Dead Bats Tell no Tales

Titles says it all, it's frustrating to watch all of this good pitching go to waste. Best pitching staff in baseball, 24th hitting.

Nats fall to the Rockies 4-2 ending Strasberg's bid to be the first National pitcher to win 7 consecutive starts.  It's going to be hard to win these games with no hitting, 1/2 of the RBI's on the night came from the 9 spot in the rotation, that wont due. We had the lead-off man on in the first 4 inning and were only to able to convert 1 of them into a run. I don't want to sound like a pessimist but something needs to change, Morse and Zimm are clearly not themselves hitting into double plays and grounding out in almost every at bat, if not for a lucky bounce up the first base side Zimm would have gone 0-4.  I'm no major league manager but maybe we need to shuffle the line up or give them more rest?

Its hard to keep perspective after a loss like that but as a wise man once said (my father on the phone 15 min ago) "hey were still in first by three games"

Quiet Storm

Tyler Clippard.

If your a nationals fan you know the name, but he been under the radar all season. As the only player to make the all-star game from our team last year (where he ended up getting the in in relief) he has been essentially playing in stealth mode. With the Bryce Haprer's and Stephen Strasburg's flying around and blowing up the headlines not a lot has been said of Mr. Clip.


15.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 20 K

Those would be Tyler's numbers throughout the most grueling portion of our season in the hardest pitching spot in baseball. Yes your reading that right as our closer he has given up just two hits and just seven base-runners in the hardest 46 outs of the last month. He has a 4-1 SO to walk ratio and is striking hitters out at an insane 11.7 SO per 9 IP rate. Of the 18 wins in that stretch he recorded the final out in 12. To put just his saves in perspective, his 7 saves during Interleague play was matched by only the Yankees Soriano for the most in all of baseball.  

His stunning performance has lead to just a couple questions for me is he going to be the first Washington national to be invited to back to back All- Star games, and what is going to happen with Drew Storen gets back from DL?  Seeing as Drew's DL assignment ends during the All-Star break I guess were going to have to wait for both of those answers till July.

The Gauntlet

Well folks we did it, we ran our May 18 to June 24 gauntlet of arguably the hardest teams in all of baseball. 33 straight games of every team in the AL East and the NL East including 5 against Atlanta and 6 against Baltimore. This was the stretch that everyone pointed to when they said it would define the team.

So, how did we do? Well of the 33 scheduled games only 32 were played due to a rain-out at home against ATL. In those 32 games we went 18-14, including away sweeps of the Braves, Red Sox, and Jays. Not too shabby but we didn't do it in quite the fashion I would have liked, getting swept at home by the Yankees and away by the Marlins is disappointing, but the most frustrating part of the entire stretch was a home and away series against Baltimore. We went 2-4 against a team with on off pitching and lost all 4 games by 1 run. When we entered the season if there was one thing you could take away from last year and the off-season moves it was our pitching. Low scoring close games were the ones we were supposed to win.  And while I am disappointed by those set backs I have to remind myself to look at the big picture. We entered this stretch in 2nd place a game and half behind the Braves and with Mets on our tale by 2 games, and we have emerged in 1st by 3 and half games on the Mets and four ahead of ATL.  All in all a pretty successful stretch and if we keep pitching lights out and our bats keep coming alive in clutch moments this might be a special yea in the nations capitol.

All stats pulled from ESPN