Sure, his session was still full of cliches, but delivered in an endearing manner and always giving props to his teammates, both pitchers and position players (they’re all hitters). He also admitted he can never turn down an autograph or hand shake, so chooses to wear headphones with music as his subtle way of letting people know he’s not willing to be distracted at the moment, generally while preparing for a start. Starting pitchers are funny like that – teammates don’t usually talk to them in the dugout between innings during their start and media do not talk to them before the game.

Another tidbit Gio revealed is that he does not want scouting information on hitters he’s facing. If he knows a hitter generally misses one particular spot, he will try to be too perfect hitting that one spot. He prefers to let his catcher, who knows the hitters and their strengths/weaknesses, do the studying and call the best game he can. “If I give up a homerun, it’s on my catcher. It’s not on me.” Ha.

Thanks to a tip from a little birdie, as well as questions from the audience, he broke away from the cliches. Did you know Gio gets his hair cut before every start? That’s a hair cut every 5 days, even on the road. No wonder his hair is so short!

Thanks to doubleuefwhy for manning my Flip cam so I didn’t look like a doofus holding it up while asking a question.

Video (YouTube):

In my day job, if I were to get hit by a truck while scootering to the office, the other person on my team would likely get my “Lead” role by default. Good for him. Bad for me. I’ve been wearing more safety gear lately just in case no matter how hot it is.

In baseball, injuries both break and make careers in an odd yin and yang sort of way. No one wants to cheer an injury with the knowledge the only reason a player is “in the show” is because somebody else got hurt. The mere fact of it guiltily steals a little of the natural joy and elation brought by promotion.

Remember when Jesus Flores was a promising young everyday catcher? He was one of my favorite players and I was crushed when his shoulder injury sidelined him from play. And then sidelined him again. And again. While he underwent surgeries and rehab, another promising young catcher, Wilson Ramos, replaced him by necessity and largely lived up to the duties required of him. He became a beloved player too. As time went on without Flores in the starting role, it became clear Wilson had earned retention of that position. Good for Ramos, not so good for Flores, who became the default backup catcher. I still felt Flores deserved a starting position and while I’d hate to see him go, hoped maybe he’d be traded to a team who would use him in that role after he worked so hard to return.

Yet with the twist of a knee, now Ramos is out and Flores is in the every day role. The injury is crushing for Ramos. Will he return to the starting role next season? Or will the seesaw now stay tipped in Flores’ favor long-term now? Injuries are harbingers of tragedy and triumph, but triumph without elation.

With the rash of injuries so far this season, a groundswell of fans (including me) have been clamoring for Davey to play the kids over bench players on a regular basis. This isn’t to discount the regulars like Werth, but more in response to putting a young guy in as opposed to say, Xavier Nady. Welcome Bryce Harper and Tyler Moore to the show! While it’s exciting to get a chance to see the up and comers play, Werth’s broken wrist was disastrous. Yin. Yang. Then there was the one kid who came up to play backup catcher, but poor Sandy Leon ended up experiencing both the elation of promotion and devastation of injury on the same day. During his MLB debut, Leon sprained his ankle in a collision at the plate.

As Tyler Moore said during blogger day, being one of those kids who is up because of injuries, “It’s been fun but at the same time you hate it for those guys because they work so hard in the offseason and spring trianing. It gets into the depth we have. You hate to see that happen, but at the same time team just keeps going.”

Injuries have been a major part of the game forever, although the Nats seem particularly affected this year (and every other year, but really moreso this year). Yes, the beat goes on and the games much continue. It’s such a shame that the eagerness of seeing a prospect make his debut, not to mention said prospect’s own joy at promotion is tampered by the fact that someone got hurt to afford the opportunity.

There has been lots of chatter about Michael Morse’s “Beast Mode” shirt this season and much love for his use of A-Ha’s “Take On Me” in about every other at bat. Well, now you get to revel in it with a bit of Morse rapping too. LOVE!

According to the blog post, the clip will air on “Hoppus On Music” at 11 PM tonight on Fuse, which I just learned in channel 716 on my FiOS system. *If* the game ends by 11 at Baseball on the Barn tonight, maybe we can flip over to it!

I’m torn between liking the brutal honesty and the appearance that Johnson takes these losses personally. On the other hand, part of me cringes at the same time because his facial expressions and tone in the moment after the game made it seem like he was throwing Zimmermann, usually a solid pitcher, under a bus. Instead of using typical phrases like, “sometimes a pitcher doesn’t have a feel for the ball, but Zimmermann’s an outstanding young pitcher and I’m confident he’ll bounce back for his next start,” he used, well, something else.

Do the players need this kind of tough love with high expectations? Or is this something that can cause some resentment in the clubhouse? Who knows….

Video here on masnsports.com | Transcript below

Debbi: Davey, starting with Jordan Zimmermann, I know he’s a tough kid, but that had to have affected his pitching after he was hit…

DJ: Well, I mean, the thing that bothered me the most that whole ballgame is I’m not one over my whole career with good young pitchers, good arms, and I have a couple guys in scoring position, I’ve got a base open – if he gets ahead of the guy, I don’t expect him to make bad pitches. I expect him to hit; the hitters got to hit a pitch off the plate. A nasty pitch. And he hung a slider right down the middle. It was flat and drove in two runs and uh or drove in a run. And then the squeeze – didn’t cover first. Those things upset me. I mean, I thought he battled and maybe he didn’t have his best stuff, but the one thing, when you’ve got two strikes on a hitter, you just basically don’t give them a cookie. There’s a lot of times during the course of the year I have situations in the middle of the lineup where I definitely don’t want to have to give in and give a really good hitter a pitch to hit. But that was the toughest thing tonight that got me the most.

Debbi: Some opportunities that were missed – you know, you look at Jerry Hairston, and that was aggressive getting thrown out at 2nd base and a couple other things.

DJ: Well, you know Jerry swung the bat great all night and you got to try to make it. The ball, unfortunately it came right back to them. It’s going away from us and he makes a perfect throw. I know he’s out and I know if there was any doubt, Jerry would have been out there arguing till the sun went down. I didn’t see it on the replay, but the ball beat him easy, so I figured that he was out. But uh, just breaks. We battled hard, I was proud of the team, we kept battling and right back in the ballgame. That big run we gave up tot he bottom of the order again with Coffey, so I’m just, you know, a lot of things bad happen.

Debbi: Michael Morse though, I mean, he’s just been really rock solid out there. How well is he swinging the bat right now?

DJ: He’s unbelievable. He’s on fire. Everything he hits hard. I don’t think they hit him on purpose in the last inning. You don’t put the tying run on with some guys who can go out of the yard. I think they were trying to pitch him in but you know, it’s just a tough game. I liked the offense. Didn’t like our pitching as much.

Q: Davey, was there something with Jordan that was different tonight that you could pinpoint?

DJ: Well, the one thing he was doing that I hadn’t noticed before is, you know and I guess he gets in the habit sometimes, his elbow was dropping on his breaking ball. The elbow was coming here [gesturing] and it was flat. Didn’t do it all the time, but the one time he really did it was to Barmes with the guys on 2nd, 3rd and two strikes. He just threw a flat slider right down the heart. But he’ll learn. I mean, he’s a young pitcher, got a great future, but those kinds of mistakes are hard to stomach.

Q: Do you mean the at bat with Barmes – the 2nd at bat before the squeeze play?

DJ: Yeah, you know, I mean any other situation with the catcher coming up 7th hitting .250, if he gets ahead of him, you know make a good pitch and get him out. If he doesn’t, walk him and try for the double play. But then you have to give in to the hitter and he needs to learn how to do that.

LaRoche expects to be ready to return to play tomorrow. Here’s hoping, because without calling someone up, the team is running really short on replacement players. Did you catch Pudge playing first base in the final inning of yesterday’s 11th inning win over the Mets! That was worth the price of admission right there (ok, free since I was watching on TV, but still)!

Also running short are effective bullpen arms not named Storen, Clippard, or Burnett. After hearing Rule 5 pick Brian Broderick would only be used in blowout (either way) games, I was stunned to see him called from the bullpen Saturday night. I surmised, and explained to my Mets fan friends sitting with me, that Riggleman was giving the core guys a rest since they had been used so much recently. And sure enough, that game got away. My sleep-deprived self still doesn’t want to rehash it!

I seem to recall Clippard losing effectiveness toward the end of last season due to excessive use, and am afraid of the same or worse this season. Same goes for the other guys in the bullpen named above. That will be an interesting area to keep an eye on over the next few weeks as the state of the bullpen as a whole becomes clearer with a larger sample size.

Speaking of Clippard, the mill-wheel armed dude, I keep holding my breath when he enters games in tight situations now. It’s not that I don’t trust his stuff — quite the opposite, in fact. It’s just that I know he can’t keep a 0.00 ERA going all season and wonder each time he comes out, “is this where some real numbers appear there?”

Here’s hoping the injury bug is done striking the Nationals and moves on to some other team (few seem to have been spared thus far into the season, however).

• Bad bad D!
• Bad bullpen.

Yep, that about sums it up. I’m sure most of you saw the game or already read the recaps, so no need to rehash it here, except to say GACK! I’ve been listening to Glee CDs on repeat to soothe my frayed nerves since that game.

Anyway, moving on…

I suppose it’s time to wean myself from Words With Friends (you people are letter playing animals!) and adjust to the sport that ends up consuming my life for six months. The season has begun! That hadn’t completely sunk in with the off days and day games during opening week, but baseball at the customary 7 PM begins tonight. Let the marathon to October begin!

The players I plan on paying attention the most to this year are:

• Danny Espinosa – I’m expecting greatness from the 2nd baseman both hitting and fielding.
• Jordan Zimmermann – he’s shown a lot of potential and should be completely recovered from Tommy John surgery. Hopefully this is his year to begin to really shine.
• Drew Storen – Sean Burnett crush aside, I like Storen and it’ll be fun/interesting to watch him grow into the permanent closer role. I hope.
• Wilson Ramos – like Storen, I’m interested in seeing how he transitions to full time catcher. (Meanwhile, I’m keeping an eye on Flores’ progress in the minors too)
• Michael Morse – can he keep his power numbers up throughout the season after his impressive spring?
• Jayson Werth – of course the marquis payroll player bears watching to make sure he’s earning his bucks.

Hopefully Sunday was an anomaly and not a sign of things to come this season. Also hopefully saying these are the players I’m watching didn’t just automatically jinx and doom them. The beat guys caution to keep expectations low for the Marlins series given past history. (Nationals Journal, Goessling Game)

So was that game yesterday exciting or what?! That’s the kind of game that is so fun to watch. It had everything from home runs to a successful suicide squeeze to hail to a suspenseful win! But I’m here to rave more about Sean Burnett. I think I’m in baseball love. I know pitchers, particularly relief pitchers, can be the most inconsistent players in the game, going from on top of their game to useless in a heartbeat. Who cares? At the moment, Burnett is exciting to watch! Not only can he get batters out, but he flashes slick fielding skills as well.

In yesterday’s 6-3 win over the Braves, Burnett entered the game in the top of the 8th in relief Storen who gave up a home run to Alex Gonzalez sandwiched between two outs. After the homer, the Nats were holding onto a two run lead of 3-5. Braves put pinch hitter Hinske in the batter’s box. With Burnett’s first pitch thrown, Hinske grounded out to Adam LaRoche. Cue the Easy button “That was easy!”.

In the bottom of the 8th, Ian Desmond pulled off a funny trick. He is still hitless as the leadoff batter through two games, going 0-5 yesterday — but with a run scored. Eh? He reached base twice on fielder’s choice plays and the second time came around to score to put the Nats up 3 runs.

So moving on to the fantastic top of the 9th. Burnett returns to the mound for the four out save after throwing only one pitch the previous inning. He faced the top of the Braves batting order. The scoresheet looks like this:

1. 1-3
2. 1-6-3
3. L1

Seeing it live (or on tv as I did) is so much more impressive than those little numbers show. First, I have to imagine being the closest player to the batter, those balls come at you in a split second and in order to not get beaned, you have to have quick reflexes. First batter, Prado, grounded to Burnett, who quickly fielded the ball and threw to first with plenty of wiggle time. Nate McLouth then smoked a grounder that Burnett barely got a glove on as it skittered past him, but he slowed the ball down enough for Ian Desmond to reach it and barely get rid of it while in motion in enough time for the out. If Burnett hadn’t touched the ball, it probably would have been a single into center field. Finally, and most impressively, Chipper Jones hit a line drive straight at Burnett, who flipped his arm up and caught it like it was nothing. Love!

Bang! Zoom! The Nationals win their second game of the season/series. Today will determine the series victor and looks to be the best weather yet since the season opened Thursday. Let’s go Nats!

1. Jayson Werth – RF

Werth singles on a grounder up the middle in his first official AB as a Nat

At the plate: The multimillion dollar man batting 2nd behind Desmond and ahead of Zimmerman singled in his first at-bat and made it to third before Morse grounded out to end the opportunity. Later at-bats netted a strikeout swinging and two ground-outs to short.

In the field: Werth made three catches in right, two pretty fancy involving falling and sliding. Now if he was superman, he could have snagged that Heyward homerun that landed just in the stands over his head.

2. Adam LaRoche – 1B

LaRoche watches the ball soar straight up as he pops out in his first at bat as a Nat

At the plate: LaRoche went 1-4 at the plate popping out in the 1st, flying out to the warning track in left in the 4th, singling on a blooper to left in the 6th (and then being taken out on a fielder’s choice) and flying out to left again as the 1st batter in the bottom of the 9th.

LaRoche snared a grounder by diving for it and tosses to Livo long before the runner gets to the bag. Defense!

In the field: He looked pretty competent at first base defense-wise at first glance, making a couple really nice snags and plays. I wrote a “D” next to a 3-1 play LaRoche started in the top of the 4th, meaning he snared a hard grounder and looked good doing it.

3. Rick Ankiel – CF

Ankiel caught stealing in 4th after drawing a walk ends the inning

At the plate: Ankiel most memorably ended the game looking at a 3rd called strike in the bottom of the 9th with the Nats down 2-0. He flew out to right, drew a walk (and then was thrown out by a mile trying to steal 2nd with 2 outs), flew out to left and struck out looking, going 0-3 with a walk.

Ankiel catches a fly ball at the edge of the warning track to end the top of the 1st

In the field: Nothing terribly noteworthy happened – routine fly balls and throws in on grounders to center. No errors, no spectacular catches. He was the only player on the field wearing face covering to protect against the cold.

4. Todd Coffey – RP

Todd Coffey, despite some late spring training troubles, had a good first official outing as a Nat, going 1-2-3

Comparing a pitcher to hitters/position players is like the cliche of comparing apples to oranges, but out of all the new guys, I’d say Coffey gave the best performance. I was a little concerned since his last few spring training outings were less than stellar, but he came into the game in the 8th and had a 1-2-3 inning, inducing a groundout, popout and flyout to a pinch hitter in the 9th spot and the number 1 and 2 batters for the Braves.

5. Laynce Nix – Bench

Laynce Nix, pinch hitting for pinch hitter Hairston Jr., strikes out swinging in his first appearance

At the plate: Laynce Nix only appeared briefly as a pinch hitter against Moylan with a runner at 3rd and two outs. He struck out swinging to end the inning and the opportunity.

6. Jerry Hairston Jr. – Bench

Oops, nevermind. He came into the on-deck circle to pinch hit and then was replaced with pinch hitter Nix after the Braves brought in new pitcher Moylan. No photos, no stats.

THE OLD GUYS

So there’s how the new guys fared on opening day. So how about the old guys?

Adam Dunn: 4 RBIs between a home run and a double, the most RBI generated for the team that day. He had one strikeout as the designated hitter before a pinch hitter replaced him. White Sox win 15-10 over the Cleveland Indians.

Josh Willingham: Hammer’s new team, the Oakland A’s, lost to the Seattle Mariners 6-2, but Willingham homered in the 1st inning with a runnner on, providing the only 2 runs the A’s would score during the game.

Wil Nieves: With the Brewers starting catcher injured, Nieves took over the role as starter on opening day as the Brewers lost 6-7 to the Reds. He went 2-4 at the plate with a double in his first at bat and came around to score that inning.

Nyjer Morgan: Entered the same game as Nieves in the bottom of the 7th inning in right field, but didn’t start. He did not get an opportunity to bat.

And a little older than the immediate past, but Joel Hanrahan also got his first save on opening day as the Pirates beat the Cubs 6-3.

Zimmermann has been one of my favorites since he first came up, and I still maintain high hopes for him after being set back by Tommy John surgery. So far so good this spring. He allowed 3 hits, 1 walk and struck out 2 with no runs scored.

Henry Rodriguez, on the other hand, was the anti-Zimmermann, walking three batters in a row after giving up a double on a fly that Ankiel took a complete crop circle route on and ended up no where near where it landed (that was kind of odd – wind?). The third walk forced in the only run the Marlins scored before Rodriguez was pulled. Eek!

Brian Broderick relieved Rodriguez with one out in the 6th, inducing a popout and groundout to end the inning. He then had a 1-2-3 inning in the 7th as well. Collin Balester and Cole Kimball took the 8th and 9th respectively and shut the Marlins down 1-2-3 in those innings as well.

So aside from Rodriguez, the Nationals’ pitching staff put on a stellar performance today. I wish I had more photos to share… (explaining in next post in the morning after I recover from my own bit of camera mourning)