Nationals Daily Evolutions 9/7/10

How can any good Nats fan not be excited today? Danny Espinosa is up and crushing. What I find most impressive about him is he is doing it with baseball skills. It isn't the raw power of Wily Mo or the blinding speed of Nook Logan that created an illusion that was soon to fall apart. Espinosa is a ball player. He isn't some athletic marvel pretending to play baseball. He is a baseball player that is also strong and athletic. I always feel weird saying stuff like this because I feel I am openning myself up for criticism. I am just waiting for someone to point out the obvious fact that his over .500 BA is unsustainable. The adjustment period will come. Probably sometime next year, and maybe he adjust or maybe he fails, but at this point I think he can adjust. He just has all the right skills, and as we will learn today I am not the only one excited.

First a look back at the entire impressive week of Danny Espinosa. --William Yoder from The Nats Blog 

It was an excellent day yesterday to be a Nats fan. Beating the Mets is always fun, but seeing a glimpse of the possible future is always exciting. --Dave Nichols from natsnewsnetwork.com

The fans aren't the only ones that are excited. Check out some of the quotes from manager Jim Riggleman. --Ben Goessling at masnsports.com

More from the Nats and the world of baseball after the jump.

Yesterday was the nation's capitol's first look at one top prospect and today will be a look at another. Cuban defector Yuneski Maya will make his debut tonight against the Mets and their own debuting pitcher. --John Barone from mlb.com

Of course not everyone was happy about yesterday's game. Despite getting the win and looking impressive Scott Olsen doesn't like working out of the bullpen. --Adam Kilgore at washingtonpost.com

It has to be considered at least a start that two of three of the upper minors have made their respective playoffs. --Ben Goessling masnsports.com

With so many players graduating to the majors who will be the new top ten prospects for the Nationals. Number one is no suprise, but I am a little suprised to see Ramos rated second ahead of Norris, who I think most people rate as the better prospect. --Jim Callis from baseballamerica.com

General Baseball

Cal Ripken not only played the game of baseball at a high level. He has done more than almost anyone to give back to his community. Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of his breaking of Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak. --Steve Lombardi at baseball-reference.com

The Padres won last night in much the same fashion as they did earlier in the year. The only problem is they let everyone back in the race with a ten game losing streak. --Tim Brown yahoosports.com

I once got in an argument with someone about a certain pitcher and they kept bringing up wins. I lost my chance to educated them about baseball when I accidently put down their preconcieved notions by saying wins don't matter. What I should have said was that wins are not an individual stat and are in no way indicative of the pitcher's invididual performance and acomplishments. Felix Hernandez has some gawdy stats, but the Mariners offense is so bad it might cost him a shot at the Cy Young. --Cliff Corcoran from si.com

Here is something I don't like about Tony LaRussa. Every year he has to create a boogeyman to fire up the rest of his team. Guys like JD Drew, Jim Edmonds, and Scott Rolen have suffered this fate, and this year that duty has fallen on young Colby Rasmus. It might be the fact that the Cardinals aren't in first, or it could be that LaRussa has just been there too long, but whatever the reason people in St. Louis might be tiring of TLR. Oh, and Pos is right, the Buzz Bissinger tweets are worth the price of admission. --Joe Posnanski at si.com

Let's all hope that Maya's DC debut goes as well as Espinosa's. Tonight is going to be a busy night for me with two pieces of DLC I want and an exciting debut to watch. And I also have to eat dinner sometime in there as well. Maybe I will just order a big old New York style pizza from Flippin Pizza and devour it like I hope the Nats pitching can devour the Mets.