It's almost cruel to think that a guy can miss a full season due to injury, then have to miss more time the very next season. But that's just the way Nick Johnson's career has been. Johnson broke his leg late in the '06 season at Shea Stadium, which caused him to miss all of 2007. Now, in May of 2008, Johnson may miss at least another couple of weeks with an injury he suffered ... again at Shea Stadium:

Nationals first baseman Nick Johnson has been sent to Washington for an MRI on his right wrist on Thursday. He had X-rays taken on Tuesday and the results were negative.

Johnson is listed as day-to-day, but the veteran was seen wearing a soft cast and could be sidelined a lot longer. Johnson strained a tendon in his right wrist during his last at-bat on Tuesday against the Mets.

"I felt a little pain after the swing," Johnson said. "I ended up walking. I went back on the field and it felt tight. I was trying to loosen it up out there. I wasn't going to hit if my spot came up again. It was pretty painful after the game."

As the article notes, it's the ninth straight season where Johnson has missed time due to injury. So if you want to talk about snakebit: that's Nick Johnson. You can also describe the Nats as kinda snakebit as well. Not only has Johnson been the driving force in their lineup, they signed Dmitri Young last season to replace Johnson. And now they're both hurt. Aaron Boone will now get the bulk of the time at first base.

Paul Lo Duca has been on the DL most of the season with a broken wrist, and isn't going to be back until close to the all-star break. That's too bad, because it means we're not going to hear nearly as many great quotes out of Lo Duca as we normally would. Thank goodness that the Nationals let Lo Duca travel on the road trip to New York (the Nats don't usually let injured players travel, but gave Lo Duca a pass because he lives in NY), or else we probably wouldn't have heard Paul's take on "Cheer-gate" and Nelson Figueroa, courtesy of his appearance on WFAN (through Adam Rubin's Mets blog at the Daily News):

"I don't know. I'm not a big fan of it to be honest with you. I'll be honest with you. You know, we're struggling. Guys are just trying to have a little fun. I think they saw Figueroa getting a little upset, so they amped it up a couple of notches. I do think it's a little bush league. At first it started off as a little fun, until he got mad. I don't agree with it. But, also, Nelson Figueroa has nine wins in the big leagues and he needs to keep his mouth shut."

So I'm confused, it was all right until Figueroa got mad ... but Figueroa shouldn't actually tell anybody he's mad? I see. Sounds like Lo Duca didn't want to take sides and just hate each side of the argument equally.

Speaking of hate, some who formally loved Lo Duca now may hate him because of his appearance in The Mitchell Report, which was more than a mere cameo. Until now, all we've heard from Lo Duca was the prepared apology. While on WFAN, he went into it in a little more detail.

Remember way back at the end of 2007, where teams were complaining about the excessive celebrations of the New York Mets? Well guess who's complaining this season about excessive singing and dancing of other teams? That's right, it's Mets pitcher Nelson Figueroa ... after getting shelled by the Washington Nationals on Monday night:

Figueroa was fuming over the behavior of some of the Nationals' players during the third inning, whom he accused of singing and chanting as he pitched to Austin Kearns with the bases loaded and the score tied, 3-3.

"They were cheerleading in the dugout like a bunch of softball girls," Figueroa said. "I'm a professional just like anybody else, so I take huge offense to that. ... I think they need to show a little more class and professionalism. They won tonight but, in the long run, they are still who they are."

Somewhere, somehow, Jennie Finch is offended.

So it seems that the shoe is on the other foot this season. Playing the role of the shoe is Nats' outfielder Lastings Milledge, the very same player at the heart of a lot of the Mets' celebrations and dances last season.

"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Milledge said. "We're not supposed to cater to anybody on the opposing team. We're not going to cater to him or anybody else, so whatever. We've been down the last couple days; we want to get something going. If you don't like it, you've got to just deal with it."

I for one especially liked those Elijah Dukes chants of "Sis, boom, bah ... dawg! Sis, boom, bah ... dawg!" Or something like that.

Earlier today, Fanhouse blogger Josh Alper (Dugout username: AmburgerAlper) brought the web log of Washington Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman to our attention. Long story short he writes like a happy third grader and as someone who works almost exclusively in hearsay and slander I think it's great. Imagine if David Wright's blog was about how fantastic his lunch was.

And hey, we never talk about the Nats without talking about SteakGrowsOnDmitri, so I thought it was about time to give big ups to the motherland of Caucasia and represent the white folk of our nation's capital. No, not all of those white folk.

www.zimmerman.gov.ww/zimmerman, after the jump.

The niche of the blogosphere devoted to the Washington Nationals took a hit this week when Capitol Punishment closed up shop. The site started up in October 2004, six months before the Nats themselves played a game, but it posted its last on Tuesday.

Thankfully, one of the Nats themselves has stepped up to try and fill the void. Ryan Zimmerman's got a blog and he isn't afraid to use it! What insidery goodness did he churn up to entice us into reading more?

The new stadium is fantastic!!! If you have not been out there yet with the weather getting nicer, please come. It's an incredible ballpark.

It's been so nice to see good size crowds. It really is fun to play before a loud crowd that is into the game.

I hated to see Wizards lose in the playoffs. I went to a lot of games this past off season and it was so much fun.

On the plus side, Zimmerman's certainly an upbeat sort. That's nice. It would be nicer if that positivity were reflected in a more interesting, grownup way. Rome wasn't built in a day so we'll give Zimmerman time to give us something a bit juicier but my fingers will remain uncrossed.

As we learned ad nauseum last week, there's a bit of a difference of opinion about blogging out there. I'm not sure which side Comcast, Zimmerman's hosts, are on but it wouldn't surprise me if this was an effort to stem their growth.

(H/T Mister Irrelevant)

Used to be that if you were exiled from the Washington Nationals rotation, you would have to seriously think about finding another way to make a living. But over the last two seasons, starting pitching for the Nationals hasn't been all that bad. Matt Chico was a part of that surprise last year ... but this season things haven't been going all that well for the young lefty. So he, his 0-5 record, and his 6.87 ERA have been sent to the bullpen in favor of Mike O'Connor.

"We just want to release Matt from some of that tension that he's having every five days going out there," Manager Manny Acta said. "We want to give O'Connor a shot. He pitched very well in Triple-A."

Chico, 24, has not made a relief appearance since his second professional season, 2004. But he is 0-5 with a 6.87 ERA this season and is the only member of a surprisingly dependable Washington rotation who is under-performing. He also admitted to pressing, a problem he hopes will subside in the bullpen.

"When I was starting, I was trying to do too much," Chico said. "I was trying to throw five wins in one game."

Yeah, trying to win five games in one does sound like there's some underlying tension that Chico's been feeling. If it's tension that Manny wants him to release, maybe they could send him to the massage therapist that Dmitri Young's been seeing.

(You think perhaps being "sent to the bullpen" is just an elaborate Washington euphemism for a massage?)

When Major League Baseball first floated the idea of moving the Montreal Expos to Washington, Orioles owner Peter Angelos raised hell. His turf was being infringed and he wouldn't stand for it! Tens of millions of dollars later, he's made his peace with it and it will probably hearten him to know that it seems unlikely that a National will break Cal Ripken's consecutive games streak.

Ryan Zimmerman had a long way to go but, at 205 straight games, he had the second-longest active streak in baseball. He's asked Manny Acta for a day off today, though, and the manager is giving it to him. With an off day tomorrow, it will actually amount to a two-day break for the third baseman who has been struggling thus far. He's hitting just .217 and while he doesn't blame playing every day for his slump, it probably can't hurt to try something to get his swing in gear. There's a chance he could enter the game once it begins, of course, but I think we've seen the end of his bid.

Jeff Francoeur of Atlanta has the longest current streak at 355 games. If he plays every game for the remainder of this season, he'd still need more than 13 seasons of perfect attendance before he reached Ripken's mark. Frankly, the chances are better that the free-swinging Francoeur breaks Barry Bonds's career walks mark which is really saying something.

Nationals first baseman Dmitri Young hasn't had the chance to see much playing time this season. He's only made two plate appearances this season thanks to the presence of Nick Johnson, and more importantly, a very bad back he's had this season. In fact, his back had gotten so bad recently, that the Nationals actually contacted the Mayo Clinic in hopes of finding a second opinion on it.

Still, no matter where they turned, nothing they did improved the condition of Young's back. That is, until they sent him to the team's massage therapist, Tatiana Tchamouroff. After one session with Tatiana, Young's back felt fine and he was able to take batting practice on Thursday without experiencing any pain, and now he's going to Florida for extended spring training before rejoining the Nationals.

The team says it was Tatiana focusing more on Dmitri's hip flexor that's responsible for the sudden turnaround, but given general manager Jim Bowden's comment on the situation, I think "hip flexor" may be slang for something else.

"All of a sudden, he felt instant release," Bowden said. "She found the spot."

What an unfortunate quote from Bowden. Wait, did I say unfortunate? I meant to say what an incredibly hilarious unintentional response from Bowden. I don't know if he realizes it or not, but Bowden may have just made the Nationals the number one destination for every free agent on the market this winter. Sure, some teams have large and luxurious clubhouses, and some teams are better set to win, but only the Nationals are offering happy endings.

The Washington Nationals rank smack in the middle of the table of home attendance for the 2008 season. The 29,923 fans per game mean they're filling Nationals Park 71% of the way on average which isn't bad, especially for a team with Washington's record. It probably falls short of what the team hoped the new ballpark would bring by way of tushes in the seats, though, so some in D.C. are looking for new ways to spur interest.

They had the Pope visit, which filled the park, but that's hard to do on a regular basis. They need something that can happen night in and night out, like a cuddly mascot or a theme song. One enterprising fellow has written up a little jingle for the team. It's called "Nuts About The Nats" and was written by a former PA announcer for the old Washington Senators. The team's been playing it during home games as a theme song.

"The lyrics for the song are meant to capture the fans' excitement, the rush of emotion and the fun and good times they are experiencing," said Charlie Brotman, CEO of Brotman, Winter Fried Communications and the song's author.

Give a listen, it's quite safe for work if not the tastes of discerning music fans, and then head back this way.

In a move that's been coming for some time, the Washington Nationals announced that Chad Cordero is headed to the disabled list. He's got a tear in the muscle below his right shoulder which probably explains why he was unable to dial up his fastball since coming off the DL earlier this month. It also explains why he left last night's game with the Braves after just 13 pitches.

While the early word is that Cordero doesn't need surgery, two trips to the disabled list with shoulder woes in short order have to concern the team. Not only is Cordero their closer and top reliever but he's a pretty good trade chip for the Nats to try and chip in later this season as they continue building their team for the future. Injury concerns will make that more difficult, thus costing the team both of Cordero's potential benefits this season.

Jon Rauch should serve as the team's closer in Cordero's stead. He's done an excellent job as a set-up man over the past two seasons and has five saves already this year so if the rest of the bullpen does their part, the Nats won't see a tremendous drop-off in the role. Even if they do, it won't do anything to solve the biggest problem in our nation's capital. No cheap joke about Congress here, I'm talking about their anemic offensive output.