Making a Great Thing Even Better

What's better than celebrating the end of a 12-game losing streak? What's better than seeing the streak snapped by a game featuring late-inning clutch hits from a young newcomer, an up-and-coming young catcher, and a struggling outfielder, a bold and ultimately rewarded managerial decision to bat the closer in the eighth inning with the bases loaded, and the sublime jam-escaping skills of that same closer?

What's better is celebrating that accomplishment on the 1-year anniversary of this:

If that doesn't start your weekend off right, nothing will.

Return of the Meaty Legend

It’s been nearly a year since His MeatHook-ness began his occasional-batting-title-chasing romp to Comeback Player of the Year honors, doing it in a fashion that brought well-deserved and accurate accolades from DCO. With Dmitri Young now set to return against the Orioles, the stage is set for defense of that Comeback award. And yes, we will call for Dmitri to be the first back-to-back winner of this award if he performs at the same high level. After all, it will be another comeback, right? It’s his award to lose.

Dmitri’s comeback is sure to be as successful as Jason Bergmann’s slightly unexpected return yesterday. After all, didn’t GM Bowden practically tell Bergmann he wasn’t coming back after that >10.00 ERA he posted early this season? Seems Bowden’s faith in Bergmann is as unflappable as Manny’s faith in Luis Ayala (what’s that Manny said? “I’m never going to give up on him.” Some might call it blind, stubborn, ill-conceived management. We call it ‘tism in action, and it is why ChairManny is so lauded in these pages). Both are currently being handsomely rewarded. Bergmann shut down the Mets while his teammates took 6+ innings to warm up and get their batting/baserunning down, and Ayala, for the second game in a row, earned a hold.

Given the constantly right decision-making going on since the seemingly traditional slow start to the season, it’s hard to see Dmitri hitting anything less than .325 from here on out. And even if he struggles, hitting, say .300, there is capable backup and derided-but-now-brilliant offseason pickup Aaron Boone, catalyst of two game-saving double plays yesterday, to pick up the slack.

Thus the Nationals leave New York after a wildly successful four game series. Looking past the loss of a starting first basemen, we saw three wins, one pitcher rattled then demoted, at least two gameday crowds loudly decrying their soon-to-be-described-as-“embattled” manager, and one non-playing closer profanely calling out his absent teammates in the losing locker room:



Consider the Mets knocked down a peg. The same must now be done to these on-the-verge-of-cockiness Orioles. Boz, you’re not helping.

The Sweetest Sweep That Was Ever Swept

There's not much to say about tonight's game that we haven't already covered in our posts about the previous two games. Still, it is worth pointing out that once again the Nats knocked in runs with two outs, saw Dmitri Young improve his average, and got a tremendous outing from a "stopgap" pitcher (could J. Simontacci be sticking around for a while?). Also, Ryan Zimmerman finally chased down that elusive .250 (straight on to .300, Ryan).

Felipe Lopez, still swimming in Manny Acta's stern encouragement, brilliantly split the outfielders with a line drive in the 5th, and was likely robbed of another triple and RBI by the low (and possibly cheaply made, like the scoreboard) walls at Camden Yards, which couldn't contain the pronounced bounce produced by his shot. Ryan Langerhans also continued his relative renaissance with an RBI extra-base hit.

So, make that three for three, both in games and in the goals we laid out in the post earlier today: sweep the series, win the season series, and tie Baltimore in the standings. Peter Angelos and his shady media empire must be bubbling and boiling, much as the cheese on the Quiznos sub that is on tv right now. Delicious.

With that, we wrap up a dizzyingly successful series in Ballmer, and salute the many Nationals fans who made the trip to cheer on the boys in enemy territory. A final word from Master of 'Tism Manny? "We're inspired right now, and we're going to ride this as long as we can." As the late and utterly great Bon Scott might have said: Ride On, Manny. Ride on.

DCO Guest Blogger: George P. Pelecanos

With the Nats bludgeoning the Orioles this week in Charm City, the DC Optimist sought perspective from a passionnate, historically in-tune, and violently brilliant writer for this 95-north-based battle; a writer that both understands the local scene, and can provide awesome descriptions of bludgeoning. Who better than crime novellist-slash-television and film producer George P. Pelecanos, the District's most knowledgeable and consistent voice of the streets. Pelecanos's crime novels have exposed a side of DC's underbelly that is rarely looked at by Barbara Harrison, and when he isn't sending Private Investigator Derek Strange off to shove knives in racist drug runners' necks, he is penning some of the best episodes of the best television show ever based in Baltimore, The Wire. His recount of Felipe Lopez's brilliance last night in the 11th inning is below:

Felipe got back into the batter's box for what seemed like the thousanth time. In his last five trips to that proverbial dish, lined with white chalk that resembled only the finest in Colombian uncut, he flailed. He couldn't figure out how this game eluded him. Like a white Republican attempting a coup on the Mayor's office, his output had been almost laughable. Maybe he needed a bump of that China White to speed up his 47-ounce Louisville. Something had to force the shank of bad luck from his gut that was shoved there sometime in early May, when he was shifted to a new field post for the second time to again appease this frantically-run operation.

He thought about getting the call from Wayne Krivsky last season, how he was being sent to this newfangled operation sprouting up in the nation's capitol, stolen from Canada to appease the heavy-dollared residents of the neighboring suburbs, people who rushed through RFK's neighborhood as fast as possible on their way back to rolling green lawns and prominent Starbucks shops. Was he a second-rate shortstop, one that could stroke bombs over those short walls in the subtly-named Great American Ballpark, but was a bit more of a headache than a prodigy? He was dealt for a crusty old short named Royce Clayton, whose uniform collection seemed to house every team in the league. Was he no better than Clayton?

He tried in vain to stave this negativity, switching his batting entrance music at RFK to Ice Cube's "Today Was A Good Day," the 1994 Isley Brothers-sampling hit that described a perfect day in O'Shea Jackson's South Central nightmare. "No barkin' from the dog/No smog/and momma cooked the breakfast with no hog," he silently mimed to himself as he stepped to the plate for another fruitless at-bat back in DC. No song was going to bust him out of this slump, no matter how positive it was.

His eyes would glaze over as he sat through another pep-talk from that spritely new manager, Manny Acta, an upstanding guy he knew from his minor league stints, a guy he would always silently respect, but also a guy who seemed blind to the stark realities of failure. Felipe felt like he was living those realities, and that motivational benching Acta handed out to him last week hurt. He felt like one of those bratty kids from Vienna, whose cushy-government-employed mother would try to use taking the Escalade keys away as motivation to force that brat to work towards getting into his father's alma mater.

Maybe he was thinking too much during these tough times. He looked towards Baltimore's embattled closer Chris Ray, probably one of those Escalade kids he was just thinking about earlier, although with Ray's, and the entire Baltimore bullpen's recent struggles, taking away car keys would never be enough. Felipe looked at third, where that ebuillent journeyman Robert Fick, with his shock of red facial hair bursting from his face like bad acne began to stretch out a lead. Fick was always good for a laugh in the dugout, usually at the expense of the other journeyman bencher Tony Batista, him with that weird batting stance looked like a swooping crane. Maybe he ought to consult Tony about breaking out of this?

On second was newly acquired center fielder Ryan Langerhans, probably coming off of one of the worst batting droughts he had ever seen. Felipe knew that he shared an unsaid bond with Langerhans, whose strange arrival in the midst of a sub .150 batting swoon, suddenly energized the Nats.

On first was Christian Guzman, who spent all of his first year in DC in a slump, re-writing the books on ineptitude and free agent misery. Guzman's recent resurgence came at the expense of Felipe's natural position at shortstop. Sure he agreed to move to second base this season — he never thought his status as a player ever commanded any sort of reason to complain. He just wanted stability, consistency, and faith. The Nats sure did show faith in Guzman and the recent returns looked like they were clairvoyant in their assessment. Guzman was gutty, could leg out a triple and slapped balls all over cavernous RFK after he spent all of last year rehabbing a torn labrum. Felipe saw in Guzman the redemption of faith. Maybe now, in the 11th inning of this brewing local rivalry, fueled by a story-hungry sports media and bickering old billionares, he would have his redemption.

Felipe watched as Ray's second heave flew past his shins. Bill Miller, a showy old curmugeon, like all bastard umps, called strike. This was the last straw for Felipe. The struggles were taking their toll, he was thinking about snorting the batter's box for Christ's sake. He thought about his wife, he very own J-Lo, and how if he blew another opportunity like this he wouldn't be able to fund her charity work. She was good to him and had great hips. How could this fat slug, obviously tiring from 11 innings stacked on top of a rain delay ruin both his and his beautiful wife's ambitions.

Felipe stepped to Miller. It was like his mouth was possessed by foulness. The curses were going to fly out. There's no way that pitch was a strike, he enunciated in so many four letter words. Felipe then felt a sudden blast across his chest. He felt the modest goatee scrape across his cheek, and he could smell the faintly foul breath he felt during what seemed like an endless pep talk last week. It was Acta, smashing Felipe from the batter's box, away from the rising temper of Miller. "Another pep talk," groaned Felipe to himself. Acta briefly muttered a mangled combination of English, Spanish, and curse words. Maybe it wasn't so much a pep talk as it was a slap back into reality. Acta has wiped Felipe's slate clean.

After a few easy practice swings, Felipe returned to that drug-addled box, looked again at the fraying Ray and waited for another pitch. Felipe roped the slider over the first base line, causing the corpulent attention-whore Kevin Millar to dive frantically. Felipe ran, he knew he was fast, but after this hit, it was like spirits had arisen in his #2 jersey. He circled second to the sound of dissapointment from Dundalk's finest. It was like music to his ears. Redemption felt good, it sounded good, it reminded him of a line from a song he tried in vain to embrace earlier in the year. "Today I didn't even have to use my A.K." The bases would clear and so would his conscience.

*may not actually be written by George P. Pelecanos

The Chair(Manny) Has Spoken

Again, six runs scored with two outs. Again, double digit hits. Another nice start from Matt Chico. But what may be flying slightly under the radar here is the continual maturing of Manny Acta as a legitimate big-league manager.

What Man Act has done with this team is already noteworthy, and he should garner at the very least consideration for Manager of the Year. Last night he again showed he is not afraid to leave the dugout to have a friendly discussion with an umpire, and he put on a nice show of "calm down" with Felipe Lopez when the struggling second baseman disputed a called strike in the 11th. Acta knew they couldn't afford having Felipe tossed with two outs and the bases loaded in a tie game, even with his .230 batting average and 0-5 performance up to that point. What did ChairManny say? We don't know. "[spoke] a little Spanish," is all he revealed.

Whether he spoke Spanish, English, or any other language is irrelevant, for we all know by now that Manny speaks the more important univeral language of 'Tism. What else but a good dose of this language of eternal optimism could have pulled Felipe back from the brink, and inspired him to, two pitches after the dispute, sneak a tricky shot down the first base line for a base-clearing triple? What else could have kept the dugout together after a pair of late-inning leads evaporated and the Ballmer faithful smelled blood?

Let's also not forget the heroics of the overlooked Robert Fick and Ryan Langerhans. Fick's single in the 11th started it all (he played some nice defense, too), which Langerhans followed with a walk (a nice homer in the 5th, too), leading to Christian Guzman's walk and Felipe's redemption.

Now the Nats look for a win tonight that can fulfill three laudable accomplishments: a series sweep; a season series win; a tie with Ballmer in the standings. Yes, the team that drastically cut salary to win in the future is but a victory away from matching the team that went on a baffling spending spree in a half-assed attempt to win now.

A cobbled-together starting rotation putting forth solid effort after solid effort (with healthy arms on the way)? A roster full of hitters with potential that is finding its stride? A rookie manager coming into his own, one who has the full confidence and respect of his team and who relentelssly preaches 'tism, regardless of the odds or situation? That all equals Big Winner, maybe just in 70-75 games this year, but in a whole lot more down the road.

The Plan Marches On

Another piece is falling into place: clutch hitting. Six runs with two outs tonight! Did the Nats have that many in the first 63 games of the season? With a 7-4 win over the Baltimore (not Washington) Orioles, broadcast with pride on the Mister Angelos Screws the Nats (MASN) network, Washington is but ten games under .500. Do we dare mention that they are just as many games out of the wild card spot? Probably not (yet), but regardless, records like 1-8 and 9-25 are becoming more distant memories, and may not have even happened.

It was great to hear a large (or at least loud) contingent of Nationals fans in our lovely neighbor's house tonight. It seems to us, based on this circumstantial-yet-convincing evidence, that a sizable portion of the Nationals' fan base resides in the Baltimore area, thus making it Washington "territory", thus making it essential to the team's survival that the Orioles be contracted (or moved to Montreal/San Juan) and the holy "territory" be preserved. Right, Peter? But we digress.

A great start to a new series in what is becoming a longer and longer stretch of success for the Nats (18-12 since that little eight-game losing streak that also may not have happened). We've always had faith in The Plan, but not even on our most optimistic day (which is every day) did we think so much could happen so soon.

Calm down, it's just one win against a lesser team, you say? Balderdash. Each win is as precious a building block for the future as each of these guys. A win against the Orioles might even be worth two Josh Smokers.

Finally, lest we forget, Chad gets his 100th save, also making some bad memories more distant. The Plan knows no bounds.

No Sweep Here

Finally, a bases-loaded clutch hit, or just a clutch hit. Nook Logan's eighth-inning, 2-RBI squeaker through the infield (after fighting back from an 0-2 count) assured that we in Washington will not be subjected to obnoxious chants of "sweep" from inferiority-complex-laiden fans up I-95 for the next month, until the Nats and O's meet again. While it is doubtlessly disapointing to lose two out of three to this rabble, it is no reason for Nats fans to dispair and, perhaps more importantly, no reason for O's fans to be lost in a sea of giddy euphoria. It's pretty clear how this season will play out anyway: two teams out of the playoffs, with one non-playoff team costing nearly $60 million more than the other.

An article in the Washington Post fleshed out the details nicely, but the basics are simple: the Nats are suffering now to build for the future after being badly neglected for years by psuedo-owner MLB, and the Orioles are shooting in the dark each off-season, unwisely spending millions (and therefore the future), while being neglected (or perhaps just incompetently managed) by an actual owner.

Even Rick Maese of the Baltimore Sun, who earlier in the season reveled in Washington's sports-related misery, has found truth that one team has a bright future and one is eternally destined for third-and-fourth-place division finishes. Incidentally, is the Baltimore Sun taking a page from DCO with its blindly hopeful headline that the O's had moved into a second-place tie in the NL East, with their sub-.500 record landing them 9.5 games behind the Red Sox?

Despite some missed opportunities this weekend, DCO still salutes the Nationals for their ever-present effort, and is very grateful for the riveting late-inning victory today. We are also grateful to the Orioles for finally answering the burning question: How much does it cost to buy an under-achieving, over-priced bullpen that specializes in blowing late-inning leads? The answer? $41.5 million. Thanks, Peter.

Nationals no threat to 1988 Orioles

Three days of gradually improving hitting finally resulted in a Nationals win yesterday: a dramatic 9th inning comeback against the hated Florida Marlins. The victory was not only significant becuase it was the Nats first win of the season, and Manny Acta's first in the majors, it also ensures that there is one less mark of futility the team will NOT set this year.

In a momentous step on their heroic quest to not be the worst team of all time, these Nats will not match the 1988 Orioles' record of 21 straight defeats to start a season. The 2007 Orioles, however, need only to lose 18 more games to match their historic counterparts.