Monday, July 10, 2006

Nats At The Break

I'm not going to write anything outlandish as respect for the last post. The Nats are 38-52 at the All Star break. Injuries to starting pitchers and the inability of the lineup to come up with the big hit are the reasons for the poor start.

The Nats have picked up a new owner during the first half of this season. The clouds of impeding change have glided over this ballclub. Who's going? Who's staying?

The Nats have a number of good players, but no one can replace Alfonso Soriano. So So is the heart of the team and by far the best player. Unfortunately, he's forced to hit leadoff, simply because the Nats don't have another player who could fill that role.

Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, and So So have been the bright sports all season long. Hopefully Nicky can stay healthy all year and for years to come. If not, trade him. Z will just keep improving offensively and defensively at 3rd base. I like the tandem of Z and So So and I hope they'll be on the team for a long time.

All reports have Jose Guillen on the way out. If that's true, I'd like to thank him for being the team's star for the first season in DC.

The second half will probably see a run made by the Nats, especially if players stay healthy. Will it be enough to be part of a playoff race, is the question. It's an outside shot, but I have faith. The other interesting story will be on the roster come August.

2 comments:

AnonymousBlogger said...

I heard a lot of trade talk at the beginning of the year regarding Soriano and his preference to play 2B instead of OF. I guess that is behind him.

With guys like Soriano and Zimm, the heart of that order is set for years. I haven't followed them closely enough to know what their pitching looks like, but they have a couple all-star type guys to build around.

knibilnats said...

Well, I'm hoping it's behind him anyway.

It's hard to judge our pitching because we've had so many injuries. John Patterson will be really good, but he's been hurt on and off all year. That forced O'Conner, who should be good, to come up to the majors too early. We also have Brian Lawrence from the Padres, who's out all year. And we have plenty of veteran trade bait.