thurdl sports

Orioles-9, Nationals-6 (exb)

Nope, this blog hasn't gone to 100% curling quite yet. Mostly because that leaves me very little to talk about in about a week when all the major curling will be done for the season, and it'll be a long summer until the first major bonspiels start up again in the fall. So, for the baseball season, among other things, I'll be providing my thoughts of games that I attend, mostly Nationals. It's the one thing that I can really talk about in any real way.

I'm not entirely sure what to say about yesterday's game. The defense hurt to watch at several points. I'm not sure what it takes to be scored with an error by the official RFK spotter, but I counted at least four, three just by Ryan Zimmerman, but the official scorecard from the game lists only two. Both by Zimmerman. The best I can guess is that he's just got some yips fielding, since he showed some great fielding chops in the games I saw him play last season. He actually misplayed four straight balls, but the third of the four he was able to recover enough to record the one out needed (though if there had only been one away, the bobble would have turned a double play ball into just one out).

I still miss Church, but dadgum did Watson look good last night. Two great plays in the outfield, including one highlight reel quality diving catch that robbed the Orioles of what would have probably been a double. Combine that with two runs and two hits, and he was the best National last night on both sides of the ball. Someone get this kid a real uniform number, and not just 00.

We put a bunch of hits on the board. Kenny Kelly put a ball over that 410 in center field. Our offense looked like it was clicking on most cylinders, I would just have liked to see fewer defensive miscues.

On the Soriano watch, I never realized how few balls get hit into left field until I was watching him to see if he showed and aptitude or hustle. There were no plays that could have gone differently with more or less hustle in left field, so it was sort of a bye night for him. There was one play that the left fielder didn't really hustle all he could, and let the ball drop just in front of him, but was later informed that I had missed a substitution, and it was Kelly, not Soriano.

It could be a long season if our defense doesn't get better. It could be a decent season if we cut back on the fielding mistakes and can swing the bats like we did last night. Be interesting to see where it goes.

posted by thurdl @ 10:43 AM