Deconstucting Bowden

Deconstructing Jim Bowden in Washington is starting to look like fun.  The trade of Lastings Milledge to Pittsburgh for Nyjer Morgan separates the Nationals from another of the troubled players that were drawn to Bowden like flies.  More importantly, it gives the team better up the middle defense and a legit lead-off hitter.  Three birds, one shot.  Nice work Mike Rizzo.

The audacity of hope is more than a book by the President, but a mood for DC baseball fans watching the subtle changes being wrought by the Nationals front office.  The winning percentage is hovering below .300, but there is something afoot here in the nation’s capital.  The winds of change are blowing.

Tom Boswell, in his column several weeks ago sent a shot across the bow of Stan Kasten and the Lerners.  He called not for new management, but for change “at the top.”  Boz was not interested in canning Manny Acta so much as a new attitude from Stan Kasten and the Lerners.  Boswell may not have seen Mike Rizzo as the answer, but the interim GM is acting like may have been reading Boswell’s mail.

The firing of Randy St. Claire looked like an innocuous event when it happened three weeks ago–scapegoating, deck chairs being rearranged, but no real change.  Now with the inclusion of Joel Hanrahan in the trade with Pittsburgh it is as though another piece of a slow face lift has fallen into place for the Nationals.

The bullpen St. Claire had put in place with Hanrahan as closer was a disaster.  Whoever thought that Mike MacDougal was the answer, whether it was Rizzo or new pitching coach McCatty, having someone come into the ninth inning and close out a ballgame–now that is change we can believe in.

Hanrahan needed new scenery.  He has the stuff, but not the makeup, at least not for the moment.  McCatty has told MacDougal to throw nothing but 97 mph fast balls and it is working.  The reconstructed MacDougal has converted three of three save opportunities to a 1.32 ERA.  Beimel is back in the role he belongs in along with Tavarez and Villone.  Uncanny how it almost makes sense.

Josh Bard is another castoff that has proven invaluable as he has stepped in behind the plate for Jesus Flores who is likely out for the year.  Bard does not have the defensive skills of Flores, but he can hit and is no slouch with the mitt.

So Nyjer Morgan becomes a more important piece of the puzzle when you look at the rest of the emerging picture.  Bard catching, MacDougal closing, Morgan running down balls in center, it is almost as if someone had a strategy for how to put this team back together.

And somebody has to take responsibility for Scott Olsen regaining a few notches back on the fast ball.  Olsen pitched well in his return from injury this week.  Jordan Zimmermann is starting to look like he belongs at the front end of a major league rotation and John Lannan is looking more and more like a poor man’s Tom Glavine.  With a little luck this rotation will come around.  It’s a team that could surprise some folks in the second half.

Karnac sees a man in charge.  His picture is emerging from the mist.  It is the President at Nationals Park.  No it is not team president Stan Kasten.  He is there but Mike Rizzo is the one with Obama.  He is explaining to the President–the real author of the Audacity of Hope–how he engineered one of the most remarkable turnabouts in baseball.  That’s a book someone should be writing.