Tagged: Washington Nationals
A Walk in the (Citi)Park for the Nats
Over the years, countless scores of Little Leaguers have heard their parents and coaches yell out “A walk is as good as a hit” On Friday afternoon in Citi Field in New York, the Washington Nationals proved that old axiom has some teeth to it.
The Nats walked nine times, with three of the batters reaching via a base on balls scoring and another run coming in when Michael Morse walked with the bases loaded. At the end of the dreary and cold afternoon, the Nats had a 6-2 win and their first back to back wins of the 2011 season.
The game marked the 16th time the Nats have walked at least nine times in a nine inning game. Washington is 9-7 in those contests, 13 of which have come on the road. The Nats’ record for most walks in a nine inning game is 11. In the 2005 season, the Nats received 11 free passes in an 11-8 win at San Francisco and they repeated the feat at RFK Stadium on August 9, 2006 in a 5-2 win over the Florida Marlins.
Time has shown that patience is a virtue for Major League batters, and the Nats have shown signs of improvement in that category. Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche all have demonstrated good patience at the plate, and pinch-hitter deluxe Matt Stairs has shown the same ability in his limited opportunities. The Nats’ all-time best season for base on balls came in 2009 when Washington walked 617 times, finishing fifth best in the Major Leagues. Averaging 3.5 walks per game in the early stages of the 2011 season, the Nats will fall short of that mark if they continue on their pace. The would, however, finish well ahead of their walk numbers in every other season besides 2006 when they walked 594 times (the seventh most in the Majors).
Livan Large
As Major League careers go, Livan Hernandez has done quite well. He’s been a post-season hero, won 158 games and was the winning pitcher in the first win by a Washington major league team upon baseball’s return to the Nation’s Capitol after a 33 year absence. Going into this season, however, many thought Hernandez was just rotation fodder to be used until Ross Detwiler recovered from injury, Craig Stammen and Garrett Mock matured into solid starters and Stephen Strasburg made his way to the big leagues. So far, those low expectations have been exceeded one hundred fold by the veteran righthander.
With two dominating starts in his only two appearances of the season, Hernandez has added stability to a pitching staff that has been all over the place in the season’s first two weeks. His first start of the season provided a Nats’ win at Citi Field earlier this month, and his most recent outing was a complete game shutout gem over Milwaukee at Nationals Park this past Saturday. The shutout was the eight of Hernandez’ career, and he also posted his 48th career complete game (the Nats’ current pitchers other than Hernandez have 20 career complete games between them).
Using the pitching game score number that was created by Bill James to judge a starting pitcher’s effectiveness, Hernandez’ 80 score against Milwaukee on Saturday was his most dominating performance since he posted an 83 score in a 2-0 Montreal Expos win over Toronto on July 2, 2004 at Olympic Stadium.
By the game score measurement, the win over Milwaukee by Hernandez was the sixth best starting pitching performance in the Nationals five plus year history finishing behind only the following outings:
John Patterson 92 gs 8/4/05 in 7-0 win over Los Angeles Dodgers
Pedro Astacio 88 8/15/06 in 5-0 win over Atlanta
John Patterson 84 4/15/06 in a 2-1 at Florida over the Marlins
John Patterson 83 9/16/05 in a 5-1 win over the Padres in San Diego
Jason Bergmann 83 5/14/07 in a 2-1 win over Atlanta
John Patterson 82 7/19/05 in a 4-0 win over Colorado
While expecting Hernandez to keep up his current pace is unrealistic, there’s hope that things may ride along smoothly for big number 61 for the forseeable future. In his career, Hernandez’ .633 winning percentage in May is his best performance in a particular month. He’s also 5-2 at Nationals Park in his career, allowing only one home run (to Florida’s Hanley Rameriz last September 5th). At least so far in this admittedly early stage of the season, Hernandez’ sterling performance has been among the biggest positive surprises in Major League Basebal.
NATS HIGH FIVE- Week Two
With a 4-4 record over the last eight games, the Nats’ remain at .500 as we move toward the end of April. Here’s a look at the week’s top performers and performances:
5) HAVE BAT, WILL TRAVEL- While trying to find out where Cristian Guzman is in the field is more difficult than its ever been, it’s easy to find him when the Nats are at the plate…he’s usually on the basepaths. With 13 hits in his last 31 at bats with five runs batted in, Guzman has been a plus in the Nats’ lineup.
4) NOT GETTING OLDER, GETTING BETTER- When the Nats signed Ivan Rodriguez in the off-season, the hope was that he’d be able to provide veteran leadership and a marginally better bat that last year’s catchers Wil Nieves and Josh Bard. So far I-Rod has been nothing short of spectacular at the plate, hitting .444 in 45 at bats wtih eight multi-hit games in his 11 starts.
3) FOLLOWING THE LEADER- After Hernandez’ sensational performance on Saturday against the Brewers, young starter Craig Stammen took the hill on Monday hoping to turn his slow start around. With eight innings of five hit, two run ball in a 5-2 Nats’ win over Colorado, Stammen provided a much needed lift for a team that saw its starter knocked out in the first inning in the previous game.
2) I DIDN’T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW- Ok, it wasn’t Gibson against the A’s in the ninth inning of game one of the 1988 World Series, but Ryan Zimmerman’s go-ahead pinch-hit two run home run at Philadelphia last week was probably the individual highlight moment for the Nationals this year. The blast propelled the Nats to a 7-5 win and salvaged a game for Washington in a difficult three game series against the defending National League champions.
1) SLOWER MAY BE BETTER- Using pitchers that often were significantly slower than the flow of traffic on the Beltway, Hernandez’s win over Milwaukee was the pitching highlight of the young season to date. His next start tomorrow is against Colorado’s no-hit wonder Ubaldo Jimenez, but the last eight pitchers to throw no-hitters have registered only a 3-4 record (with one no decision) in their starts immediately following their no-hitters.
Eight is Enough- Adam Dunn Home Run Facts
With thanks to the wonderful website that is Baseball Reference.com, here are eight interesting (at least to a stats geek like me) facts about Nationals’ slugger Adam Dunn’s home runs.
1) Dunn has 316 lifetime homers, tying him for 106th on the all-time list with Ron Cey. Among the Hall-of-Famers Dunn should pass on the list this year are George Brett (317), Gary Carter (324) and Hank Greenberg (331). Near Hall-of-Famers who will likely be passed by Dunn include Dave Parker (339) and Ron Santo (342).
2) In 2009, the Nats’ slugger hit 10 of his 38 home runs with the count at 1-1. He hit six with the count at 2-2, five homers on the first pitch of an at bat and four with the count 2-1. Dunn had three homers each on counts of 0-1 and 3-2, two with the count at 1-0 and 3-1, and one each on counts of 1-2, 3-0 and 0-2.
3) Dunn has hit 19 homers lifetime at Nationals Park, the fourth most he’s hit in any ballpark. He has hit 125 at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, 24 at Wrigley Field and 21 at the Reds’ former home of Cinergy Field. The former home of the Nationals, R.F.K. Stadium, was not exactly a home run haven, but the big lefty went deep there against Mike Bacsik and the Nats on August 2, 2007.
4) Dunn has 11 lifetime grand slams, including two last year. On May 24, 2009, Dunn hit one at Nationals Park against Baltimore’s Jamie Walker, and on July 25, 2009 (also at Nationals Park), Dunn hit a slam against San Diego righthander Luis Perdomo.
5) Several current Nats’ pitchers have been victims of blasts by the big Texan. Matt Capps gave up a two run homer to Dunn on August 4, 2007, and new Nats’ starter Jason Marquis gave up a solo homer to Dunn twelve days later on August 16th. Nats’ bullpen candidate Logan Kensing has been victimized by Dunn solo homers twice, once on May 14, 2008 and again on June 6th of the same year. Collin Balester gave up a three run shot to Dunn at the Great American Ballpark on July 6, 2008, and the newest Nat, Chien-Ming Wang, gave up a solo homer to Dunn at Yankee Stadium last season on July 19th.
6) The Cubs have been the opponent who have given up the most homers to Dunn. He has 40 lifetime blasts against the northsiders from the Windy City. Dunn also has 34 lifetime homers against Milwaukee and 27 against St. Louis. As for Washington’s National League East foes, Dunn has 19 lifetime homers against Philadelphia, 15 against both the Mets and Braves and 14 against Florida.
7) Lefty Glendon Rusch and the Cubs’ talented starter Carlos Zambrano are at the top of the list of pitchers who have given up the most homers to Dunn with seven allowed each. New Oriole Kevin Millwood is next with six allowed.
8) Dunn has 24 lifetime two home run games, including two as a National. On May 10th of last season, Dunn hit two homers at Arizona against the Diamondbacks. Two weeks later in a Nats’ comeback win at home against the Orioles, Dunn did the trick again.
From A(lston) to Z(immerman) 