YESTERDAY...
Where In the World Are the Washington Nationals?
The Nationals are everywhere. Florida, Canada, Puerto Rico. Spring Training. The WBC. And everywhere they were, they won...
...In Port St. Lucie, Florida, at Tradition Field against New York's Hated Mets, Washington got home runs from Leonard Davis and Joel "The Other" Guzman, doubles from catcher Luke Montz and outfielder Jorge Padilla and RBI's from six different players in a 7-5 win. The Nationals' pitchers held the Mets off all day, preserving the lead for Scott Olsen, who earned the win in spite of allowing 6 hits, 2 walks and 2 ER's in 3.0 innings of work. The two teams meet again today, this time in Space Coast Stadium, with the Former Mr. National Himself, Livan Hernandez on the hill in a Mets' cap against DC's new favorite pitcher, John "Cool Hand" Lannan.
...In Pool C play in the WBC, in front of 42,314 fans, in the Rogers Centre, in Toronto, Canada, the US team got HR's from DC's Adam Dunn, the Sox' Kevin Youkilis and the Braves' backstop Brian McCann, and used six relievers after starter Jake Peavy's 3.0 innings of work to hold off a Canadian team that came within a run with a ninth inning rally off new Mets' set-up man J.J. Putz. Russell Martin and Joey Votto provided most of the offense for Canada, with the Reds' Votto 4 for 5 with a two-run blast off of Peavy, and the Dodgers' Martin 2 for 4 with a blast off the Angels' Scot Shields. Nationals' closer "Wild" Joel Hanrahan gave up a hit, a walk and a run while striking out two in 1.0 inning of work, pitching himself out of a jam to keep the US lead in tact.
...In WBC Pool D play, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, another Nationals' reliever, Saul "Sa-ool" Rivera struck out one batter and got two ground balls in the eighth and final inning of Puerto Rico's 7-0 win over Panama. Hated Mets' first baseman Carlos Delgado's solo shot in the second and the still-unsigned Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez's two home runs were all the offense the Puerto Rican team needed to make starter Javier Vazquez's 4.1 scoreless hold up.
TODAY in SPACE COAST...
John Lannan starts for DC at 1:05 pm EST in Space Coast Stadium against New York's Hated Mets, who counter with soft-tossing right-hander Livan Hernandez. Lannan threw two scoreless and held Houston hitless in his first appearance of '09, and then upped it to 3.0 innings against the Italians his second time out. Hernandez threw two scoreless in a start in his debut, but gave up 5 hits and 3 runs in a relief appearance last Wednesday against the same Nationals he faces today.
GM SEARCH UPDATE...
FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal reported on Friday, in a section of an article entitled, "This could be the beginning of A-Rod's breakdown" which was subtitled, "Shocker coming in DC?" that "one executive who knows" Nationals' Team President Stan Kasten, "...expects Kasten's choice of GM to be a surprise,":
"'Not a young up and comer...nor former Rays GM Chuck Lamar, who worked under Kasten with the Braves. Perhaps someone like former Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker, now with the Rays, would qualify.'"
Or perhaps, "Former Rangers GM John Hart", but, "...some in the industry doubt that he is interested in the position." So you still don't think it's just going to go to Mike Rizzo?
Oh...Vladimir Guerrero got caught lying about his age...so I guess Montreal got tricked too, back in the day...
Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez was hardly the first player to lie about his age. Vladimir Guerrero might be the first player to forget to lie about his age. According to Yahoo! Sports writer Tim Brown, who quotes Guerrero in an article entitled, "Angels' Guerrero is a year older than listed", the thought-to-be-33-year-old Guerrero told a reporter, through a translator, that his surgically repaired knee was fine, or as Guerrero put it:
"'I feel good. I can’t say [like] 25, because, you know, I’m 34. But I feel a lot better. That’s where I’m at right now.'”
Oops.
?'s For the DC Faithful...
Who's Watching/Listening to/Following today's game against the New York Mets? We are! Federal Baseball.com's going to attempt to put up the second live blog of the weekend with Doghouse reporting live from Space Coast Stadium and providing pics from the game, and me, e chigliak collecting and sorting it all into a live post that I'll update throughout the game. Who knows what we'll end up with...? 1:05 pm EST from Florida? Who's Watching The Nationals???