More photos » by Alex Brandon - AP

6 months ago: An unidentified security officer put his poncho back on as rain delays the start of the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals baseball game at Nationals Park in Washington, Sunday, May 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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It's a rainy day. Our second home rain-out was another game I had tickets for, and I'm bored and trolling baseball-reference for random factoids.  Will we get rained out again?  Will I come up with anything interesting?  Odds are probably 50-50 on both.

Youth Movement

The average age of Nationals hitters and pitchers (weighted by AB and games, respectively) has gone down every season:

	Hit	Pitch
2005	29.3	28.9
2006	28.5	28.9
2007	27.9	27.5
2008	27.8	27.4
2009	27.5	26.9

The Nationals rotation and lineup have each gotten about 2 years younger since 05.  I imagine something similar must be true for the coaching staff, although I haven't looked up numbers for it.  Of course, younger doesn't always mean better. Remember any of these stiffs?

You can't make it out so clearly, but the #33 jersey?  That's right: Larry Broadway!

BATS ON FIRE!!

Every Nationals starters has an OPS+ of greater than 100, thanks to Elvis' hot streak (he's up to 101... although Guz has slumped down to 104 from his pre-DL OPS+ of around 150). Unfortunately, none of the current bench players has an OPS+ higher than 78 (TAWH... Hammer is managing a 47 with his limited playing time).  Team OPS+ is 100 as of yesterday, exactly league-average.

John Lannan is the only Nationals pitcher with an OPS+ greater than zero (yes, if you bat badly enough you can have a negative OPS+... it goes down to -100 for someone with an OPS of .000, which you usually only see for pitchers or Alex Cintron). "Cool Hand's" cool bat is good for a 31 OPS+, better than Josh Bard (19) and Lastings Milledge (6) combined.

We don't want a belly-itcher!

After his 6-K CGW, Smarty finally has more than one K per BB.  Lannan, Olsen, and Z(NN) are all striking out 6-7 per 9 IP.  Even including the relievers, the team is getting 6.1 Ks/9 IP.  Of course, the Duck Pond is walking every 8th batter, while the starters only walk about two-thirds as many.  Team ERA is down to 5.01, although our runs allowed per game has crept up to 5.70, which is now worse than even Fillie.  But there's hope for the future.  BBQ is coming to the Red Loft!

Opening May 18, with Pit Beef and Pit Turkey, for those of you who can't make out the writing on the banner.  It's between the Red Loft and the Scoreboard Walk.

Nationals National League League-leaders!

• Adam Dunn: 5th in OBP (460), 8th in SLG (610), 6th in OPS (1.070), 5th in HR (7), 2nd in BB (23), 7th in OPS+ (176), 6th in times on base (46), 6th fewest AB/HR (11.0)
  
• Nick Johnson: 7th in AVG (341), 5th in singles (23--tied with Bonifacio)
  
• Ryan Zimmerman: 7th in AB (98--take a pitch one in a while!), 10th in hits (30), 7th in total bases (54), 4th in doubles (9), 3rd in extra-base hits (14), 5th in GDPs (5)
  
• Jesus Flores: 4th in triples (2--enjoy this spot on the leader boards!)
• Austin Kearns: 4th in triples (2--if we were to say there would be two Nats on the boards for most triples, would anyone have guessed they'd be Kearns and Flores?)
• Scott Olsen: 8th in sac hits (3), 7th most hits surrendered (35), 3rd most losses (3), 9th most ER (19), 5th in WP (2)
  
• Elijah Dukes: 1st in caught stealing (4)
• Shairon Martis: 5th most wins (3), 1st in W/L % (1.000), 1st in CG (1), 5th youngest player
  
• John Lannan: 9th least BB/9 (2.305), 2nd most HR given up (7), 3rd most losses (3), 10th most HBP (2)
  
• Julian Tavarez: 5th most games played (13--tied with Jon Rauch, among others)
• Mike Hinckley: 5th most games played (13)
• Daniel Cabrera: 6th most walks surrendered (17), 1st in WP (7--the next most is 3)
• Joel Hanrahan: 5th in WP (2)
• Saul Rivera: 3rd most losses (3), 10th most HBP (2)

Do we care?

Apparently not.  Nationals paid attendance so far this year is 218,877.  That's 14th in the NL, barely ahead of FLA's 212,967 (and they've played fewer home games).  Attendance per game is a partly 19,868, which is ahead of only Pittsburgh.  That's right, the Marlins have a higher paid attendance per game than we do.  If a fly ball drops in off of Dunn's glove and no one's there to boo, does it count as an error?  Here's a picture from Sunday's fantastic game.  There are more gaps in the stands than on the field!

Find your own meaning in these statistical scraps. Then cross your fingers and hope for baseball tonight.