Time Capsule: Dear Jason - Sorry!

(Editor's note: this is the final in a series of three articles I wrote last week and didn't post until now. I look forward to forgetting to update for a month.)

I was wrong. Totally, entirely, completely wrong.

After Jason Bergmann walked half the RFK concession staff in his first start of the season, I figured he was going to be embarrassing. Not just bad - completely inept. His next couple of starts weren't as jaw-droppingly bad - the control was better, and he was turning some of those walks into Ks.

His next few starts after those were better; however, I still had his first start seared into my brain and I chalked up this success to dumb luck - he's missing bats now, but that's just because everyone is willing to swing at the slop he's throwing. That won't last through the next game. Or the one after that. If not then, it'll be over next week. Meanwhile, we moved past the small sample size part of the season - he was still dealing.

By now, I had started to figure that he'd be okay in the middle of the rotation; the threat to blow up is there, but it's not as likely as I thought. (And really, who isn't a threat to blow up in the Nats' 2007 rotation?) And then .... Monday night. You've probably (edit: ...by now, definitely. From everyone else) read about it already - 7 innings of no-hit ball. I was already starting to believ, but now? He's the staff ace.

(edit: the following paragraph is hilarious in retrospective; Bergmann went on the DL on the 18th, retroactive to the 15th)

Of course, that's not entirely his doing; with both Hill and the Delicate Flower on the DL, he's as much the de facto ace as he is the de jure ace. Were they both healthy, he'd probably be the #2 guy behind Hill. I wouldn't complain if he was the ace, though.

Question for discussion: let's say both Patterson and Hill come back healthy and dealing. How do they get ordered in the rotation - and more importantly, does the Nats' staff start to sniff league average? My heart quickens at the prospect.

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Postscript: of course, most of this is kind of irrelevant now, thanks to Bergmann's DL stint. Unfortunately, that also means the Nats' first three starters are on the DL, which: good times. Still, there's more here than I thought there was going to be at first. Right now? I'll take that.

6 thoughts over the last 2 games

1: The Jason Bergmann bubble popped on Friday. It was a fun ride while it lasted, and this time around it wasn't due to what I was afraid of happening (bad control). He was just hit hard - 8 H in only 6 IP. K/BB ratio wasn't bad (2:1), and I don't remember offhand how much of the outing could be blamed on bad D (my guess: probably one of the hits, maybe two). Still, it's at least a theoretical sign of concern / encouragement; I've been worried for a while that if/when Bergmann would implode, it'd be of the Oliver Perez "I'm walking everyone in the stadium" variety. This wasn't that - it was just getting beat up. That, in it of itself, is expected.

2: John Patterson left the game early yesterday. Surprised? I'm not - but he was sidelined by a bicep problem. Pick your joke (increasing levels of cynicism):
A - at least it wasn't his forearm
B - he's always been injured
C - he strained it giving himself a hug to feel better
D - this does nothing to fix his poor broken soul
Bottom line, this would hurt in theory, but since he's effectively - at best - the #3 starter now anyway, whatever. In this rotation, #3 = replacement level.

3: The Jesus Flores "two guys are" Watch(ing) continues. 3-for-4 on Friday, and if Schenider continues to bite it, I'll be curious to see if Bodes can either spin him off for something that could possibly be useful.

If you've ever played sim baseball, this next paragraph will make sense - if not, hang on. The catching situation is like having a 1-star starting C and a 2-star prospect in the big leagues. The prospect might be useful, but the starter sure as hell isn't. Flip the starter to see what you can get - if it's some middling crap middle reliever, so be it, but at least he's cheaper. Put the prospect in and see what happens; if you're not in a pennant race, who cares? You were getting a zero there anyway, it might as well be a cheaper zero.

(Kasten would be so proud!)

4: Ryan Langerhans watch: 0-3 with 2 Ks, first PH off the bench on Friday and Saturday and defensive replacement in LF (for Kasto). Trade back! Maybe they can talk Langerhans into hitting righty.

5: Three boos for Levale Speigner walking in the bases loaded yesterday. Not that he was really going to do anything useful anyway, but walking in a run is probably the most disheartening situation to be in as a fan - and walking in three in a row? Kind of inexcusable. Of course, once the runs started to be earned for him he got out of the inning - hope he gets some kind of present for knocking Patterson's ERA up (and his arbitration number down!).

6: Zimm hasn't had a bad last couple of games: 4-for-8 with a couple of walks. One double both games, with a SB yesterday (whee) to boot. I'm thinking that with an increase in walks, Zimm's value will go back up; I don't have the time at the moment to go delve into his past history to see if that's actually a useful indicator or not, but it makes intuitive sense. His OBP is only .309 so far, but that's well above the .236 (OBP Mendoza?) he was showing a couple of weeks ago.

Keep an Eye Out

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.