th pro season and is nearly in the conversation of having the most of these for his career.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(apologies; i&#8217;m a week behind on posting this) Cycle #26 starts with a 3-game set at home to Philadelphia, one that set attendance records for the Nats Stadium. Good Ross Detwiler put in perhaps his best appearance of the season in the opener against Arizona on 8\/22 (box\/gamer).\u00a0 He gave up just one run on [&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":[37,243,437,39,43,41,51,119,297,36,38,176],"class_list":["post-2202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsrotationreview","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-ian-kennedy","tag-joe-saunders","tag-john-lannan","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-roy-halladay","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tom-gorzelanny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202","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=2202"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3065,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2202\/revisions\/3065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}