Posts from the Nationals Category at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

It's been a highly disappointing season for the Nationals, to say the least. Injuries to Paul Lo Duca and Chad Cordero didn't get the season off on the right foot. Then they lost Nick Johnson for the season and Austin Kearns for a month. In the past week alone, they lost Lastings Milledge and Shawn Hill to the DL, and just found out today that Cordero is out for the season. Throw in a 33-51 record, and it's already a lost season in the District.

But here's a beacon of light: Hill's injury has paved the way for Collin Balester to make his anticipated major league debut:

"It's awesome. He is gong to have an opportunity up here. Hopefully, he is going to do well," said Nationals left-hander John Lannan, who is a good friend of Balester's. "It's a long time coming. He has worked hard. It will be good to see him up here." (...)

"He is a great pitcher," said right-hander Steven Shell, who played with Balester in Columbus. "He is a power pitcher. He has a great fastball. He's a good kid."

And he gets to face the Marlins in his major league debut ... the team that leads all of baseball in home runs (that fastball had better be a little more than great tonight). So while his first start might be rough, Balester will have a few starts to show what kind of prospect he is.

Chad Cordero hasn't pitched in a game since mid April, but when he was orginally placed on the disabled list the hope was that he'd be back sometime in June.

That obviously didn't happen, and following an examination yesterday, Cordero shouldn't plan on returning anytime before 2009. Doctors discovered a torn labrum in his right shoulder yesterday, an injury the Nationals now think Cordero probably had the entire time. He'll undergo surgery soon and his rehab will extend into next season.

The last-place Nationals need all the help they can get, but honestly, Jon Rauch has been more than adequate as a replacement closer. Rauch has saved 16 of 21 games while posting an excellent 2.55 ERA (0.92 WHIP) and 8.29 K/9 -- Cordero hasn't posted numbers over a full season that strong since 2005.

In fact, considering Cordero is arbitration-eligible this winter and set to be a free agent in 2010, I wouldn't be entirely surpised if the team actually cut ties with him this winter, not when they have a cheaper, healthier and (most importantly) better option in Rauch.

Paul Lo Duca is a fiery man. This you know. That fire has not always been endearing. More often than not, it's been incredibly annoying, and Lo Duca's proponents -- the kind that believe you need to have "passion" and "swagger" to succeed at baseball -- don't help. Also, dude did steroids. Not cool.

Still, this prolonged outburst is impressive. After the Nationals' Thursday night game, Lo Duca soliloquized the Nationals' situation:

I hope [people listened to my message]. I'm not saying I've got a lot of wisdom, but you know, I've been through a lot of hard times in this game. The last three years of my career have been hell, off and on the field, off the field more than on. But I've straightened my life out, I'm happy, I'm gonna get married again. I went through a bad divorce. I went through all of it. You name it -- and there's not one person in this clubhouse who can say, 'Give me a sob story.' I've been there. So, that's part of life. We've all got skeletons in the closet. But when you come to the ballpark, get here early, get your crap done and get ready to play.

Of course, that's just a tiny piece. There are, like, 900 more words, should you care to read them all. More importantly, I really, really want to make fun of Lo Duca for being such a clown, but it's hard. He clearly cares very much about what he's talking about. That's sort of admirable.

Our MLB editor provides weekly dispatches from major league games in Notes From the Clubhouse.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first: the Nationals are not a good baseball team. We knew that would be the case coming into the season. What seems clear after another devastating day for the club, is that they're also a pretty unlucky bunch.

Ryan Zimmerman is already out for most of the rest of the season with a tear in his labrum. Before Tuesday night's game against the Angels, Washington announced that first baseman Nick Johnson will miss the rest of 2008 with a wrist injury. Then pitcher Shawn Hill was torched for eight runs (six earned) by the Halos in three innings. Hill, looked physically broken down and has pitched with forearm pain all season. It was decided immediately after the game he would go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for a re-evaluation of his arm, an ominous decision considering his lengthy history of arm trouble.

If you're keeping score at home, the Nats have lost the cornerstone in their grand franchise rebuilding effort (Zimmerman), the player who led the team in VORP in 2006, the last time he was healthy for a full season (Johnson) and they might lose the pitcher who led all Washington starters in VORP last year (Hill). They already have the second fewest wins in the majors, and things are probably going to get worse. You almost have to feel bad for them.

The news for Nick Johnson isn't totally unexpected ... but it still doesn't take the sting out for him. Johnson, who has been sidelined since mid-May with a wrist problem, has been diagnosed with a small tear in the ulnar-side ligament in that wrist, and will miss the rest of 2008.

If you're counting, that's the entire 2007 season lost to injury because of a broken leg. And outside of 38 games, the entire '08 season with a bum wrist. That's 286 games lost to injury during two seasons that constitute the prime of Johnson's career at ages 28 and 29. Add in the 155 games he didn't play in during 2003 and 2004, that's pretty much three seasons out of his first eight wiped out due to injury.

You can make the argument that the wrist injury could turn out to have more of an adverse effect to Johnson's career than the horrific broken leg. You never hear people talk about a broken leg lingering throughout a players career. But for a baseball player, especially an accomplished hitter who knows how to get on base (career OBP of .396) to have a torn ligament in his wrist, it's something that has a chance to linger, affect his swing later on, and worst case scenario: become chronic.*

*I am not a doctor.

Indecency, like obscenity, is a funny thing. The famous line by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart says "I know it when I see it" and I think that's a pretty good guide. Drunken loutishness and Hideki Irabu are indecent things I've come across in major league ballparks. A kiss between a couple and shirtless men on a hot afternoon, depending on their girth, don't qualify.

The people running the fine ballyards of this country disagree. First, two women who shared a brief kiss were nearly ejected from Safeco Field and now, in our nation's capital no less, topless men are being shooed toward the exits. A Washington man wrote a letter to the editors of the Washington Post to complain that he and his buddies had been told to put shirts on or be ejected for "indecent exposure."

Given the long history of shirt-doffing fans in American sports, Dan Steinberg of the D.C. Sports Bog decided to investigate this policy.

More to the point, the Nats have no specific policy against male shirtlessness, and much of interpretation of the code of conduct is left to the discretion of employees, who may or may not be strict constructionists. You can imagine some being offended by particularly hairy shirtlessness, or by a low pantsline, or by an out-of-shape or dripping chest.

Nationals fans, chest painters everywhere are looking for you to stem this tide of prudishness! Take to the stands in hairy-chested glory and support your team for only then shall we all be free!

Paul Lo Duca is a gritty player. He's a gutty player. He's the kind of player who you trade and lose your job shortly thereafter, even if you get an All-Star starter in return. Those kinds of intangibles plus steroids used to equal a decent major league player. Minus the juice, however, Lo Duca's game is somewhere south of mediocre which is why the Nationals have to be privately dreading his return from injury.

Lo Duca is set to come off the disabled list this week and he returns to a team that has absolutely no need for him. Jesus Flores, 23 and possessing a future, has the best on-base and slugging percentages on the team. Lo Duca was only around to give him a year to ripen but that's no longer necessary. Lo Duca, who has never really been charmed by Spanish-speaking teammates, has just the right kind of personality to make this a problem in the clubhouse.

Perhaps to avoid that problem, the Nats are coming up with alternate usages for their third catcher. The Washington Post reports that he'll play some left field and first base. Yes, the Nats are actually going to put a guy who had an OPS+ of 80 last season at a corner position. That would be worthy of mockery if it weren't for the fact that the guys they have been playing haven't even mustered that kind of production.

(H/T BBTF)

Earlier this week, Manny Acta came to Elijah Dukes' defense when umpire Doug Eddings complained about being shown up after Dukes seemed to glare and gesture in his direction after hitting a home run.

In hindsight, though, you have to wonder if Acta was actually privately annoyed because he didn't have much patience for Dukes' on-field celebration after scoring on a Lastings Milledge home run last night. From Mark Zuckerman of the Washington Times:

As Dukes and Milledge crossed the plate, Dukes looked back at Capps (who blew his first save in 16 tries this season) in a move that could have been perceived as taunting the opposing pitcher. When Dukes returned to the dugout, Acta had words for him. Dukes yelled back at his manager, prompting Acta to yell back himself and players to get between the two. [...] As the Nationals gathered in the middle of the diamond to congratulate each other at the conclusion of the game, Dukes did not offer his hand to Acta, who only smirked.

If you haven't seen it yet, you have watch the video to fully appreciate how awkward it was for Dukes to leave Acta hanging. It's both immature and hilarious, but it's also a blantant sign of disrespect. Might it result in a team suspension? That seems a bit much, but I wouldn't be surprised if Dukes is fined, even if it's in the clubhouse kangaroo court and never gets reported in the papers. The Nats have enough to worry about to let silly incidents like this spoil the few nights they get to go to sleep a winner.

Elijah Dukes has always been an emotional fellow. Time and again, though, that emotion has gotten him into hot water. From text messages to his wife to Gatorade assaults on underage sex partners he's impregnated, Dukes has never been able to keep his worst impulses from rising to the surface. Thursday night he proved that he hasn't learned from his mistakes.

After jacking a home run, his first as a National, Dukes gesticulated a bit too wildly for the home plate umpire.

Plate umpire Doug Eddings apparently thought so and wasn't happy that Dukes turned and thumped his chest after hitting the ball several pitches after showing frustration with a borderline strike call. Dukes also appeared to gesture toward Eddings just before he crossed the plate after rounding the bases.

Manny Acta said that word got back to him about Eddings's upset at Dukes's behavior but backed up his player. Oddly he said he didn't think anyone was offended which pretty much contradicts what he heard from Eddings.

I'm not sure I've ever heard of that happening before. Showing up a pitcher or an opposing player, sure, but showing up an umpire after hitting a home run is novel. It's good to see that doing community service at a zoo nor entering the game with a .155 batting average did anything to make Dukes a more humble man.

In case you weren't able to watch today's Major League Baseball draft or follow along with Josh Alper and Andrew Johnson at their live blog of the festivities, here's a roundup of the guys who went in the first round to the teams of the National League East.

Florida Marlins (6) Kyle Skipworth, Catcher, Patriot H.S. (CA): When you look at his offensive scouting report, he's got Joe Mauer written all over him with his sweet left-handed power stroke. So it's no surprise that when you read this interview with the 2008 Gatorade National Player of the Year, you find out that he patterned his game after Mauer, the former batting champion. Anything close to Joe Mauer and the Marlins will be extremely happy with this pick.

Washington Nationals (9) Aaron Crow, RHP, University of Missouri, Columbia: There weren't a lot of pitchers taken in the first round, which is a bit surprising. Not surprisingly, the Nats took a big power arm at the nine slot in Crow, a guy with good command and great stuff with three plus pitches at his arsenal. The Nationals did well to grab a starter this good out of college who can possibly make his major league debut this season ... and definitely sooner rather than later.