ok im ready for oconner, hanrahan, snell, perez...and just for kicks bring back levale speigner. whos with me?

Weaver would be a great adition Patterson, Bergman,perez,weaver,redding and if hill gets healthy this will be solid.

The Washington Times is continuing to beat the Post in the Nats coverage race, which is really sad. Mark Zuckerman said in his chat today that the Times has added a second Nats beat writer, Ben Goessling. Both of them will cover every Nats home game, and they will split the road games.

This should be the standard for good coverage of the home baseball team. There should be more than 1 writer at the Post assigned to cover the Nats beat, just as the Times is now doing. I've said it before and I'll say it again--Barry is good, but he can't do it alone. Many, many Nats stories go unreported--or unexplored--in the Post because of the insufficient resources the Post has devoted to covering the team. And pretty soon, Barry will be gone and we'll need to hope that the new hire can even fill Barry's shoes, which in itself is a tall task.

You don't say...

______________
"Also, the folks at washingtonpost.com are saying that we are having some "serious blog issues" that they're trying to work out. My apologies for that."

As far as putting the best product out on the field seems to make sense that the Guzman-6, Belliard-4 combo makes the most sense.

But then again, if the Dodgers are exploring Belliard, maybe we end up with a starter from them after another solid performance. Would hate to see him go though.

Actually, it's okay Barry. We're having a pretty good time with it.
____________
"Also, the folks at washingtonpost.com are saying that we are having some "serious blog issues" that they're trying to work out. My apologies for that."

As far as putting the best product out on the field seems to make sense that the Guzman-6, Belliard-4 combo makes the most sense.

But then again, if the Dodgers are exploring Belliard, maybe we end up with a starter from them after another solid performance. Would hate to see him go though.

hee hee, I posted my new post prediction before I read NatsNuts and Bob (A)head's. Then when I tried to post again I was rejected several times running. Maybe I'll have better luck with this entry.

Also, NatsNut, if you go to the root of the URL below (truncating after "gameday"), it should bring up the games for the day.

http://www.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/#20080312

Taking the no-no into the 6th.

C'mon Manny, let him go the distance (or at least ride it 'till it bucks him off) - could be the highlight of his career.

Suggested Nationals Journal theme song: Time Is On My Side. :)

"The other camp doesn't want to mess with the Nats' chemistry, which they feel is good right now."

HAHAHAHA

Priceless!

I'd love to hear Manny's quotes on chemistry.

LOL!!! OMG, 1a. My vote for post of the day. you are hilarious. Loved the Bob (A)head, too.

______________
Suggested Nationals Journal theme song: Time Is On My Side. :)

Posted by: natsfan1a (or 2a?) | March 12, 2008 04:06 PM

"And -- gulp -- could the Nats have too much pitching?

(Just kidding. Of course they don't. But this is pretty fascinating.)"

it would truly be a fun conundrum to be in... except we have too much AAA pitching (or maybe too much AAAA pitching). i'd be happier if it was too much major league and/or AA pitching (with the theory being that the really good pitchers spend little, if any, time in AAA).

Aw, shucks, thanks NatsNut. Bob (A)head, however, was coined by the man himself in the previous thread, one hour ago, or one hour from now?

---

LOL!!! OMG, 1a. My vote for post of the day. you are hilarious. Loved the Bob (A)head, too.

Also, Mike & Mike had Tommy Lasorda on this morning. You should listen to him talk about the Kirk Gibson WS game back in 88 - 20 years ago and the guy still tells it with such detail and accuracy that it could've been last week. I don't care who you're a fan of, as a baseball fan it was fantastic.

Also, gotta love the clip of him jogging (term used loosely) out to argue the foul ball call yesterday....he's like 80 and still getting after 'em.

Hey Barry, throw something at him to make sure he's awake down there.

...or Incas, I always confuse the two.
:)
_______________

Is that some Aztec thing?

Posted by: Section 506 (Before moving) | March 12, 2008 04:49 PM

Thank you, Rob Bell.

Agreed... way to save us from that pesky no-hitter problem that we were having, Mr. Bell.

---------------------------------------
Thank you, Rob Bell.

Posted by: natsfan1a | March 12, 2008 04:29 PM

1a, thanks for crediting my earlier post, although I liked your formulation of my temporary moniker better than my own and have adopted it, so some credit is yours as well.

So, after allowing two leadoff walks and dealing with a RS on a passed ball, O'Connor sets down 15 of the next 16, no hits, 1BB. First Hanrahan, now O'Connor with a virtuoso pitching performance. What's gotten into these guys? Maybe they're breathing out of their eyeballs like a dragon lizard.

You're welcome, Bob.

BTW, per WTOP radio 3:45 sports update, the score is now 10-3 with the Nats still batting in the top of the 8th. (Gameday is in timeless mode.)

Is that some Aztec thing?

How many more stunning performances does Hanrahan have to have to crack the rotation? Why not give him a spot start instead of pitching Chico, Lannon, Bergman or Perez on short rest? The bullpen's loaded as it is, what do we have to lose (other then the game that is)?

Speaking of ahead, it's fun to score 10 runs on 13 hits against the Dodgers. OK, it's only spring training, this may well not carry over into the regular season, blah blah blah, but what if it did? What if we somehow got an improved offense and some unexpectedly good pitching from out of the blue?

Gosh, I'm tired of people lambasting management for not getting fa starting pitching. Perez was a nice pick-up for next to nothing. He's still young and was good at one time. But Weaver, Ponson, Even Hernandez (who I like..but) Give me a break. So they get innings. What good is that when we're down by 5or6 after 5 innings.
I'd prefer to take my chances on what we have. They're young, have, at times shown promise, and they're ours. Call it entitlement.
Now, if we could make a trade for a good young picher-well, that's another thing altogether.

I *think* it means that they went medieval on the Dodgers. :)

---

Is that some Aztec thing?

Also, for the record... its worth noting that every single Nats starter recorded at least one hit and one run today. Pretty impressive top-to-bottom hitting from the lineup.

I think it's absolutely demonstrative of how much better our hitting depth is this season, which in turn may reflect positively during the regular season after all, Bob (A)Head.

who else pitched for the dodgers other than billingsly?

Per box score, Dodgers pitchers after Billingsley:

G. Jones .2
Johnson 1
Wade 2
Myers .2
De La Cruz .1

"How many more stunning performances does Hanrahan have to have to crack the rotation?"

Problem with that is, when he started last season it was with mixed results. He may have found his role, some guys find it easier to be a reliever. They can come in and let'er fly for 1-2 innings.

MLB reports that so far for the Dodgers, the pitchers have been:

Chad Billingsley (3.1 IP, 2 ER)
Greg Jones (.2 IP, 1 ER)
Jason Johnson (1 IP, 3 ER)
some unknown guy named Wade (2 IP, 0 ER)
Mike Myers (.2 IP, 4 ER)
some unknown guy named De La Cruz (.1 IP, 0 ER)

Looks to me like the Dodgers should forget about the guys they know (we roughed all of the established pitchers up pretty badly) and learn a bit more about the two unknowns.

The Nats don't have too much pitching. What they do have is too much mediocre pitching.

Seems like the Nationals position competitions have played themselves out, with the exception of the rotation of course.

To put the best product on the field it is only right that Guzman and Belliard start up the middle infield. Johnson obviously has taken first base, with the meathook down. And the outfield should be locked up with Pena, Milledge, and Kearns. But then again the catcher position is all over the place. Pardon me if this message comes across multiple times, having blogging issues.

jason johnson? guess that shelling shouldn't surprise anyone.

not a bad job against billingsly, who's very talented and poised to have a very good year, i think.

(had to separate this into two separate posts, since for some reason putting this sentence together with the sentence in my previous post makes my content a violation of wapost policies...)

For what it's worth, Wade is a 24 year old (Cory Wade) right hander for the Dodgers who has no big-league time. De La Cruz is Fernando De La Cruz, a 37-year-old right-handed journeyman with little or no recent big-league experience to speak of as well.

Also, some LA Dodger kid I've never heard of (Hoffman, the non-Trevor type) just hit a home run off of some Washington kid I've never heard of (Charlie Manning, a 28-year-old lefty), making the score 10-4.

Bang! Zoom! Another curly w in the books (serious blog issues notwithstanding). :)

Following up on natsfan1a, the final is 10-4, and it could have been a lot worse for the Dodgers. We had 13 hits and 6 walks, but wasted some of those baserunners on a pickoff, a caught stealing [here's looking at you, Willie Harris, on both of those], 1 DP ball and 8 men left on base at the end of innings.

All in all, however, tremendous offense from us... let's hope we recreate this kind of scenario early and often in the regular season.

Oh, and as a bonus, the Chief pitched a cardiac-free 9th, with 1 K and nothing else notable occurring.

Looking at the 5:21pm web cam shot of Nationals Park. I am wondering if the shadows from the setting sun are really going to play like hell in this ball park. After the start of the season the sun sets later so I imagine that early innings will be hard to deal with as far as the sun and the shadows go. Oh well, I suppose someone looked into this before they plopped the stadium down in its current location.

Time Stamp Check

506: your answer is above.

Wow, is it 6:11 already? I'd better get started on dinner. Oh. Never mind.

As far as ballfield positions, I read in the book, "Watching Baseball Smarter," that most (not all) ballparks face east-northeast, at mlb's suggestion.

Oh. no...

Boswell.......who is he?

Barry....it seems like the Nats and the Media, both Wpost and to lesser extent Times are back tracking on Patterson. His fastball is no better than this first outing when Jimbo got all hot and bothered that he was not showing us his best stuff. You have said several times that he has really shown good velocity for about a month if you could your interview over the phone before camp. Now after last night when his fastball is still at Chico speed you are reporting that Jimbo is all pleased and that if he takes months to "regain arm strength" then so be it.......It seems the way to improve his fastball is to throw it.....often in Spring Training. Am I wrong that this all does not add up as a fan that gets his information from you the local reporters on the ground?

Lopez does look much better based on his game last night but that was dumb base running and instead of celebrating about it I would like to get Acta's take on being thrown out at third with what no outs was it? Point is Acta said he wants players who "play the game the right way" and the players that perform the best will be the starters.....in both cases, Lopez has earned the bench. Yet media and fans still bring up the money he makes and how he does not have the mental makeup to come off the bench. Can you ask Acta if he sees the issue as you all do?

On the whole Acta daily interview (love the Audio that we get from the Times site)......it sure seems like nobody has questions for him.......He does seem to bustle at questions he does not like but that does not mean they are not valid questions does it?

@Coverage

I just got home and read your post about the beefing up of the Nats beat by TWT. It's good to know that at least ONE newspaper in town realizes there is a void that needs to be filled where baseball coverage is concerned. TWP still treats this team like it's the Caps, for god's sake. They will soon have THREE writers covering the Dan Snyder dog and pony show and TWO writers who cover the forever mediocre Wizards (three if you count Gilbert Arenas lap dog Steinbog).
Before the Nats came to town, I followed the Mets through the online versions of the Post, Daily News and Newsday. While the papers usually had a specific beat writer, there were other writers and columnists who interwove their pieces and on some days a papermay have three to five stories about the Mets. TWP sports management just doesn't get it. The Nats aren't some peripheral team with a small following - but is an honest-to-god 162-games-per-year Major League Baseball product. Another thing about TWT, their reporters' primary jobs are to write about games, not to appear on every local and national sports television outlet they can.

Okay, now it's freaking me out, too. natsscribe's "6:11" post was there before I posted my dinner comment, but now my post appears before the 6:11 post. And it's 5:40. I think.

Seriously, I posted at 5:35 and it read 5:35 on the Post clock and the post appeared above the pre-existing 6:11 post. Then when I posted a few minutes after, my Post post time was 6:37. That's it - the Journal staffers are trying to gaslight us. For the record, it's 5:44; Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead; I'm natsfan1a, and you're not. :>

natsscribe & coverage is lacking:

considering that the only respectable part of the moonie times is the sports page, it is amusing that their only hope of competing with the post at all is on baseball. they cannot possibly do it on football and are not interested in doing it on basketball (too many black people involved.) so now they have two beat writers. whooop. post has a beat writer (now blessed barry, an integer X later) plus sheinin and boswell (who is NOT an orioles fan, he just covered them) which is three really good writers and three really good baseball men. i do not expect one newspaper to provide all my nats coverage and would be surprised if one managed to. but i do not think the post is failing to cover the home baseball team properly. i would like it if they assigned a second beat writer and filled one page a day with baseball, but i do not consider it a failing in them that they do not. if we were a two-baseball-team town like LA or NY or CHI then maybe...

Boswell's written five columns about the Nats since ST started. Only one about the 0s.

natty bumpo, if you pay close attention, you will see that even people who work at the Post have admitted on several occasions in this very blog that the Post's coverage of the Nats is a work-in-progress and that it deserves to improve. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, however, clearly does not agree with them, and that's all that counts. That's why the Skins now will have 3 beat writers, and the Nats will have 1 writer-to-be-named later

As for Sheinin and Boswell? Please. How often does Sheinin write about the Nats? Answer: Almost never. How often does Sheinin even write about baseball? Answer: Rarely more than once a week on Sundays (in a page that has yet to even appear in the Post this year). And as for Boswell, putting to the side for the moment the debatable quality of his columns in recent years, how often does he write about the Nats? Answer: Almost never; maybe sometimes when his fancy strikes him and he's not busy being a "Gibbsologist" or writing about golf tournaments.

15.

So TWT has another beat writer for the Nats? OK, cool. We on the web can read all of it, but we all congregate here. The strict moderation at TWT makes a difference, and the quality of coverage helps, too. There are also many other Nats blogs, and I know a bunch of you are regulars.

What I find encouraging is the apparent growth of the online community. Not the number of blogs, but the number of us who are engaged. I am sure it is a sign of the growing fan base. I have seen entries on Baseball Prospectus and BA chats in which commenters were shocked that no Nats questions were answered yet. Keep the faith, spread the word, be amazed we obtained Lastings Milledge.

Word is spreading. The Nats really are Major League. The rest of baseball can ignore that at their peril.

15 (at 6:27 but who knows when it will post as?)

*15!!*

Nice one, Mark! (7:59 p.m.)

---

Does anybody really know what time it is??
Does anybody really care??

Looking at that same 5:21 PM stadium shot... zoom in on the scoreboard. Interesting... wonder if they're just making up the data. They have a 10-8 game Nats vs. Mets. They also have a Johan Santana FB clocked at 100 MPH.

Errr... 8-6 rather. 10-8 hits.

I'm not saying you should drive, I'm just postin'.
http://tinyurl.com/3crmda

and for the anti-Tin Yurlish
http://oxblue.com/pro/open/?webPath=clarkconstruction/55mst

haha me and Chris think alot i cant belive how they think the can mess up this team's chemistry. I mean its not like these players have been around each other long enough to have any, there just making an excuse not to spend a little bit of money on a decent pitcher. Also i heard Patterson only hit 85-87 i mean im not expecting him to hit 90-92 like he did but i still have my predictions that he will have 50 innings. The front office still gets me to laugh harder and harder

We have been writing about how hard it will be to figure out the Nats major league roster, but NFA has made an even better point, although only for the hard core.

Once the Nats empty the roster, Columbus will be in the position of straight out releasing players, possibly even recent "prospects" like Larry Broadway. The team seems to have gone from taking even minor league cast-offs to fill the system to letting them go. Do we have top-flight players throughout? No, but we also don't need everybody's scraps at every level any more.

Barry, looking forward to your comments on the restaurants,etc. in and around Viera. The wife and I will be down in Cocoa Beach Mar. 22-26 and will be attending two games while we are there. I would also like to know what type of schedule do the minor leaguers follow at the complex while the big club is away. This will also be a well-deserved break for her after running two elementary schools for the last few weeks. All info will be greatly appreciated.

Does anybody really know what time it is??
Does anybody really care??

Gee, I could have sworn it is only 7:30pm

Look at the 7:28 shot of the construction cam. Man, the lighting is bright.

(posting at 7:39)

Dear Coverage Is Lacking,

The Times reported their Nats baseball addition 3 days ago. He would be the former reporter of suburban school districts in the Minneapolis area for the Star/Tribune. A sleeper pick out of Spring Training if you will.

I might suggest that your coverage of the Times here at the Post is lacking. When you get a chance, hire a VP/Complaining Dept at Coverage is Lacking, Inc. so your whining will be a bit more prompt.

When I read complaints, I want them current!

Also, Nats just won season opener 6-5 vs. Braves. Bergmann the W, Cordero the S, Zimmerman & Milledge w/ HR's. Nats Park is glorious and traffic wasn't all that bad. (In case this post doesnt post until March 31!)

The blog is on Natscan Time...

I just have to ask everyone who predictably says something about "Moonie" whenever someone mentions the Times Baseball Coverage...are you all afraid that if you read an article about the Nats in the Times that Whatshisface Moon will magically brainwash you while you are reading and make you commit suicide?

I mean,seriously...it's BASEBALL COVERAGE. You are worshipping at the guy's feet or anything are you? I'm not. I read the Baseball Coverage and that's it. I don't see what the big fuss is, other than people being afraid to look at something other than the Almighty Redskins Post.

Well said, Doce Ocho.

New post (10:05 p.m.).

And, by the way...

15

gaaaaah @ typos...

that should say, "you *aren't* worshipping at his feet are you?"