Home Run Derby

I took a lot of heat from Nats fans for my preview where I predicted they would be 2008’s Worst Team in Baseball.   Through the season, I will be taking a look at the Nationals to see how they track against my preview (partially at the behest of the commenters who want to make sure I am held accountable when if the Nats outperform). 

One of the key premises of my prediction surrounded that state of the starting pitching:

“The team hit a measlely 123 Home Runs last year, but more telling is their fundamental lack of pitching.  No starter had more than 7 wins last year (Matt Chico), and the leader in games won was reliever Jon Rauch (Kenny Williams’ favorite player) with a seismic 8 wins.”

Lets visit a couple of comments on the starting pitching assertion I made.

Charlie from March 10th:

“I think their pitching is no doubt a problem, but if Hill and Patterson can stay healthy, they are both better than 4/5 pitchers. Health has been their problems, not ability.”

Thorne from March 14th:

“if Hill & Patterson stay healthy they could be “average”…” 

Why do I bring this up? 

Well today, the Nationals cut John Patterson, their 2007 Opening Day Starter. 

Meaning the likely starting five are now: Jason Bergmann, Shawn Hill, Matt Chico, Tim Redding and Odalis Perez

UGGGH!  I want to say it again.  Even with a decent bullpen, it is very difficult to win more than 70 games when your team is down 3 or 4 runs by the end of the fifth inning.  I have to say I am feeling pretty good about my predictions today. 

Good Luck Nats fans, it’s gonna be a long season.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 8:56 pm and is filed under 2008 MLB, Nationals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.