{"id":2235,"date":"2011-08-31T11:52:41","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T15:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2235"},"modified":"2011-09-25T10:22:13","modified_gmt":"2011-09-25T14:22:13","slug":"nats-rotation-cycle-27-goodbadsoso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2235","title":{"rendered":"Nats Rotation Cycle #27: good\/bad\/soso"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2259\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/ZimmermannJordandcist.comAP-PhotoManuel-Balce-Ceneta.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2259\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2259\" title=\"ZimmermannJordandcist.com(AP PhotoManuel Balce Ceneta)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/ZimmermannJordandcist.comAP-PhotoManuel-Balce-Ceneta-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/ZimmermannJordandcist.comAP-PhotoManuel-Balce-Ceneta-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/ZimmermannJordandcist.comAP-PhotoManuel-Balce-Ceneta.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2259\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We won&#39;t see Zimmermann again til spring training 2012.  Photo AP\/Manuel Balce Ceneta<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Rotation #27 marks the final time we&#8217;ll see <strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> starting this year.\u00a0 He&#8217;s scheduled to exceed the 160IP limit set for him by the team this time around.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll see<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/post\/tom-milone-to-replace-jordan-zimmermann-on-nationals-roster\/2011\/08\/30\/gIQApgzTqJ_blog.html?wprss=nationals-journal\"> announcements<\/a> presumably for his replacement later in this cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Good<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John Lannan<\/strong> didn&#8217;t pitch badly on 8\/25 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_25_arimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), giving up 2 runs on 7 hits in 6 innings, but again his offense failed him and he took a loss.\u00a0 His bullpen unraveled after he left, highlighted by <strong>Henry Rodriguez<\/strong>&#8216;s 5 hit, 3 run debacle.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chein-Ming Wang<\/strong>&#8216;s 6th outing was decent, giving up one earned run in 6 innings in the Cincinnati bandbox on 8\/26 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_26_wasmlb_cinmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 He was wild (4 walks) and he didn&#8217;t work down in the zone as much as he usually does (10 ground ball outs to 6 fly outs) but he put his team in a position to win with the &#8220;real&#8221; quality start.\u00a0 Through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wangch01.shtml\">six starts and 33 innings<\/a> Wang has a respectable 3.82 era and a slightly mediocre 1.33 whip.\u00a0\u00a0 I figure he has about 6 more starts before season&#8217;s end to prove to the Nats (and the league) what he&#8217;s worth in the free agent market.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bad<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ross Detwiler<\/strong> may have gotten a quality start in his 8\/27 loss against Cincinnati (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_27_wasmlb_cinmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>), but he still gave up 6 runs in 6 innings.\u00a0 Rookie <strong>Chris Marrero<\/strong>&#8216;s  first major league start resulted in his booting two of the first three  balls hit to him, and those errors turned into 3 unearned runs.\u00a0 He was definitely around the plate all night (59 of 88 pitches for strikes through 6 innings) but too many of his pitches caught too much of the plate against a potent Cincy offense.\u00a0 Still, he&#8217;s got a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/WSN\/2011.shtml\"> sub 3 ERA <\/a>through 6 starts and his 5 relief appearances on the season so you can&#8217;t really criticize too much.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong>&#8216;s last start of 2011 wasn&#8217;t the heroic winning sendoff people were hoping for on 8\/28 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_28_wasmlb_cinmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0  He gave up solo shots to each of Cincinnati&#8217;s big hitters, then walked  in a run in the 5th to force his early exit.\u00a0 Final line on the day: 4  1\/3, 6 hits, a walk and a HBP, and 3 earned runs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mediocre\/Inconclusive<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> gave the team one more excuse to remove him from  the rotation when the roster expand, giving up 4 runs in 7 innings and  taking the loss against Arizona on 8\/24 (<a href=\"http:\/\/washington.nationals.mlb.com\/mlb\/gameday\/index.jsp?gid=2011_08_24_arimlb_wasmlb_1&amp;mode=wrap&amp;c_id=was\">box\/gamer<\/a>).\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t the worst outing he&#8217;s had, but it wasn&#8217;t a quality start.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Starter Trends (2nd half only)<\/p>\n<p>Hernandez has struggled lately, Lannan follows up a couple of poor outings with a good one, Wang maintains his decent to good trend, Detwiler has a rough outing that I may be judging too harshly, and Zimmermann takes a step back in his last appearance of the year.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Lhernandez: \u00a0 \u00a0 bad,good,bad,good,bad,good,bad,soso<\/li>\n<li> Lannan\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 good,good,bad,soso,good,bad,bad,good<\/li>\n<li> Wang\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 bad,bad,great,soso,soso,good<\/li>\n<li> Detwiler\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 soso,soso,good,good,bad<\/li>\n<li> Zimmermann: bad,bad,great,good,soso,good,good,bad-&gt;shutdown for season<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Relievers of Note and other News<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ryan Mattheus<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/post\/ryan-mattheus-placed-on-disabled-list\/2011\/08\/26\/gIQA792xgJ_blog.html?wprss=nationals-journal\">shoulder strain<\/a> probably will cost him the rest of the season.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been our 3rd best reliever the 2nd half of the season and looks like he&#8217;s definitely going to be a part of the 2012 bullpen.\u00a0 He&#8217;s being replaced on the roster by 2007 first rounder <strong>Chris Marrero<\/strong>, who finally gets a debut after years of toiling and improving in our minor league system.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> did his 5th rehab start in Syracuse on 8\/28 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/the_goessling_game\/2011\/08\/strasburg-impresses-in-latest-rehab-outing.html\">gamer from Ben Goessling<\/a>) and he was, well, dominant.\u00a0 Five perfect innings, 7 ks while seemingly working solely on his 2-seam fastball.\u00a0 He had 7 ground ball outs to just one flyball out and was &#8220;only&#8221; hitting 95-96 on the stadium gun.\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing that he was working on his 2-seamer and his off-speed stuff on the night.\u00a0 Its hard to really analyze these starts in some respects; he blows through AAA hitters that mostly have MLB experience, yet he gets tagged in the bush leagues.\u00a0 Its a recurring theme that the guys in the lower minors will &#8220;swing at anything&#8221; and often times the ball runs into their bats for hits, but this is the second time through the minors for Strasburg where he&#8217;s fared *far* better against AAA hitters than AA or A ball guys.\u00a0 Odd.<\/li>\n<li>Get your tickets now: the team announced Strasburg&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/post\/stephen-strasburg-set-to-return-to-nationals-on-sept-6\/2011\/08\/30\/gIQAkdGOqJ_blog.html?wprss=nationals-journal\">return as being 9\/6\/11<\/a> against the Dodgers.<\/li>\n<li>Jordan Zimmermann&#8217;s\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/z\/zimmejo02.shtml\">season ending stats<\/a>:  8-11, 3.18 era, 1.147 whip.\u00a0 124\/31 k\/bb in 161 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 Excellent  4.0 k\/bb ratios, 0.7 homers\/9 and a 120 ERA+.\u00a0\u00a0 Looking at more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/winss.aspx?team=Nationals&amp;pos=all&amp;stats=pit&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2011&amp;month=0&amp;season1=2011\">advanced pitching stats<\/a>:  his FIP was right on line with his ERA at 3.15, his xFIP a respectable  3.74 and his SIERA at 3.55.\u00a0\u00a0 All in all a great season and a promising  one for Zimmermann&#8217;s future as Robin to Strasburg&#8217;s Batman.<\/li>\n<li>Saw a blip in the paper today about how Livan wants to stay a Washington National, and that he&#8217;s willing to become <a href=\"http:\/\/therocket.mlblogs.com\/2011\/08\/31\/livo-reaches-milestone-wants-to-stay-with-nationals\/\">a long reliever<\/a> understanding that he may be forced out of the rotation by the rise of young arms.\u00a0 That&#8217;s good news for the team frankly; if he stays at or near his current salary ($1m base, $2m with incentives) then he&#8217;s a very good, very cheap insurance policy in case one of our younger arms has a meltdown.\u00a0 Livan may be finishing a frustrating on-again\/off-again season, but he does put in a number of quality starts when given the chance.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masnsports.com\/the_goessling_game\/2011\/08\/milone-peacock-could-be-in-line-to-pitch-for-nationals-on-saturday.html\">Nats pulled<\/a> both <strong>Tom Milone<\/strong> and <strong>Brad Peacock<\/strong> from dominant AAA starts over the weekend, presumably for eventual callup to the majors.\u00a0 Then on 8\/30, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/nationals-journal\/post\/tom-milone-to-replace-jordan-zimmermann-on-nationals-roster\/2011\/08\/30\/gIQApgzTqJ_blog.html?wprss=nationals-journal\">Milone was announced<\/a> as the Zimmermann replacement for the upcoming Saturday 9\/3 game.\u00a0 This will require a 40-man move, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2218\">alternatives mentioned in this space<\/a> last week.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rotation #27 marks the final time we&#8217;ll see Jordan Zimmermann starting this year.\u00a0 He&#8217;s scheduled to exceed the 160IP limit set for him by the team this time around.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll see announcements presumably for his replacement later in this cycle. Good John Lannan didn&#8217;t pitch badly on 8\/25 (box\/gamer), giving up 2 runs on 7 [&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":[35,37,124,181,39,43,41,51,86,38,34],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsrotationreview","tag-brad-peacock","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-chris-marrero","tag-henry-rodriguez","tag-john-lannan","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-ryan-mattheus","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tommy-milone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","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=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2590,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions\/2590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}