Win!
courtesy of oddlittlebird.

As a baseball fan there are a lot of feelings you become accustomed to, but many you never get use to. One of those is that sinking feeling when your team is struggling to score runs, has scored three runs in the first inning in what feels like forever, and then two innings later lets it all slip away. That is what the Nationals did tonight.

After Karns quickly mowed through the Orioles first three batters on three quick ground outs the Nationals came to bat. Span ripped the first pitch he saw down the first base line, but Chris Davis scooped it and took it to the bag himself. Lombardozzi and Zimmerman then put the ball in play with authority but not to fielders, and to cap it off LaRoche hit a long homerun to right field to spot Karns and the Nats to a three run lead.

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DSC_5466
courtesy of MudflapDC

Want to start a debate? ask a baseball fan what Strasburg’s best pitch is. Is it the fastball that averages the highest velocity in the majors at 95.4 MPH or on average 1.8 MPH faster than Justin Verlander’s. Or is it his 90 MPH change-up that darts, dodges, and dives away from bats at times looking more like a knuckle ball than a traditional change. Perhaps it is the curve ball that has locked up more than a few hitters and since his debut in 2010 the league has only managed a .164 batting average against. There is a case to be made for all of Strasburg’s three main pitches, but there is no debate that when he has them all working he is close to unhittable.

Just ask the Phillies batter who managed only five hits and one run off of Strasburg who walked none, struck out nine, and hit a batter in a dazzle start on a pleasant Sunday afternoon at Nats Park. Strasburg displayed the art of pitching in such a manner that it is hard to think of him as a pitcher or a hurler and much easier to think of him in the old time terminology of a twirler, and on Sunday he had batters spinning and twirler in confusion at his fastball, curve, and change.

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Werth strikes out
courtesy of Danny Dougherty

Coming into Sunday’s game against the Reds it could be argued that Ross Detwiler had been the Nats best starters, or at least one of them, as his 1.38 April ERA was among the tops in the NL. As they say in baseball, all things eventually regress to their mean, and Detwiler would have his first rough outing of the season. In the first inning he would get Choo to strikeout, before falling behind the next three hitters and giving up three straight base hits. All the balls were hard hit, but Cozart’s single ticked off of Espinosa’s glove, and Votto’s double just found chalk.

This is how it would go all day for the Nats and Ross Detwiler. Before the day was over Detwiler would give up 4 runs on 11 hits and 10 would be singles with more than a few of them having some luck tied to them. Take for instance Detwiler’s fourth inning in which he allowed his fourth and final run of the afternoon. Corky Miller would lead off the inning with a weak infield single that just happened to land where no fielder could reach it. After a sac bunt and a ground out moved him to third he would score on a Cozart single.

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Jordan Zimmermann
courtesy of Keith Allison

Most of the focus on the Nationals coming into 2013 was placed on a pitching staff that finished first in the NL in ERA, but most of that focus was on the third place finisher in the Cy Young voting, Gio Gonzalez and the non-shutdown pending phenom Stephen Strasburg. Back when Jordan Zimmermann was drafted in the second round of the 2007 draft, the same draft as Detwiler, there was a lot of talk about his upside and how he could be a top of the rotation star. Tonight in one hitting a dangerous Reds line-up Jordan Zimmermann showed why he was the man who could have been the Ace.

With the Nats offense struggling to score runs and facing a pitcher that shut them out the last time they saw them Jordan Zimmermann was going to have to be on the top of his game. Instead of giving the Nats that he elevated his game. Earlier this season in Miami Jordan Zimmermann pitched a complete game win, but it was not a shutout. Against the Reds he pitched what may be the most dominate performance in Nats history. He allowed one hit on 91 pitches with 59 of them being strikes.

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a matter of perspective
courtesy of philliefan99

Like Game 5 and 7/20/12 before it, the Nats looked to have a game well in hand. They jumped on Braves rookie starter Julio Teheran early and managed to score two runs in the first and second inning. In the first, Span hustled down the line and beat out a throw that pulled Braves first baseman Evan Gattis off the bag. Two batters later, Harper would lift his fifth homer of the season the opposite way into the left field stands. It was an impressive display of strength by the second year, 20-year old, player.

In the bottom of the second the Nats would add two more as Suzuki would lead off the inning with a walk, get sacrificed to second by Detwiler, and score on a Denard Span single. With one out Span would steal second, his second steal of the season, and Werth would single him home.

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DSC_7597
courtesy of MudflapDC

For just the 13th time in major league history a baseball team has opened the season with back to back shutouts. The 2013 Washington Nationals backed by Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez are the first team to do so since a 2002 Diamondbacks team that featured Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling atop their rotation. It was thought that the Nationals could make history in 2013, but who knew it would be so fast? On Opening Day Bryce Harper became the youngest player to hit two homers on Opening Day and just two days later the Nats became just the 13th team with back to back shutouts to open the season.

It is no mystery that the Nats starting staff is a formidable one and we’re only 2/5 of the way through it. The Marlins line-up is nothing special featuring such luminaries of the game as Juan Pierre, Placido Polanco, Miguel Olivo, and Casey Kotchman. Speaking of Kotchman he had to exit the game with an injured hamstring after grounding into a double play in the fifth inning. That sequence was in itself Kotchmanesque.

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March Moonrise II
courtesy of pablo.raw

We here at WLDC are constantly trying to do two things: 1) make this site ever more awesome and 2) reward those who help contribute to making this site ever more awesome. With that in mind, we are starting a new regular photo post. Specifically, it will be highlighting pictures that are submitted to our Flickr pool during the week.

We’re calling it “Week In Review.” It will run every Friday at 1pm, and it will be a clone of Weekend Flashback (ie: light on text, heavy on photos). Put simply, the photos we get from our contributors are amazing and we don’t have enough posts to do them justice. This will slightly rectify the problem. We will start the posts next Friday (3/22).

Along with this, we’ll be moving Featured Photo from Tuesday at 9am to Wednesday at 11am. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to change your photo uploads accordingly. I’m also hoping to do more photo posts, and possible photo related events, during the year. If you recently got a new camera (and your phone does count), and always wonder where are photos come from, they come from people like you; please share.