Red-hot is a good way to describe the Nationals, the first team in Major League baseball to win 70 games and a team currently on a seven game winning streak.  That description also applies to Nats’ slugger Michael Morse, who hit his third homer in two games and recorded a hit for the 17th time in 18 games (or in his 18th straight game if one refuses to acknowledge the ridiculous ruling made on Friday to change Morse’s hit on August 2nd against the Phillies to an error on Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins).

Morse’s homer on Friday night was the 11th of the 2012 season for the outfielder, with eight of those homers coming on the road.  Last night’s homer came on a 1-0 count, the second time Morse has gone deep from that count this year.  He’s hit two homers on the first pitch of an at bat, two on 0-2 counts, 3 on 0-1 counts, one when the count is 2-1 and one on a 1-1 count.  The homer gave Morse 14 in August in his Nats’ career.  He’s had 15 in September/October, 14 in both June and August, 10 in July, six in May and only one in April.

Save for the bizarre and late ruling from Major League Baseball, Morse would have moved into third place last night in the Nats’ all-time hit streak leaders since the franchise moved to DC in 2005. Ryan Zimmerman’s 30 game streak in 2009 is the top mark, with Zim’s 19 game streak last season coming in second.  Zimmerman (in 2006) and Cristian Guzman (in 2009) had 17 game streaks.  Morse’s current streak now stands at eight games. His longest hit streak as a National came last year when he hit in 11 games in a row from May 22nd through June 2nd.

Last night’s win also featured a four hit game from Nats’ rookie Steve Lombardozzi. Lombardozzi became only the fourth rookie to have more than one four hit game this season, joining Mike Trout of the Angels (who has three such games), Daniel Nava from Boston and Yoenis Cespedes of Oakland.

Bryce Harper had two sacrifice flies in last night’s win as he became only the sixth player in Washington Nationals history to have multipe sac flies in a game.   Prior to last night, Ryan Zimmerman had the last multipe sacrifice fly game for the Nats when he had two in a 6-5 loss to the Cubs on July 18, 2009.  Brian Schneider (in 2007), Alex Escobar (in 2006), Brad Wilkerson (in 2005) and Jose Guillen (also in 2005) are the other Nats’ with two sacrifice flies in a game.

Kudos also go out to Nationals’ starter Stephen Strasburg, who won his 13th game of the year as he allowed only one run and one hit in six strong innings pitched.  The game was the 10th of the year for Strasburg where he’s gone at least six innings and has allowed one or fewer earned runs.  Rotation mate Jordan Zimmermann leads the Nats in that category with 14 such games, with Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson at seven each and Ross Detwiler with five.

 

Sunday’s thrilling 11-10 Nats’ win over Milwaukee was largely due to the heroics of Michael Morse, who tied the game with a two run homer in the ninth and won it two innings later with a two run double.  The homer was the fifth Morse has hit for the Nats in the ninth inning or later, and the Nats are 5-0 in those games.   On May 27, 2011, Morse hit a solo walk-off homer off of San Diego’s Mike Adams to give the Nats a 2-1 win.  On June 5th of last season, Morse’s grand slam against the Diamondbacks’s at Arizona put the finishing touches on a 9-4 Nats’ win.  In last season’s final week, Morse hit a three run homer off of Florida’s Edwin Mujica to turn a 4-3 Florida lead into an eventual 6-4 Nats’ win.  And earlier this week, Morse’s two run blast off of the Mets’ Pedro Beato cemented a 8-2 Nats’ win at Citi Field.

Morse’s heroics took Nats’ reliever Ryan Mattheus off of the hook. Mattheus became only the second reliever in Washington Nationals’ history to surrender three homers in a game.  In 2006, Jason Bergmann was the first as he gave up three long balls to Tampa in the Rays’ 11-1 drubbing of the Nationals at RFK Stadium.  The last reliever before Mattheus to give up three round-trippers as a reliever but still have his team win was Houston’s Dan Wheeler.  Wheeler gave up three homers and four runs to Texas back in June 2007, but ended up getting the win in a 12-9 Astros t.riumph.

Washington had seven extra-base hits on the day.  Steve Lombardozzi and Roger Bernadina joined Morse in the home run column, and Ryan Zimmerman, Corey Brown, Tyler Moore and Morse had two base hits.   The game was the 46th one in Nats’ history where the team has had seven or more extra-base hits.  This year’s team has seven such games, trailing only the 2006 squad (which had 11) for most seven plus extra-base hit games in a season.

 

 

The Nationals have hit the century mark in games played in the 2012 season, and stand an impressive 20 games over .500 which is good enough for a 3 1/2 game lead in the National League East.  And while it’s undoubtedly premature to start thinking post-season baseball when we haven’t even reached the trade deadline yet, the numbers (at least over the past decade) point to a likely playoff berth for Davey Johnson and his troops.

Since 2000, 32 teams have been 20 games over .500 or better heading into play on July 29th.  Of those teams, a whopping 28 made the playoffs.  Only the Red Sox (in 2006 and 2011) and Mariners (in 2002 and 2003) have failed to make the playoffs after being 20 games or better over .500 on this date.

Of the 32 teams, 24 went on to win their divisions, eight made the World Series and four ended up as World Series winners.  All but three teams (the 2011 Red Sox who went 26-33, the 2006 Red Sox who went 25-36 and the 2006 Tigers who went 26-34) played .500 ball or better after being 20 games or more over .500 heading into play on July 29th.

JORDAN RULES

Last night’s Nats’ 4-1 win over Milwaukee featured another sterling performance by Wisconsin native Jordan Zimmermann, who held the Brewers to one run over six innings.  Zimmermann’s outing was a National League high 13th with at least six innings pitched and one or fewer earned runs allowed.  The Nats’ staff has 39 such outings, second in the National League behind Los Angeles’ 41.  Stephen Strasburg is second to Zimmermann among Nats’ pitchers with eight such starts, followed by Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson with seven each and Ross Detwiler with four.

CLEARING THE FENCES

Corey Brown, Tyler Moore and Ryan Zimmerman homered in last night’s Nats’ win, marking the 14th time this season Washington has hit three or more homers in a game.  The Nats are 12-2 in those games, losing only to Colorado in late June and to Atlanta earlier this month in infamous Friday night meltdown at Nats Park.  Washington’s high mark for homers in a game this season is four, set on June 26th at Colorado and matched in the exciting July 4th game in D.C. v.s. San Francisco

 

With the second half of the season set to start tomorrow with the Dodgers hosting the San Diego Padres, here’s a quick look back at some numbers of note during the opening half of the season.

ELLIS HAS CAUGHT ON

With Matt Kemp out for most of the season to date and with Andre Ethier joining Kemp on the disabled list in recent weeks, the Dodgers have been one of the least effective teams at the plate so far this year.  One bright spot for the Dodgers has been the play of catcher A..J. Ellis, whose 130 OPS+ leads the team.  If Ellis can maintain that level of performance over the second half of the year, he’ll become only the ninth catcher (with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title) in Los Angeles Dodger history with an OPS+ of 130 or higher.  The highest OPS+ number ever posted by a Dodger backstop came in Mike Piazza’s sensational 1997 season, when he put up a 185.  Piazza also has the second, third, fourth and sixth highest OPS+ figures for Dodger catchers, registering a 172 in 1995, a 166 in 1996,  a 153 in 1993 and a 140 in 1994.  Other catchers in the group include Paul LoDuca (142 in 2001), Mike Scioscia (136 in 1985) and Joe Ferguson (136 in 1973).

POWER OUTAGE, WEST COAST STYLE

While many of us in the mid-Atlantic region recently lived through storm induced power outages unlike any we’ve seen in a long time, there was a power outage of a different nature on the other side of the country….and that power outage lasted for an entire month.  In June of this year the Dodgers hit only six home runs, the second lowest number of round-trippers the team has hit in a single month during a non-strike shortened season.  The 1967 Dodger team had only five homers in 16 games played in April of that year.  The 1965 Dodger team matched the current team’s futility with only six homers in April of that season, but the eventual World Champs had only 15 games in April 1965 while the current squad had 28 games last month.  Other months in which Los Angeles Dodger teams had single digit home run totals in non strike years include:

April 1988              8 homers in 20 games

April 1976            8 homers in 19 games

June 1976             9 homers in 29 games

April 1970          7 homers in 20 games

April 1968          7 homers in 18 games

July 1968            7 homers in 27 games

BRINGING OUT THE BEST IN THEIR OPPONENTS

Particularly in recent weeks, it seems as though every opposing pitcher the Dodgers have faced has performed like Pedro Martinez, Bob Gibson or Steve Carlton.   In this instance, perception is truly reality.  Using the Bill James created starting pitcher game score statistic, one can see that the Dodgers have made many pitchers look like stars so far this year.  A game score figure of 70 or greater is considered very good and so far this year, the Dodgers have allowed opponents to score 70 or better 16 times.  Only the San Diego Padres (with 17) have had more instances of 70 plus game scores against them.  June and July have been particularly bad months for the Dodgers in this regard. The team saw 70 plus pitching efforts against them 11 times in June, and there’ve been two such outings so far in July.  The top pitching game score against the Dodgers so far this year is R.A. Dickey’s 85, earned in the Dodgers’ 9-0 whitewashing at the hands of the Mets on June 29th at Dodger Stadium.

Among the most consistent of players since he’s been in DC, reliever Tyler Clippard has been coming up big once again for Washington.  The 2011 all-star righty picked up his second save in a row against Boston, and third in four days overall, to help Washington to a 4-2 win at Fenway Park against the Red Sox.  Clippard’s effort continued a streak of excellent pitching by the gangly righty.  Since an unusual outing on April 15th when he surrendered three runs in an inning to the Reds, Clippard has allowed only three earned runs and nine hits in his last 21.1 innings pitched.  In that stretch, Clippard has struck out 24 batters while walking only nine.   Tyler hasn’t surrendered a home run yet this year, continuing a trend in which he’s been difficult to take deep in the season’s early months.  In his time in Washington, Clippard has allowed only one homer in April, only five in May.   The latest into a season Clippard has gone without surrendering a big fly is 2009, when it took until June 25th before Tampa’s Rocco Baldelli did the trick.

Clippard’s effort on the mound (in support of an excellent start by eight game winner Gio Gonzalez) sealed the deal for the Nats in yesterday’s win, but first baseman Adam LaRoche also did his part to put another curly W in the books.  LaRoche’s solo homer off of Boston’s Daiske Matsuzaka was a big blow in the win and was LaRoche’s 174th career homer.  With Boston now added to the list, LaRoche has homered off of 26 of the 30 Major League teams.  Only Oakland, Seattle, Kansas City and the Chicago White Sox haven’t been on the wrong side of a LaRoche blast.  

On Friday night in the Nats’ victory, Stephen Strasburg posted the fifth 13 plus strikeout game for Washington.  Strasburg has three of those games (in addition to his 13 strikeouts of Boston on Friday, the talented righty had 13 at Pittsburgh earlier this year and a team high 14 against Pittsburgh in his June 8, 2010 debut), with former Nat John Patterson recording the other two (against the Dodgers in August 2005 and at Florida in April 2006).

Danny Espinosa’s struggles at the plate have been difficult to watch at times, but his performance in Friday’s game while hitting in the leadoff spot continued his success while hitting first (albeit in a very small sample size).  In his four games hitting leadoff, Espi is hitting .412 with two homers, six RBI and a 1.533 OPS. 

Washington’s six doubles in Friday’s win at Boston marked the 15th time Washington has recorded at least six two baggers in a game.  The team’s record is seven, set on August 13, 2005 at Colorado and equaled on July 22, 2006 at RFK Stadium against the Cubs.

 

 

Another night, another win for the Dodgers in the City of Brotherly Love.  The script for last night’s game was similar to the ones for the first two Dodger victories; solid starting pitching, clutch hitting and a good work by the bullpen.  

One thing that’s been missing for the Dodgers in the three game series is the long ball.  Los Angeles’ wins have come without the team hitting a single home run.  That isn’t surprising with Matt Kemp out, Andre Ethier in the midst of a 0 for 16 slump and the rest of the lineup made up of contact-type hitters, but one would hope that the long ball returns to the Dodger attack today against Phillies’ lefty Cole Hamels.

Historically, several L.A. Dodger hitters have flexed their muscles in Philadelphia.  There’ve been 12 instances where Dodger hitters have had mutliple home run games in Philadelphia.  Philadelphia area native Mike Piazza had two of those games in back to back contests late in the 1995 season.  Other Dodgers with two homer games in Philly include Don Demeter, Steve Sax, Eddie Murray, Greg Brock, Chris Gwynn, Dusty Baker, Shawn Green, Jason Grabowski,  Joe Ferguson and Ken Boyer.

Ron Cey and Pedro Guerrero are the LA Dodgers with the most homers ever in Philadelphia with nine each, followed by Piazza with eight and Willie Davis, Raul Mondesi and Bill Russell with seven each.  Three Los Angeles pitchers have gone deep against the Phils on the road.  Don Drysdale did the trick twice, with Jerry Reuss and Omar Daal each having one homer. 

The only pinch-hit homer ever by a Los Angeles Dodger in Philadelphia came on May 9, 1976 when Ed Goodson hit a two run blast in a game Los Angeles would lose by a 10-3 score. 

The most homers by a Los Angeles Dodger team in a game in Philadelphia is four, with the Dodgers performing the feat three times.  On September 3, 1968, Ken Boyer hit two homers with Bill Sudakis and Willie Crawford contributing one each.   Eddie Murray’s two homer game in Philly came on May 14, 1989, in a contest where Mike Scioscia and Jeff Hamilton also contributed round-trippers.  And on May 18, 2004, Jason Grabowski’s two homer game was supplemented by blasts by Olmedo Saenz and Adrian Beltre.

 

 The Nats’ comeback victory over the Mets on Tuesday night was one of the most thrilling victories of the season for Washington.   After blowing a 3-0 lead, Washington battled back three different times to tie the score before finally getting the winning run on Bryce Harper’s 12th innings bases loaded, two out single.   One of the big contributor’s to last night’s win was shortstop Ian Desmond, who drove in three runs.  The game was the seventh in Desmond’s career where he’s had at least three RBI, and the Nats are a perfect 7-0 in those games.  Desi’s all-time high for RBI in a game is four, set on September 10, 2009 at Nats Park against Philadelphia in an 8-7 Washington win. Harper’s game-winning hit was a solid single, but the rookie outfielder is making his mark with extra-base hits so far in his brief time with the Nats. Through the first 33 games of his career, Harper has 16 extra-base hits (seven doubles, four triples, five homers).  Only five other players since 1901 have had at least 16 extra-base hits in the first 33 games of their rookie seasons.  In 1939, Bob Elliott of the Pirates had 10 doubles, three triples and three homers in his initial 33 games.  Others on the list include Shane Spencer (who had 16 XBH in 1998 for the Yankees), Mike Jacobs (with 18 XBH in 2005 for the Mets) and Chris Dickerson (with 17 in 2008 for the Reds).    Harper’s four triples in his first 33 games makes him only the third player since 1938 with as many three baggers in 33 games.  The others are Butch Davis (1983 for Texas) and former National Nyger Morgan (2007 for the Pirates). Last night’s game was the 30th time Nats’ pitchers have allowed at least three homers in a game at Nats Park, but only the eighth time Washington has won in those contests. Before last night, the most recent victory for the Nats when giving up three homers came on August 1, 2011 in a 5-3 victory over Atlanta.  The most homers allowed by Nats’ pitchers at Nats Park is five, set on September 8, 2009 in a 5-3 loss to the Phillies.  The Marlins have the most three plus homer games for visitors at Nats Park with eight, followed by the Phillies with six and the Braves, Mets and Cards with three each.

Thanks to another strong effort by free agent find Chris Capuano on the mound and with homers from Andre Ethier, Matt Treanor and James Loney, the Dodgers defeated Arizona 6-1 on Monday night to extend their lead in the National League West to seven games.   While a seven game this early in the season may not seem like it is that big of a deal, history appears to be on the Dodgers’ side.

Since the start of divisional play in 1969, 14 Major League teams have ended play on May 21st with at least a seven game divisional lead.  Of those 14 teams, 13 won their divisions (with last year’s Cleveland Indians the only exception).  Of the 13 who won their divisions, three (2007 Red Sox, 1990 Reds and 1984 Tigers) won the World Series with three other teams (1988 A’s, 1977 Dodgers and 1974 Dodgers) making it to the Series only to lose.

The Dodgers and Cleveland are the only teams who have seven game plus leads in three different seasons as of May 21st.  The 1977 Dodgers are tied with the 2001 Mariners for the largest divisional lead as of May 21st as each had an 11 game spread over its closest opponent.

 

 

 

 

  Since the team’s inception in 2005, the Washington Nationals have been searching for an elite centerfielder.   While the Nook Logans, Ryan Churhes Lastings Milledges and Nyjer Morgans of the world have patrolled center for the Nats, visitors to DC have at times featured players in center who play at an elite level.

This past week wasn’t a good one for the Nats as the team dropped five of its seven games.  During that time, Washington fans once again witnessed elite centerfield play from players wearing the road uniform instead of the home colors.

Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen continued to be a one man wrecking crew against the Nats on Thursday, leading the Pirates to a 5-3 win and a split of the team’s two game series in Washington. And last night, Baltimore’s Adam Jones had a mammoth homer to go wtih two other hits to pace Baltimore to its second straight win over the Nats in this weekend’s battle of the Beltway.  

McCutchen and Jones certainly rank among the best centerfielders the Nats have faced since the team’s inception. Here’s one fans view of the top five players who have been captains of the outfield among Nats’ opponents:

5) Mike Cameron-  Whether he played for Florida, New York, Milwaukee or San Diego, the rangy Cameron often was a difference maker against Washington.  Cameron’s seven career homers as a starting centerfielder against Washington tie him with Shane Victorino for the fifth most against Washington.

4) Adam Jones- Nats fans are all too familiar with Jones, a player whose exploits are easily viewable on MASN.   Jones has developed into an all-around star, a player around whom a lineup can be built.   A true five tool players, Jones looks to be rounding into MVP level form this year for the O’s.

3) Andruw Jones- During the Nats’ first two seasons, few players struck fear into the team’s pitchers more than the talented Braves’ outfielder from Curacao.  Jones had the knack for belting clutch homers against Washington, and his 15 round-trippers ranks second for centerfielders against the Nats.

2) Carlos Beltran-  In the RFK Stadium days of Nats baseball, it was commonly believed that the stadium was one of the top pitchers’ parks in the Majors.  While that held true for the most part, it didn’t seem to apply to Beltran when he faced Washington pitching. The switch-hitter was at the top of his game against the Nats, clubbing 16 homers as a starting centerfielder and making numerous big-time defensive plays to stymy  Washington batters.

1)  Andrew McCutchen- After watching the Buccos’ star torch the Nats both at PNC Park and Nats Park over the past 10 days, I am a true believer. McCutchen has it all….power, speed, defensive prowress and an ability to come through in the clutch. 

Others who deserved consideration for the list include Los Angeles’ multi-talented Matt Kemp and Philadelphia’s pesky and effective Shane Victorino. 

Whether it is Bryce Harper, one of the Nats’ minor leaguers or someone who is yet to be added to Washington’s roster, perhaps Washington will have a centerfielder worthy of all-star consideration in the future.  Until then, those looking for a centerfielder with top-level talent both in the field and at the plate will have to look to the Nats’ opponents to find them.