Nats Will Be #1 One Way or Another

It might seem hard to be optimistic about the Nats these days, with Elijah Dukes joining the mob of Nationals headed to or already on the DL, or with the team dropping six in a row, securing the least-good record in the majors. It seems hard, but it’s not impossible.

DCO has been silent on the Nats for a little while, searching for meaning. Meaning in things like 19 trips to the disabled list, 8 of 9 Opening Day starters missing time, injury diagnoses of 2-4 weeks or 4-6 weeks turning into 1-2 months (Zimmerman, Kearns, Estrada), or the entire season (Johnson, Cordero). Meaning in things like steadily improving players (Zimmerman, Milledge, Dukes) suddenly and freakishly encountering calamities taking them out of the lineup right when they were starting to make true contributions. Meaning in Shawn Hill straining his forearm yet again. Meaning in wondering if Ryan Wagner still plays baseball. Meaning in a Nick Johnson owie wiping out yet another summer.

Maybe there are a couple of larger forces at play here, providing a compelling explanation for this seemingly cruel injustice of a season being thrust upon the Nats. We’ll get to that. But first, let’s talk again about Dukes, he of the batting average surging to .263 in mere weeks after floundering in the sub-.100 arena for so long; he of the non-clubhouse-tearing-apart attitude since the forgotten brush-up with ManAct a few weeks ago. With his injury apparently comes great motivation, and Manny-like ‘tism, if his comments to the Nationals Journal from earlier this week are any indication. He wants to come back as soon as possible. He wants to continue to prove himself. He wants to help this team get better. Not the type of franchise disaster forecasted when he was first acquired and after his long-forgiven spat with the Master. This injury, while bad now, may yet serve to illustrate what a stroke of genius signing Dukes was for the future of the franchise. So there’s your optimistic take on that.

Now, the team as a whole.

It’s fairly obvious that this entire season is a design by God/Fate/Destiny to secure the #1 draft pick for the Nationals. With that draft pick, it is apparent the Nats are destined to select some sort of baseball #1 overall equivalent of Alex Ovechkin (it would serve as a nice tie-in to our analysis of last fall). This player will usher in a decade of dominance such as the one Ovie is bringing about, helping to lift the Nats from hacky joke to league-wide darlingism like that currently being enjoyed by the Rays. The Rays! Who saw that coming? The shock at Washington’s rise will be comparable.

To secure this pick/player for the Nats, it has been (painfully) necessary to inflict upon the team this utter cruelty of an injury-plagued (putting it lightly) campaign. It’s the only way. The team and its manager are too damned resilient to fall to the bottom of the league with anything short of extreme compulsion. This explains why so many rising youngsters have been cut down so relatively early in the season. If they were allowed to properly flourish, the Nationals would be back on last year’s track of shocking the league. Even Jim Bowden is taken aback by the unprecedented-ness of it all.

It may seem like DCO is throwing up their collective hands, merely accepting the Nats are the worst team in the majors with no hope. Far from it. Manny and the lads may yet pull it all together again, cruising into late summer and early fall with designs on ruining another Mets’ season (a snazzy performance from John Lannan and clutch pinch-hit home run by Jesus Flores last night provide hope for such a scenario). That would be wonderful. It may just be that all of this losing of players may be part of a PLAN even bigger than The Plan.

A Great Non-Sweep

This was going to be one of those “we’re not so bad off, look at [some other team]” type of posts we used to revel in last spring and summer, when we’d lift our weary DC-supporting spirits by pointing out the worse straits occupied by some other city’s franchise(s). The team in question would have been, of course, the Nationals, that lovable bunch of low-expectations-saddled, Manny-led ballplayers who had just been swept my Minnesota, taken down in 2 of 3 by the Rangers, and seemed destined to be a three-game speedbump for the AL West buzzsaw Angels.

We’ll still go in that direction a bit, but this was all before doings of increasingly clutch-seizing Elijah Dukes and the anti-LoDuca, Jesus Flores. We all remember Dukes, right? He of the dugout blowout vs. our Man Manny, for reasons classily undisclosed, on June 10? He who was, from that point forward, destined to tear apart this Nats team with his rank terribleness? Since that day and his subsequent non-suspension/benching, Dukes has hit .327 with 8 RBI and a trio of fabulously stolen bases, highlighted by an early-career-defining 5-6 performance against Texas, wherein he managed to knock in the tying and winning runs (separated by six, mostly extra, innings). The projected clubhouse cancer has become a reliable 2-slot hitter, freeing up also-resurging Lastings Milledge to bat third and do things like hit his seventh home run against the Angels.

It’s kind of like Manny (again) knew best how to back a player down from the emotional edge and re-state his confidence in such a player. It’s like an extended version of last June’s calming down of an ejection-bound Felipe Lopez prior to a game-seizing triple. Lopez, at that brink, was 0-5 (sub-.100 batting average?) before his game-winning stroke (.327 tear?). Dukes, likewise, could have been on some manner of brink, prior to Manny keeping the faith and keeping him in the lineup.

So there was Elijah, putting behind early season indignities and getting that badly needed ninth-inning single. By the time stolen-from-the-Mets Jesus Flores stepped up with Dukes on second and one out, the inevitability of yet another Nats bottom-of-the-ninth-or-later victory (their seventh of the year; thanks, ESPN, for actually acknowledging the Nats existence AND for providing us with this nugget) was baldly palpable. Dukes of course came trotting home on Flores’ convincing single to deeeep right center and the Nats avoided the sweep. Cue “there’s someone worse off than us” portion.

While the Nationals were busy losing 2 of 3 to a division leader and World-Series contender, what of one of my allegedly new “hometown” teams, the NY Mets? That debacle-in-waiting of a franchise that does not quite want to admit it may be headed for a rebuild ($100 million+ roster notwithstanding)? They were performing an encore to their classless manager firing entitled “Losing 2 of 3 to Seattle”.

That’s right, the same Mariners these Nationals seemingly effortlessly swept, keeping that “worst team in the Majors” moniker safely at bay. In their three games vs. Seattle, Washington managed to avoid the horrid, blasphemous indignities of: A. Having their “ace” (an expensive and highly touted one, at that) serve up a grand slam to an American League pitcher with eight career at-bats. B. Losing by 11 runs to the Mariners.

Such awfulness would have put any Nats losing streak in perspective. Sure they may be wallowing in the injury-filled depths of last place in the NL, but at least they are fulfilling expectations rather than falling miserably below them, a la the Mets, who can say a prayer of thanks today to those expectation-shattering Rays for visciously taking care of the Marlins and allowing them to gain a badly needed game in the NL East. The Rays might yet become something of a “sister team” to us Nats fans, seeing them so maligned and declared retraction-worthy by so many before their ascension into division-contending glory. Sounds like something out of the not-too-distant future in DC.

It Takes A Big Man(ny)

The Elijah Dukes vs. Manny Acta story seems to have blown over a bit now. No more pressing, breathless questions about what could have gone wrong, about how we all “expected this” from Dukes, how this was “bound to happen”, given his history, how he would “blow up” any minute and absolutely destroy the clubhouse atmosphere Manny had striven to build this last year and a half.

The demise has not occurred. Just like it did not occur last year. Remember the panic over Dmitri Young? Remember how he was to de a catastrophe-in-the-waiting? How the Nationals took such a huge risk just having him around, and how his “fluky” batting average would slide right back into the low .200s and he would tear the team apart with his overt terribleness? It didn’t happen with Comeback Player of the Year Young, and it won’t happen with Star-in-the-Making Dukes.

Since that little incident in Pittsburgh, Dukes has four hits and four RBI in three games (five hits, taking into account tonight’s current game in Seattle, along with that lead-producing run). He’s slowly climbing through the .200s in batting average, no longer wallowing in that sub-.100 wasteland he sloughed through earlier this year. It’s a full-fledged turnaround in progress, a becoming of the player the Nationals trusted he could be when they took him off Tampa’s unwilling hands.

He can thank Manny.

Yes, he can thank our Master, the Master of all things ‘tism, who looked past a little dugout blowup and post-game handshake snub to keep the up-and-coming Dukes in the lineup, saying only “He’s our right fielder.” A simple statement, but one full of the same never-give-up, accentuate-the-positive attitude we’ve come to love from ChairManny. A more bloated-ego-having and problematic-rage-possessing manager might have seen such insubordinance as worthy of a benching or release recommendation. The Master sees through such nonsense, and further looks to the potential of the offending party. He will not give up on his players, and he emphasized as much with the early struggles (everyone seems to have them, don’t they?) of Luis Ayala. “I’ll never give up on him”, Manny said at the time. Apparently the same extends to Dukes and whoever else might not offer his hand for a jaunty slap in a victory-celebrating line.

Also, how about this Lasting Milledge guy? Another outfield turnaround in progress? How about yes. There he is with 11 hits in his last ten games, putting that average well above the .230-ish many a naysaer thought he might stay at all year. A few more weeks like these might put an end to the preening of Mets’ fans everywhere over that “steal” of a trade for Ryan Church (batting average already slipping a bit, along with the rest of the Mets franchise).

It all goes back to the Master, he the ever-positive leader who brings out the best in all his players, even those who are prophesized to tear apart his team.

Can You Forgive Elijah Now? Good!

The DCO was pained to learn this morning that highly talented, yet highly troubled, new Nationals centerfielder Elijah Dukes is again having trouble with the law, again a result of women-friend problems, and again involving his cellphone. This time, Dukes was cited for sending threatening text messages. While the DCO would never condone domestic abuse (we have had some issues with condoning certain types of abuse in the past), we are condoning a man's right to be innocent until proven guilty, and in this case, we believe Mr. Dukes was the victim. The actual perpetrator: automatic word-fillers on your cellphone's text messaging service.

Now that we all do most of our communicating via instant three-word messages, punctuated by l33t sp33k and acronyms most seven year olds spout out ad nauseum (omg), the proper interpretation of sent and received texts is oftentimes up in the air. I know you have gotten that text from that special lady-friend that reads like, "Last night was OK," and since you do not have the proper sarcastic tone to interpret, you assume that last night really WAS OK, and not that this chick really hates you and thinks you need to start swabbing your ears with q-tips every other morning. Now, with cellphones having new features that make texting easier, more mistakes become apparent. The feature of automatic word-filling rears its head when your cellphone, attempting to shorten the time taken to properly spell out a word, automatically finishes up the word it thinks you are writing. In Elijah's case, the "threatening text message" likely resembled this:



Dukes, in an attempt to tell this lady that she should be 'totally dif' tonight ('dif' meaning different), was overwritten by the cell's inability to recognize this ttly recognizable abbrev that all the kids are using. If we change the 'threatening word' back to it's original context, everything is just fine, right? My guess is that Dukes was attempting to text while driving, an unfortunate, yet oft-occurring problem of this generation. Sure you can keep the phone up around the steering wheel level and dance your eyes from the screen to the road, and now that he had moved to one of the traffic meccas of the world, this becomes more and more permissible. Maybe he was in the midst of traversing the dreaded 'mixing bowl' whilst cellphoning his lady friend, slightly frustrated at taking a half-hour to move 12 feet, and thus, not properly paying attention to his text message syntax. There are so many likely scenarios that we cannot immediately call his character into question.

So there is no need to admonish Mr. Dukes for his cellular phone usage, nor should we admonish the Nationals for their attempts to utilize his baseball talents while trying to curb his offseason issues. Maybe the Nats should have disabled his cellphone usage, writing it into both his baseball contract and his contract with Cingular. But we think there is no need to curb his anytime minutes nor his unlimited texts. In fact, we have another theory regarding Dukes' past cellphone problems, where he was allegedly sending pictures of a gun to lady-friends. He was merely showing off his new cellphone.

UPDATE: Quickest DCO resolution evar?

Boz: Back on the 'Tism Train

Less than a week after shades of shock and horror at the Nats’ typically risky-yet-strangely brilliant acquisition of Elijah Dukes, Thomas Boswell is again looking on the sunny side of the team’s off-season, praising the signing of Paul Lo Duca. Right off the bat, Boswell, in a DCO-esque fit of stat-spinning, cites Lo Duca’s .297 batting average over the last two years (neatly covering up the .272 from last season, which still would be an improvement over much of the Washington lineup), bringing the masses hope that the loss of Brian Schneider may not hurt so much after all. At the very least, the catcher position will receive an offensive boost.

Later, Boz rightfully praises what was essentially the second half of a cagey-veteran double signing, with playoff hero Aaron Boone’s inking being the first half. But it’s more than just a strengthening of the bench and a young team with such wise old timers, it’s something of a good-behavior-enforcer stockpiling.

Lo Duca, supposedly he of the famous “know your place, rook” admonition to Nats newbee Lastings Milledge, is almost certainly a guy to help keep the youngsters with (allegedly) troubled pasts in line. Along with the famously redeemed Dmitri Young, the increasing veteran presence in the clubhouse will help push high-risk signings/tradings like Dukes/Milledge towards the lesser-risk side of the scale. A dose of Manny’s patented optimism will cinch the deal.

Boz knows it, and probably did all along, even during last week's hand-wringing.