Overdue Baseball Blog

I wish I could be happier about the ultimate outcome of this World Series.  The good news is it went a full seven games – 5 of which were very entertaining, not just the epic game 6 – the Cardinals are my dad’s favorite team, a National League team won, and St. Louis is a nice town with great fans.

As many of you know, I really do not like the way LaRussa manages and overmanages his team and bullpen. The only real blemish on baseball, the best sport or pastime ever invented, is the dead time. Some of that is pitchers and batters stepping out or off after every pitch.  But the worst part is changing pitchers and trips to the mound.  If I was commish I would ban visits to the mound by coaches or managers.  I would also cap the number of pitchers on an active roster at 9 or 10, or install some kind of ‘minimum batters faced’ standard to eliminate pitchers who only face one hitter (which of course means more pitching changes). 

Keep batters in the batters’ box and managers in the dugout and you’d speed up the games.

One of the reasons I was rooting for the Rangers – despite the presence of W - is the stark difference in the way they treat their pitchers. Nolan Ryan is working to instill that organization with the ethic that pitchers should pitch deeper into games and figure out how to get out of jams - on their own.  This DIY/punk rock approach teaches pitchers to get outs without always looking for help or getting bailed out by one - or two - relievers.  That’s better for pitchers - I assume a Hall of Famer who threw 7 no hitters knows what he’s talking about - and speeds up the game with fewer pitching changes.  And it keeps the game moving; you’re watching baseball – pitching, hitting and fielding – and not guys standing around talking to each other.

LaRussa and guys like Pat Riley are hailed as geniuses who are actually bad for their sport; LaRussa slows the pace of the game dramatically and fails to develop grit and resourcefulness in his pitchers, while Riley’s crime is turning a fluid and active game into a wrestling match and daring referees to call every foul. 

Then again, the difference in the Series was the Cardinals’ bullpen.  They got outs while the Rangers’ pitchers walked a ton of guys; walks and hit batters probably cost the Rangers game 7.  So in this battle of philosophies, LaRussa’s coddling and overmanging defeated Ryan’s DIY approach.

Anyway, it was a great series to watch.  Taut games, ridiculous comebacks and resourcefulness from both teams’ hitters (the Rangers in game 2, for instance, not just game 6), and entertaining baseball.  

Two more quick Series notes:

• TV ratings were up 19 percent from last year, game 7 was watched by 25 million people, and head to head game 4 defeated NBC’s Sunday Night Football last weekend despite the lack of Yankees, Red Sox or Phillies.  That’s good news.
• As it is with most sporting events, it was fun to be on Twitter during this series but in particular during game 6.   Fun and more fun.

Another overdue baseball blog topic is our hometown Nationals.  Even after a month to reflect I feel that the Nats’ 80-81 season was a fantastic accomplishment.

As I’ve blogged before, we had great luck and great times at Nationals Park.  I need to check with official statistician Evan Manuel, but I think the Nats were 13-4 when a Manuel was in attendance, including for Zimm’s 2 strike, 2 out, bottom of the ninth walk off grand slam versus the dreaded Phillies. 

The hometown team won 80 games despite Zimmerman missing more than 55 games due to injury (and Adam LaRoche for most of the season), Jim Riggleman’s petulant decision to quit during an 11-game winning streak, the lack of a lead-off hitter for the first two-thirds of the season and Jayson Werth’s failure to produce as expected (let’s just leave it at that, shall we?).

The season was saved by a pretty impressive bullpen led by Drew Storen and All Star Tyler Clippard, the emergence of Danny Espinosa, Wilson Ramos but especially Michael ‘I INVENTED beast mode” Morse, and unexpected starting pitching. 

If you look back at the season the starting pitching, from April to September, was phenomenal. 

• Livo Hernandez was not the prototypical number one starter, but he ate up innings and kept the Nationals in almost every game he pitched.  I hope he comes back as our number 5 starter and sage in 2012
• John Lannan was slow and steady all season in compiling another sub-4.00 ERA.  An excellent third or fourth starter.
• Jordan Zimmermann bounced completely back from Tommy John surgery to become our best pitcher.   Though he had a losing record his 3.18 ERA was spectacular.

Midseason the Nats changed up their rotation when they traded Jason Marquis and moved Tom Gorzelanny to the pen.  But the starting pitching continued to excel.  I’m not going to spend much time on Chien-Ming Wang since I doubt the Nats will bring him back.  But our other 3 second-half starters were as good or better as Livo, Lannan and ZNN.

• Ross Detwiler went 4-5 with a 3.00 ERA in 15 second-half starts
• Tom Milone sported a sub-4.00 ERA in 5 starts after a September call up; fellow September call up Brad Peacock was even better, with a 0.75 ERA in 12 innings.  Both of those guys could stick in 2012, though 2013 is more likely.

Oh yeah, Stephen Strasburg came back, too.  He was lights-out in five starts after returning from Tommy John surgery: 1-0, with a sparkling 1.50 ERA and 24 strikeouts in as many innings. 

I feel almost giddy about the Nats’ future (for the record, I feel the same way about the Heels in 2011-2012 but don’t plan to jinx that with any premature blogging).  In 2012 we’re looking at a line up that could look like:

SS Ian Desmond

CF Werth

3B Zimmerman

LF Morse

1B LaRoche

RF Free Agent Pick Up

2B Espinosa

C Ramos

Or we could sign Prince Fielder at first, or make a big trade and swap free agent headaches; what do folks think about Werth for Carl Crawford for instance?  Either way, with a rotation of Strasburg, Zimmermann, Lannan, Detwiler, and Livo, backed by Henry Rodriguez, Sean Burnett, Clippard and Storen with that lineup, we could win 90 games next year.  When does 2012 start? 

GO NATS!