I see a game-winning hit in my future...

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How 'bout those Rockies, just a game back in the wild card. Fun stuff.

Thanks for the news, Barry. Hope that Hill can come back better than ever.

I'm reasonably optimistic after reading this. He's having the elbow cleaned out and the nerve issue addressed now (even though he can pitch with those ailments) because he's having the non-throwing shoulder operated on anyway. Makes sense. I hate it when players have injuries at the end of one season, don't do anything, show up to Spring Training, and suddenly need to go under the knife. This strategy is sound, hopefully his arms and shoulders will be sound as well.

I really hope to see Hill back in full form next year. He's the one starter we've had this year where you watch him throw and just get that "wow" feeling. And, like others, I like his demeanor and the fact that he doesn't seem to get all publicly dramatic about his travails. Okay okay... and he's a cutie pie. There! I said it. My bf is very indulging when my roommate and I back up the TiVo to get a second giggly look at one of Hill's rare little grins.

Barry, I see you've learned your lesson about posting every detail about the player in question's medical procedures. (For some reason the repeated requests for this type of info keeps reminding me of a certain Kathy Bates movie about an author's number one fan...)

Minor surgery is on you not me.

Just remember Jim Bowden always says the doctors say the player should ready to play in three to four months after an operation. This just puts pressure on the player to come back faster than he should which makes the player look bad when the player doesn't come back as quickly as JB predicts. And we get upset with the player
(See John Patterson et al).
Also how long has this elbow issue been going on? Thought Shawn said elbow was healed when he came back and the shoulder was the only problem. And to think they wanted Shawn to pitch winter ball. Sounds like Mike O'Connor redux.
Don't be surprised if Shawn sits out a good portion of next year.

Randy St. Claire should have a bonus clause in his contract based on the fewest possible runs allowed by a cobbled-together pitching staff after four-fifths of its starters go on the DL.

I can be extremely prejudiced, and one of my major ones is against going to Sibley Hospital for any kind of treatment, even a hangnail.

I wish Hill well, but with all of the facility/staff choices available in this wonderful country--from the Mayo Clinic on down--I shudder at the mention of Sibley as his choice.

Also, I am not a true believer in the Birmingham doctor as the penultimate go-to guy, either, but what do I know? Has anything good come out of Birmingham?

Awesome quotes Barry. I loved Hill's answers. He just sounds like a realistic, reasonable guy. As tiresome as media questions must be, and as annoying as fans can be, his answers indicate he understands it and indulges us. Good, big-league-makeup points.

JennX: your giggly Tivo rewind comment was HILARIOUS!!!

JP's mom: your last post (previous thread) was probably the most reasoned, calm comment you've made yet. Nice. Thanks. And for the record, even if a 22-year old guy shows too much allegiance for a player, he's gonna be called [Player's] Mom.

Everyone: we have to make sure [Player's] Mom gets entered in the Nationals Journal glossary.

2008 Starting Rotation (Opening Day)
Patterson
Redding
Hill
Bergmann
Chico

2008 Starting Rotation (August 1st)
Hill
Bergmann
Detwiler
Balester
Lannan

2010 Starting Roation
Detwiler
Balester
Willems
Gibson
Zimmermann

penultimate: (adjective) next to the last

"Has anything good come out of Birmingham?"

Carl Lewis came from Birmingham, and you can see how -he- throws:

http://www.setpro.com/stuff/carllewis1alr.gif

Don't do it Shawn!

There are only a couple pieces on this team that would fit on a contending team (Zimmerman, possibly WMP and that's about it actually) - Hill is one of them. When healthy, and that's a big when, he seems to have the stuff that any team would love to throw out there every fifth day.

Shawn Hill is a player that contending teams would love to have right now unlike a Kearns or D'Angelo - winning teams already have those players only with different names that sit on their benches. A healthy Shawn Hill could be a highly valuable asset.

That is all.

Speaking of the wild card, kudos to the Post for making sure its readers keep agile minds by printing all the Suduko puzzles, crossword puzzles and you-figure-out-the-widcard-standings-yourselves-because-we-didn't-bother-to-print-them-today puzzles, like the one in the Sports section this morning.

The Washington Post: We can't cover baseball for squat - but hey, at least our readers don't get Alzheimer's!

I think Kearns will have a breakout year next year. He hit a weak .250/.323/.369 before the break this year, but in the second half, he's .286/.390/.464, and on pace for 20 homers and 80 RBIs. That's a lot closer to what we thought we were getting. Also, his numbers at home (.228/.330/.365) pale in comparison to his road numbers (.304/.377/.456). So with a move to the new park, how would .280/.380/.480 look, with 25 dingers and 85 RBIs? Here's hoping.

Not to mention if other key members of the line-up are back (in body and performance) like Johnson and Guzman, plus other current members who are having sub-par years like Zimmerman, Schneider and Lopez are able to work out their issues and have similiar improvement in their productions.

I think the story this time next year is going to be the dramatic improvement and there will be huge arguments about what or who is responsible. NJ lovers will say he is the motor that runs our offense, others will say its the ballpark, or Manny or godknowswhat.

Without spending a ton of money on FA or making a blockbuster trade, I think this organization has the talent in the system to compete for a wild card in '08. Think of us in '08 as the Braves are for '07.

Barry updates the wish list: "(note to self: should have been an 'upper extremity specialist')."

Haven't spoken with Jesus Colome's physician, but methinks it must beat the daylights out of being a "lower extremity specialist."

506 asked a few posts ago: "surely there's someone else out there who agrees with me that the obsession with getting another big bat to compete for the wild card next year is distracting us from the real goal of competing for the wild card the next ten years? Hendo?"

Yep, I agree. Some time ago I noted that, while shortages exist in both the slugging and on-base departments, the Nats are not nearly as deficient in the former as in the latter. What's more, sluggers are on their way from the farm.

Unless Guzie's not ready to come back after all and/or da Meat has a tougher recovery than envisioned, the Nats need to shop for on-base guys. They also need to ponder how they can build OBP into our minor-league guys. You need plate discipline to score runs -- unless, perhaps, you're the Angels, and can slug the ball with authority and regularity.

(And, I would argue, even then. The Angels are well poised for October now, but I have to wonder how many seasons they can keep it up.)

Laughing out loud, Hendo!

At the specialist post, not the most recent one!

After Dave's wildly accurate prediction last night that the Met's pitching coach's visit to the mound would result in a Nats home run on the next pitch, Charlie broke it down. The Mets pitching coach must touch the pitcher's -tonight it will be Glavine's - left shoulder with his right hand. Hope it works.

Sending thought waves to the Met's pitching coach. Hope he's not wearing any tinfoil under his cap.

That's okay, JennX. You should see natsfan1b when she's at the stadium watching the players do their stretches before a game...

---

Okay okay... and he's a cutie pie. There! I said it. My bf is very indulging when my roommate and I back up the TiVo to get a second giggly look at one of Hill's rare little grins.

Section 419, I initially thought the same thing but eventually found it in some small corner of the baseball page.

Good things out of Birmingham - Dr. James Andrews is an orthopaedic surgeon, widely considered one of the foremost surgeons in the United States for knee, elbow, and shoulder injuries. He is also credited with performing some of the very earliest arthroscopies. Andrew's practice is located in Birmingham, Alabama where it has been located since 1986. Some of the most common procedures performed by Dr. Andrews are Tommy John Surgery and the repair of knee damage. It was he who discovered that Bo Jackson's "minor hip injury" had been mis-diagnosed by Oakland team physicians, and was acturally necrosis. Athletes who he has performed surgery on and/or examined include Emmitt Smith, B.J. Ryan, Chad Pennington, Derek Jeter, Carl Pavano, Mark Prior, Drew Brees, and Donovan McNabb.

Jmax with another start tonite. Capital idea!! also wily mo is back in the starting line up. throw in batista. a prediction...pain.

Other Good Things Out of Birminham - UAB Medical Center, where the origin of the Aids virus was traced to a chimp hunter in West Africa, and where the AIDS vaccine is in its first stage III trials; Willie Mays; Satchel Page; Charles Barkley (who would like to personally discuss your dissing his home-town); Bo Jackson; Rev. Fred Taylor and The Civil Rights Museum, and other great things too nmumerous to mention.

Maybe Nick J. should pay a visit to the good Dr. Andrews and make sure his hip problems are not of Bo Knows proportions.

Another good thing out of Birmingham: Johnny Ray's Barbecue, best in the nation. (Visit the one on Valley Avenue. I can't vouch for the others.)

"Starting to look like the Phillies have an inside track to the playoffs, whether they win the division or not. How 'bout those Rockies, just a game back in the wild card. Fun stuff."
It is fun stuff! The Phillies have to go 4-2 and the Mets 2-4 for there to be a tie in the East. Go Phils!

I hope the Nats and Marlins knock 'em both out!

I like tonights line-up a lot, great to have Pena back and I like Batista at First against the lefty Glavine (actually I like anyone over Fick, regardless of the pitcher).

Great to see Maxwell getting another start too, he had a great night in the field, hopefully he'll have a better night at the plate. Interesting that they start him against Glavine, so much for coddling him...

Go J-Max, Fear the Turtle!

"Section 419, I initially thought the same thing but eventually found it in some small corner of the baseball page."

Ah, but was that today's wild card standings or the solution to yesterday's figure-out-the-wild-card-standings-yourself puzzle? They always hide the solution to the puzzle in an obscure section of the page. Was it printed upside down, perchance?

Can we please play the Mets more often? Wow - both Kearns AND Batista going deep!? I can't believe I actually just typed that...

Are you freakin' kidding me? back-to-back homers off Glavine in the first inning????

yahooooo JMax!

It's the stadium music that's driving our radio guys crazy. They said yesterday the guy played some kind of music every three pitches. It's starting to annoy me too.

I'm tellin' ya, Austin Kearns baby, AK-.470 (his SLG in 2008).

Holeee GAWD wotta double-play! :-)

3 things...

1) Bergmann is 2 for 3...
2) homer from Batista? Off Glavine?
3) This sure ain't the Atlanta Braves version of Glavine...

Manny tried to get him through the 6th. These guys have got to learn how to pitch into the later innings.

Well said, Ed. I cringe to think where we'd be without our strong bullpen. Or even where we'd be without expanded rosters, for that matter.

I've been reading the Mets fan board during the last few games to see what they're saying about our Nats. There's a lot of the absurd "how can we be losing to a team SO TERRIBLE as the NATS?!?" type comments-- To which I want to say, if we beat you over and over, isn't it more than just dumb luck at some point? But anyway, I had to share this comment from one despondent Mets fan:

>If you looked at these two teams without >knowing the records who would you all >think has the better record, and is >fighting for a playoff spot. Certainly not >the craptastic Mets.

Yowch. At least for their sakes the Phils are losing (for now).

I'm listening to Charlie and Dave. I agree the music is overdone, but I'm enjoying actually *hearing* the pitching lines and scorekeeper's decisions on the stadium PA.

Fantastic DP. Better be a webgem tonight, somebody report, I'll be asleep. The hard core fans agree, keep the team intact, build the farm, wait for the future.

I'm going straight to Hell for this:

When Don Sutton said something to the effect of "There's a depressed mood here at Shea Stadium," I couldn't help it.

I LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHED my @$$ off.

Lord, forgive me... :-)

Quote last Thursday from USA. Story title was "Nationals relish playing spoiler" and byline was Seth Livingston - WASHINGTON "They're 16 games below .500 and a team no contender wants to play". Priceless.

Question for Bud: Can we play the Mets 40-50 times next season?

Over a 2 day period, 23-7. Wow. And the Mets are trying to get into the playoffs? I mean, really. Who're they trying to kid?

What did I miss with Ronnie Belliard and the Mets? All the Mets fans over on metsblog.com keep calling for his head. Did he an inappropriate joke about cocaine or something?

Great, just great. Now I'm REALLY starting to be sorry I laughed.

Wow! I have to take back my criticism of Chad. Obviously, not everyone can close. Nice melt down Jesus!

Hell. It ain't over 'til it's over.

Come on Chad

Oh geez, tell me this isn't happening before my eyes.

Wait...Chad's trying to melt down too. So why am I surprised!

C'mon Wookie...

good god... jesus doesn't save. chief doesn't save. i guess our hopes rest on the tall lanky right hander.

Oops, it's Rauch's turn.

Who are they bringing in now?

Got it. C'mon Rauch.

I'm SO glad Manny had the stones to take Chad out.

good god. that win feels good.

Jeeeeezus, that was close...

Hey, Bud--maybe only 20-30 times. Okay?

Perfectly managed game. Manny let everyone hang themselves that wanted to. We're learning who to count on for next year.

Baseball's going to bring me to an early death, I just know it.

WOOOOHOOOO BIG JON WINS!!!

And, er, Gods of Baseball... we hear you loud and clear. Will be more respectful of division leaders from now on.

Seriously. Go back and read the the last 20 or so posts. It's hilarious how quick the tone turns.

Thanks, Barry, for the Frank update. Always good to hear how he's doing.

Thank you God. Now I can go back to my regularly scheduled snarkiness to my Mets friend.

So what was with the double play ya'll are raving about? I just had the audio.

I just had the audio, too, NatsNut. Hope the DP will be on the Nats site eventually.

Holy Colome and Chad, that was some 9th! I thought my heart would explode!! Gonna try to get some sleep now...

OMG I'm so so so sorry for smugly trolling the Mets message boards and smirking at their pain. I will henceforth hold all remarks until the game is over.

ARRRRGH ... MASN is NOT showing that dumb Chad Cordero commercial now. Nonononono.

Okay, so a win's a win. Has Colome had a good pitch since he came back from his butt infection?

When y'all catch your breath again, here are the standings on the different titles we're hoping to clinch in the next five days:

Not the Worst Team in Baseball:
Clinched, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 9/24/07

Not the Worst Team in the National League:
E#: 1, Florida Marlins
E#: 1, Pittsburgh Pirates

Not the Worst Team in the NL East:
E#: 1, Florida Marlins

Not the Worst Team Covered by the Washington Post (Leaving Aside All Discussions of the Merit of Such Coverage):
E#: 1, Baltimore Orioles

Not the Worst Nationals in Nationals History:
E#: 1, 2006 Washington Nationals

Let's win again tomorrow night, boys, and we can feel good about having a pretty mediocre year.

Hey, just to point out something... when I say "clinched" I mean to say that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have ensured that the Nationals won't be the worst team in baseball. That doesn't necessarily mean they will finish last, just as of last night they guaranteed that they would finish after us.

Sleep well, natsfan1a. I've got to get to my homework assignment I've been staring at for the last four hours!

NatsNut: I think the amazing DP was a ball David Wright grounded up toward third that Zimm turned and threw all 90 feet to 2nd, and then Belliard (or Lopez?) turned another 90 to first.

p.s. I will say this one last thing about reading the Mets message boards-- certainly lets me appreciate anew the good grammar/spelling and intelligence exhibited by frequenters of this blog!

Way to keep it real, 506! LOL!!!!

___________
Let's win again tomorrow night, boys, and we can feel good about having a pretty mediocre year.

Posted by: Section 506 (Before moving) | September 25, 2007 11:07 PM

We had 'em allllll the way!

Thank 'ee NatsNut.

To pile on JennX's great description of the double play there were some other things that made it impressive besides the 180 feet of throws...

-Zimm's awesome pick
-Zimm's throw with no hesitation
-Ronnie's 180 degree spin move that fired the ball to Batista

Not only that, but since Zimm fielded it at the bag, if there had been a man on second then it very well could have been a triple play.

Nice. Hope it's on the highlight plays.

Ugh, Tuesday night is softball night for me and had the late games. Returned just now to read the posts from when I left off at 6PM, just to keep some suspense.

NatsNut, you said it! The change in tone is quite hilarious (because we got the W) but brought back some memories of a certain west coast swing several weeks ago. But, another W for the boys.

So, would anyone else get tremendous satisfaction from causing enough losses from NY/PHL for the Rockies to sneak in with the wild card - due largely to the Nats play in the final 2 weeks?

Still no Cordero lover...Rauch can close a game just as well...

Go Jmax! Great to see us at 71 wins. Also fun to watch Ray Knight and Rauch on the post game show make fun of the media's lame questions that have obvious answers.

Question to Rauch: When did you start to warm up for the 9th?

Answer from Rauch: Uh, when they called me...

"OMG I'm so so so sorry for smugly trolling the Mets message boards and smirking at their pain. I will henceforth hold all remarks until the game is over."

-------

Me too, JennX. Me too.

And oh yeah, Baseball Tonight ranked the Zimm-Belli-Bati DP as the second-best Web Gem of the day. Some shortstop with the Twins got first place. Whatever.

So who here agrees that the Nats should have lost another 10 or 20 games to build a younger team, as Dave Sheinin suggests?

Sounds stupid to me, put that way, but that's the way Sheinin puts it. Or am I missing something?

Hendo, losing helps no one. i know blah blah you learn more when you win. thats crap. you learn more when you know how to win. winners win and its best to be around winners, learn from winners and get the mentality of a winner. jmax is getting that and he (and zim) will be the leaders of the club within 2 years because of this stretch.

Thanks again, Sect. 506, for all the work you put into the GB/A and Magic Number calculations. But, as noted in my post of yesterday, my understanding is that the Marlins elimination number (for us to finish in 4th) is 2 (162 + 1 - 71 for our wins - 90 for their losses). The number resulting from that calculation (2) would agree what Dave Jagelar said last night. Just trying to get a handle on this Magic/Tragic Number thingy. OTOH, I believe that the Devil Rays did trump us for WTIB status last night. WooHoo!!

You're right natsfan1a, my math is off because I'm counting only 4 games left in the season, because the Nats have a day off. The Fish, of course, don't.

Magic Numbers make my brain hurt. We'll knock 'em off eventually, though!

Also, new post is up. See you there!

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You're right natsfan1a, my math is off because I'm counting only 4 games left in the season, because the Nats have a day off. The Fish, of course, don't.

The DP footage is on the Nats site, NatsNut, along with other highlights. Sa-weet!