{"id":1487,"date":"2009-08-06T16:21:56","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T23:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/06\/its-a-beautiful-day\/"},"modified":"2009-08-06T19:30:45","modified_gmt":"2009-08-07T02:30:45","slug":"its-a-beautiful-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/06\/its-a-beautiful-day\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s a Beautiful Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>It was gray and raining this morning in DC with an 80 percent chance of rain for the afternoon game.\u00c2\u00a0 After\u00c2\u00a0starter Craig Stammen was hammered for six runs in the first two innings it was business as usual, but by the end of the afternoon the news copters were circling the stadium, U2 had broken into its familiar theme and the\u00c2\u00a0Nationals were in the clubhouse waiting for the Prez to invite them over for beer.<!--more--><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The sun came out in the middle innings and so did the Washington Nationals offense.\u00c2\u00a0 They scored 12 runs starting in the fourth inning to take a 12-8 decision against the Florida Marlins.\u00c2\u00a0 It was more than the smiling fans.\u00c2\u00a0 This was a huge win with large upside\u00c2\u00a0psychological benefits.\u00c2\u00a0 The reasons why this game means more than others:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00c2\u00a0five game win streak is the longest of the season.<\/li>\n<li>The sweep of the Marlins takes it to a team that has beaten the Nationals like a drum over the past few seasons.\u00c2\u00a0 They swept the Nationals in two April series to account for much of the misery in the first month and had won nine straight 2009 games against the Nationals before this series.<\/li>\n<li>Jim Riggleman&#8217;s tenure as manager has seen a turnaround in team fortunes generally.\u00c2\u00a0 They are 10-11 with Riggleman, a big difference from\u00c2\u00a0Manny Acta&#8217;s .299 win pct.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Getting to this point has been slow and steady, and\u00c2\u00a0a team effort.\u00c2\u00a0 It is the better defense that started with the trade for Nyjer Morgan.\u00c2\u00a0 It is the improved bullpen that started with Mike MacDougal taking over from Joel Hanrahan and got better with the addition of Sean Burnett from Pittsburgh and Tyler Clippard and Jason Bergmann\u00c2\u00a0from Syracuse.<\/p>\n<p>More than anything however, it is the rebirth of the offense in the late innings as\u00c2\u00a0Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham have been punishing the ball for all the bad things it did to them in the first half.\u00c2\u00a0 And Nyjer Morgan has given the offense a starting motor&#8211;the first real leadoff hitter\u00c2\u00a0since Orlando Cabrera left Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Zimmerman is still the heart of this team and it was his 4-for-4 with a homer, a triple and three RBI that kept the team coming back all day long.\u00c2\u00a0 But one of the important differences was the bullpen.\u00c2\u00a0 Riggleman paraded them in starting in the third inning and at the end of the day seven men had pitched for the Nationals.\u00c2\u00a0 But the last five kept the Fish off the board while the Nationals were tacking on the tying and winning runs.<\/p>\n<p>The winning runs came against two old friends&#8211;Luis Ayala and Brendan Donnelly.\u00c2\u00a0 Ayala was a capable arm for Washington for several seasons, but he was overused and has yet to effectively rebound from arm problems.\u00c2\u00a0 Brendan Donnely was the pitcher who Frank Robinson accused of doctoring the ball one night in Los Angeles in 2005.\u00c2\u00a0 It was\u00c2\u00a0one of the biggest broohahas of that season.<\/p>\n<p>He won the challenge and Donnelly was thrown out of the game and the Nationals went on to win against an apoplectic Mike Sciosia.\u00c2\u00a0 Those were the good old days, but maybe they are coming back.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the offense can win enough games to make up for a still weak starting rotation.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe, maybe, maybe.\u00c2\u00a0 It has been five seasons of maybe in Washington.\u00c2\u00a0 Every one is looking for that old same thing and for one day in Washington, DC we found it.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun was shining, the breeze off the river was cool, and all the good looking women were right here in Nationals Park.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Nothing could have been more\u00c2\u00a0beeyootiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was gray and raining this morning in DC with an 80 percent chance of rain for the afternoon game.\u00c2\u00a0 After\u00c2\u00a0starter Craig Stammen was hammered for six runs in the first two innings it was business as usual, but by the end of the afternoon the news copters were circling the stadium, U2 had broken [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-view-from-the-capital"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}