Another day, another loss. There's nothing really that hopeful in the loss, although let's see what we can dig up that may be useful.
- John Patterson at least had movement on his pitches. Like so many of his starts so far, his velocity started out strong and then decreased as the game wore on. There's nothing inherently bad about that - most pitchers will lose a few MPH off their fastball between the 1st and the 6th innings - but the magnitude that Patterson was losing it was impressive. Yesterday was a little better; his velocity didn't start really dropping off until about 70-75 pitches in (somewhere around Howard's IBB), which is a good start. His stats weren't helped by the blowtorch job that Micah Bowie did, though. Now if Patterson can start hitting his spots, he might actually start living up to the promise he has.
- Ryan Zimmerman is at least beginning to hit the ball better now; so far it's right at fielders - and the GIDP last night was positively Vidro-esque - but at some point he's going to stop aiming them directly at the second baseman. Just a heads-up if he breaks out in the next week or so.
- The defense, it is horrid. I mean, it's not something we didn't expect to some degree (and I'm going to regret saying this when Logan and Guz come back, I think), but this is impressive. It's not all errors and wild throws, either. It's more positioning and bad breaks; I'll cut Belliard some slack mainly because he's basically a runaway train out there and the reason he's playing rover is because he'd make Vidro look like he has plus range if he was on the grass. I don't know if this will change at all if/when the injured players come back; my guess is it'll improve, if only because players will be at their natural position(s). I don't know if it'll help the boneheaded plays - and how much it will hurt the offense is something else to explore entirely, at a later date - but ...well, it can't hurt. If the stupidity is cut down, then the team will improve; it's that simple.
Like last week, don't expect many posts from now until Monday. The smart money is on "zero" for the number of posts between now and then, although if I get computer access that may change.
