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The Opposing Viewpoint: Washington Nationals (Part 2)

By Jessica Bader | April 23rd, 2008

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Welcome back to The Opposing Viewpoint, the place to learn more about the Mets’ opponents from the bloggers who write about them. Today’s guest is Harper Gordek of Oleanders and Morning Glories. When the Nationals came to Shea Stadium last week, Harper was kind enough to answer a few questions about where the Nats are headed this year; this round of questions is a bit more focused on where they’ve been so far.

What is wrong with Chad Cordero? His velocity was down noticeably when he pitched at Shea Stadium last week, and he has pitched just three innings since coming off the DL 10 days ago.

His arm is hurt, but no one wants to say it. Supposedly there is no pain in the arm, but everyone can see the velocity is way down. They want to believe that it’s just a conditioning issue, that Chad needs more time to warm up than usual for some reason. (Chad wants to believe it because he wants to be able to pitch, the team wants to believe it because they want him to be in tradeable condition). The last game he was in seemed to agree with that theory as he was getting back to his normal speed by the end of the inning, but now there’s a “click” in the shoulder that’s going to be checked out. I for one am glad they are looking at something; a relief pitcher who needs an actual inning to warm up isn’t of much use to a team. Rauch will be closing in his place.

2008 has not been kind to the Nationals thus far, but what have the biggest bright spots been for the team over the first three weeks of the season?

Bright spots? This is like the Bizarro version of picking out sunspots, but ok. Lastings Milledge would have to be the best thing going on right now. Sure he’s a defensive mess sometimes but he can hit and he’s young. Cristian Guzman is having an oddly powerful first month of the season. I’m not sure I believe that he can keep it up but I think it does give a sense that he isn’t going to historically suck like he did in 2005. The starting pitching, after a rough week there, actually isn’t doing that bad. Tim Redding, Odalis Perez, and John Lannan all have had a couple of nice games already. And while there have been some shaky bullpen outings, that seems to be coming together a bit too. Luis Ayala and Jesus Colome have been particularly effective.

Finish this sentence: A two-game series makes about as much sense as…