Falling Below 100

Tonight is a big night for the Nationals. There’s an issue at stake here, and it’s even bigger than the answer to the important question: Can the Nats continue to do to the Phillies what they did to the Mets last season?

The issue concerns the prospect of the 100-loss season. Before this little seven-game tear (one that has even professional piler-on Chico Harlan waxing somewhat optimistically), such a season seemed as foregone a conclusion as a Nick Johnson season-ending injury. However, with a win tonight, the Nats can shed the 100-loss pace that has haunted them for weeks (along with Harlan-esque statistics of questionable value, such as “the team has more losses than any team has wins”. huh???)

The job falls to Phillie-plunker extraordinaire John Lannan to get the job done on the mound. The newly energized Nats lineup should take care of the rest.

Feeling Good About a Non-Win

Sure they’re statistically no longer the Hottest Team in the Majors, but the Nats still have reason to feel good about last night’s non-win vs. Colorado. Sometimes-referred-to-as-ace John Lannan shook off the unpleasantness of his last start, a 5.2-inning, 8-run affair vs. Philadlphia, to post 7 solid innings, giving up a Tim-Redding-like two runs.

With the hitting alive again, it’s nice to see Lannan back in form to help bring the starting pitching around. With the statistical oddity of Lannan not receiving any run support, it kind of figures the bats would take a night off, but they’ll be back. In the meantime, Austin Kearns has crawled up into the .230s, healthy Ryan Zimmerman is creeping through the .260s, and Willie Harris and Lastings Milledge claw their way towards double-digits home runs. Hitting lives, a rising pitcher regains his form. Not a bad way to end a four game winning streak.

Philadelphia 'Tism?

As a former resident and permanent hater of the city of Philadelphia, I feel the need to check in on the city's various shortcomings through the fantastic free paper Philadelphia Weekly. In addtion to providing copious LOLs via Atheist British arse Steven Wells, PW features a lovingly viscious weekly comic strip by Jay Bevenour called "Hoagie Dip" that takes to task the city and its various happenings. With the city of brotherly love extending their affections towards recent DCO Hall of Famer John Lannan, we were pleasantly startled to find this rare nugget of 'tism being broadcast from that disparate metropolis north of us. Check out the third pannel of Bevenour's latest:

Many may think that this strip is another in the long line of self-deprecative, whoa-are-us humor stylings of Philadelphia Sports fans meant to elicit some sort of remorse for their sports miseries despite them being loutish jerks who pollute local sporting venues with vomit-colored jersey-wear. But the DC Optimist reads this not as humor, but as pertinent analysis of the Nationals' brilliant future-gazing and prospects-culling. We too see this sort of event occurring in the future for the brilliant Nats lefty who remains undefeated in his first three starts. His unprecedented ascent from single-A ball to the majors is a magnificent story in and of itself, and this type of recognition is to be expected.

The John Lannan wing of the yet-to-be-erected DC Optimist Hall of Fame building continues to grow. Next to an enlarged reproduction of this strip, the wing will feature video replays of the live Sportscenter interruptions of scheduled programming that broadcasted Barry Bonds failing in three plate appearances to register a home run against Lannan. We are also looking into obtaining Chase Utley's x-ray photos for an animated montage of his fate-full plunk.

Truth In Signage (and I hate the word 'signage')

Note to the snarky Giants' fan with the sign that read, "You're in last place. Pitch to Barry" : A more accurate sign would have read, "My team is in last place by a significant margin. Please don't pitch to Barry because once he hits his next home run there will be no reason to follow this aging, pathetic team with no future." How's that?

It's pretty safe to say that nobody can scatter eight hits and five walks like DCO Hall of Famer John Lannan can scatter eight hits and five walks. Just when it seemed the wheels were going to fall off every inning, he got The Reason Everyone Was There (TREWT) to ground into a double play or strike out. Sure it would have been nice to win this one, and yes they probably should have, and it does hurt to see "(BS)" next to "Cordero" in the box score and to see Ray King's perfect season record sullied. But it was a nasty set of circumstances playing last night after a cross-country trip the day before and a set of brutally hot games previous to that. Goodness, with the drastic temperature change from Washington to San Francisco we should just hope the boys don't all catch pneumonia. Bundle up out there in that 60-degree weather.

So not to worry, the chasing down of the Marlins will get back on track, likely tonight. And if TREWT should happen to homer, so be it. Then at least we can all go back to ignoring the Giants again.

John Lannan Inducted into DCO Hall of Fame

In the most inauspicious major league pitching debut of all time, Nationals rookie lefty John Lannan won over the hearts of us here at the DC Optimist with his gutty performance, already earning a bust in our soon-to-be-coveted DCO Hall of Fame. While the actual DCO Hall of Fame building has yet to be erected, and there have yet to be any other legitimate winners of this honor, we felt that a hall of fame commemoration needs to be created after his simply brilliant attacking of Philadelphia Phillies. Most of the time we simply reward our local superstars when their attitudes are just cheery enough to straddle the delicate balance of sportsfan sanity that is as shaky as crucial knee ligaments (why knee sprain!? WHY?!!). But this display of genuine hatred towards Philadelphians will forever hold a place in our hearts. We first were won over when the ferocious lefty plunked back-to-back Phillies, got (historically) thrown out and caused the first ever ejection of ChairManny. But when news reached us regarding the first-plunked Chase Utley's hand status being of the broken variety, our hearts found a permanent place for the kid.

Injuring Philadelphia superstars before crucial playoff crunch times is always reason to celebrate. Sure Jeremiah Trotter's two years in the burgandy and gold were quite hilarious with the untimely blitzes that cause 30-yard screen passes to Stephen Davis in the fourth quarter and the knee shreddings at Texas stadium, followed by the corny "homecoming" back to that decrepit metropolis where he resurrected his fading career. But while he was here he managed to injure running back Brian Westbrook prior the the Eagles' umpteenth playoff flameout. For that, Trotter will always be in our positive memories.

Maybe people think Dale Hunter's finished check on Pierre Turgeon was a black eye for both "La Petite Peste" and the NHL as a whole. Not us. Even if Turgeon wasn't a Flyer, injuring him prevented the Islanders from winning the cup. Hunter was able to end the Flyers season back in '88, unfortunately, only Ron Hextall's wavering confidence was injured.

Thus with Lannan, we already have an injuring moment we can savor. His eventual development into one of the top arms in the Nats stable is just icing on the cake, as was the rallying of Lannan's teammates in response and the Nats' eventual victory. There may be nay-sayers who in a very Philadelphian-like manner are hilariously hostile due to their insecure whiney nature and overall malaise of their hometown. For this, we are equally ecstatic.