{"id":4132,"date":"2012-04-13T09:54:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T13:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4132"},"modified":"2012-04-13T10:01:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T14:01:44","slug":"questionable-defense-bailed-out-in-the-10th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4132","title":{"rendered":"Questionable defense bailed out in the 10th"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opening day is always so much fun. \u00a0Except when you are running late, try driving to the stadium, and literally drive around for an hour trying to find a place to park. \u00a0I’ve never seen the areas around the stadium THAT jammed, with no parking available in any lot for any price. \u00a0We ended up illegally parked off of Delaware ave and somehow didn’t get a parking ticket. \u00a0My guess is that the meter maids got carpel tunnel syndrome from writing so many tickets for out of towners that they had to go home before reaching the neighborhood where my car was parked. \u00a0We saw the jets from 395, we heard the fireworks while driving past the McDonalds on South Capitol, and arrived in time to see the Nats bat in the bottom of the 2nd. \u00a0Lesson learned; never never try to drive to opening day again.<\/p>\n

Anyway.<\/p>\n

Gio Gonzalez<\/strong> looked fabulous; 7ip, 2 hits, 7 punchouts and zero walks. \u00a0He works fast, his four seamer hopped and his curve (at least from the side) looks amazing. \u00a0He made Joey Votto<\/strong>, Cincinnati’s best hitter, look just foolish, punching him out twice. \u00a0Gonzalez continues a trend of Washington’s 3 best starters pitching 7 complete with room to spare (Gonzalez sat at 97 pitches through 7 complete but had 7-8-9 coming up, meaning that Clippard had a relatively easy hold, but more importantly meaning that, were it later in the season, Gonzalez easily could have extended himself to get through the 8th).<\/p>\n

Too bad Gonzalez’s Win was spoiled by the 2nd and 3rd defensive gaffes from Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong> on the afternoon. \u00a0He had a fielding error earlier in the game (compounded by throwing the ball away) that didn’t end up factoring into the game, but his defense in the 9th was very questionable.<\/p>\n

Baseball 101: if you’re nursing a close lead in the 9th inning, what do you tell your fielders? \u00a0NO DOUBLES. \u00a0That means your 1st and 3rd basemen guard the line and your outfielders play deep. \u00a0You can absorb a single but you don’t allow someone into scoring position. \u00a0So what happens in the top of the 9th<\/a>? \u00a0Scott Rolen<\/strong> doubles down the line past Zimmerman to get into scoring position. \u00a0Zimmerman was so far off the line he didn’t even dive after the ball. \u00a0 What he heck was he doing?<\/p>\n

Then, after a walk to load the bases Zimmerman plays Ryan Ludwick<\/strong> at least even with the bag, perhaps even further in, apparently guarding against the bunt. \u00a0Ok: I guess I can understand that play to a certain extent … except that Ludwick is a power hitter and the Reds were 2 runs down at that point. \u00a0Dusty Baker<\/strong> isn’t playing for a suicide squeeze, he’s playing for a gapper to score two runs. \u00a0To make matters worse, Ludwick gets down 1-2, and Zimmerman STILL doesn’t return to double play depth. \u00a0Ludwick, who was a far shot to bunt in the first place, certainly isn’t bunting with 2 strikes down 2 runs in the 9th! \u00a0So what happens? \u00a0Ludwick hits a routine grounder to Zimmerman, who gets eaten up because he’s playing right on the grass and the ball takes a weird hop. \u00a0If Zimmerman plays at normal depth, that’s a game ending double play ball at best, a force out at 3rd for the 2nd out at worst.<\/p>\n

Do you blame his positioning on Zimmerman or the dugout? \u00a0Probably the latter, but Zimmerman has been playing long enough and is a good enough fielder that he should have known what to do. \u00a0I hope he buys Gonzalez dinner for costing him a Win (not to mention Lidge for the blown-save). \u00a0In the end the Nats get the W … but as I was driving away from the stadium it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least to see the team demoralizingly drop that game after controlling it the entire day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opening day is always so much fun. \u00a0Except when you are running late, try driving to the stadium, and literally drive around for an hour trying to find a place to park. \u00a0I’ve never seen the areas around the stadium THAT jammed, with no parking available in any lot for any price. \u00a0We ended up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[845,385,592,844,36,843],"class_list":["post-4132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-dusty-baker","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-joey-votto","tag-ryan-ludwick","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-scott-rolen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132","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=4132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4135,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions\/4135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}