{"id":8736,"date":"2014-04-05T11:18:23","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T15:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8736"},"modified":"2014-04-05T11:18:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T15:18:23","slug":"nats-run-themselves-out-of-the-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8736","title":{"rendered":"Nats run themselves out of the home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Desmond's<\/a>

Desmond’s ill-timed steal affects home opener. Photo Drew Kinback\/Natsnq.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I like Matt Williams<\/strong>.\u00a0 I thought he was the obvious choice for manager of this team, and I thought he made a great change of pace from Davey Johnson<\/strong>‘s laissez-faire approach.<\/p>\n

But, man, I’m seeing some warning signs thus far through four games in some of his decisions.\u00a0\u00a0 Base running and lineup construction specifically.<\/p>\n

The Nats made not one, not two, but THREE critical base-running errors in Friday’s home opener 2-1 loss to Atlanta<\/a>.\u00a0 Lets see if we can correctly second-guess these moves:<\/p>\n

1. Gee, I wonder what would happen if I sent a guy with 20 speed (Adam LaRoche<\/strong>) home when a guy with an 80 arm (Andrelton Simmons<\/strong>) is getting ready to make the relay? \u00a0\u00a0 Oh, you think the 20-runner gets thrown out by 15 feet?\u00a0 Check.\u00a0 This isn’t on Williams of course … but if he holds LaRoche the team has 2nd and 3rd with one out (run expectancy<\/a>: 1.44) versus just Zimmerman on third with two outs (RE: .385).\u00a0 That’s huge.\u00a0 If LaRoche stays put the team is almost guaranteed a run and perhaps more (a single scores two).\u00a0 What happens?\u00a0\u00a0Bryce Harper<\/strong> strikes out to end the inning.<\/p>\n

2. One on, one out, and Harper gets thrown out trying to steal second on such an obvious steal attempt that the Braves pitched out and one of the lesser defensive catchers in the game (Evan Gattis<\/strong>) had Harper so dead to rights that he stopped running to second.\u00a0 He was out by 20 feet. \u00a0 This wouldn’t have led to much of anything likely .. but come on.\u00a0 Maybe Harper gets to third on Ian Desmond<\/strong>‘s subsequent single up the middle.<\/p>\n

3. The most egregious, the most obvious bone-headed running error though was the one that changed the game most.\u00a0 After Desmond’s ground rule double (an opinion here: why was this call missed in the first place?\u00a0 Every frigging little leaguer in the country knows the universal thing to do when a ball gets stuck in the fence; you raise your hands and its an automatic ground rule double.\u00a0 Have MLB umpires just forgotten this?\u00a0 Why did we need a 5-minute replay, arguments from both managers and a complete waste of time to determine this??), Desmond INEXPLICABLY tried to steal third and was again thrown out by 15 feet.\u00a0\u00a0 Why would you possibly try to steal third there?\u00a0\u00a0 You’re on second base with none out; RE of 1.1.\u00a0 Your hitters have three shots to get a single to drive you in from there.<\/p>\n

This steal completely changed the course of the game; instead of having a guy on second with none out, who you could bunt to third with Lobaton<\/strong> and then sac fly with Nate McCloud<\/strong> and voila; game tied.\u00a0 Nope; instead Lobaton walks, McClouth feebly flies out (also removing the starter Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> in the process) and opportunity wasted.<\/p>\n

Just dumb, all around.<\/p>\n

One last thing: why the F is Harper batting 6th??\u00a0\u00a0 He’s got the most power on the team, in arguably.\u00a0 He’s one of the better hitters on the team.\u00a0 The 6-hole bats approximately 30 times less per season than each subsequent position above it.\u00a0 It just doesn’t make sense to be batting him behind guys who hit .220 last year.\u00a0 I just don’t get it, and i’m not the only one out there who’s noticing this as well<\/a>.\u00a0 There’s a ton of science behind lineup construction<\/a> that goes against conventional thinking, and hitting Harper 6th just invites criticism needlessly.\u00a0 Hit the guy 4th and leave him there.<\/p>\n

I won’t bother to comment on Harper taking strike-3 down the frigging middle of the plate in the 8th; that was pretty inexplicable to me too.\u00a0 And I’ll give Williams a pass for yanking the effective Zimmermann after just 81 pitches; he was sick yesterday and the Desmond CS basically forced the move.<\/p>\n

Nats have to play smarter.<\/p>\n

Grr.\u00a0 Great day at the ballpark wasted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Matt Williams.\u00a0 I thought he was the obvious choice for manager of this team, and I thought he made a great change of pace from Davey Johnson‘s laissez-faire approach. But, man, I’m seeing some warning signs thus far through four games in some of his decisions.\u00a0\u00a0 Base running and lineup construction specifically. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[184,1921,164,137,1718,114,43,2239,1314,2382],"class_list":["post-8736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-laroche","tag-andrelton-simmons","tag-bryce-harper","tag-davey-johnson","tag-evan-gattis","tag-ian-desmond","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-jose-lobaton","tag-matt-williams","tag-nate-mccloud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8736","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=8736"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8741,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8736\/revisions\/8741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}