MVN - Most Valuable Network

Put another Curly W in the books (there’s plenty of room for it)

The Nats won in a performance eerily similar to the one I mentioned yesterday where Bergmann outdueled Smoltz.  (poor John Smoltz, always getting outdueled by Nats).  Bergmann’s performance was more dominating than Lannan’s (8 IP, 2H, 10K) but Lannan held the Braves scoreless.  It was a big-time pitching performance the Nats needed, and let’s not forget the horrible pitching performance they got from the other side.  Thanks to Jorge Campillo, because who here would have bet on the Nats going into the bottom of the 9th up by only one run? 

[The “pessimist is me” would like you guys to take a step back and think of another corollary between Bergmann and Lannan.  Specifically - where is Bergmann now?  Uh huh.  Not in the majors pitching the Nats to victory.  For all of you who have lept onto the Lannan express, just try not to get ahead of yourselves there. Could he become a solid rotation guy?  Sure.  But don’t act like it’s set in stone.

In favor of Lannan, he’s only ever been a starter, unlike Bergmann]

You can’t take too much from the win other than Lannan’s performance, the offense being in part carried by the Wills,  Nieves and Harris.  It was nice to see Felipe get a couple of base hits. And he’s earned his way back into a starting spot at second base (a little bit because of a handful of OK games, a lot because of Belliard sucking).  Lopez is no Nick Johnson, but as the article notes, he does take a fair amount of pitches.   Second on the team in 2006 (4.17), First last year (4.01), Currently 4th (3.89).  

[You ever think about how bad the Nats up the Middle defense is when the team is operating with the line-up it would like to have?  LoDuca, Guzman, Lopez, and Milledge?  Sure Guzman isn’t horrible like the other three seem to be, but he’s not the defensive whiz some like to make him out to be.  He’s capable with a nasty tendency to commit a bad error every once in a while.  Anyway that’s not the point.  The point is that’s a pretty damn bad up the middle defense, where usually teams focus on defense.  Hey, but at least the Nats have the corners covered! (well except LF)]

Now the Nats move onto the all-important second game, trying to build momentum.  Of course they are tasked to do it against, Johan Santana.  Tim Redding though is the man you would want on the Nats side for this game, so good luck, sirs.

In Other News

How is bringing back Wily Mo and Chad early going for the Nats?   Appears that the Nats have broken both Chad’s arm and Wily Mo’s spirit!   The Ol’ Tuscaloosa Two-Step!  Good job Jimbo!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.