Game 74: WTF?

Doghouse at Federal Baseball says it most simply and best: Fiasco. Or would you prefer Nats320's In The Most Awful Way Imaginable? They both  work for me. Patrick Reddington with the recap. It pretty much figures, though: the Nats get the bats to wake up, T-Plush starts hitting & playing defense as we all know he could, and then the infield defense kills us. Mark Zuckerman justifiably rails about the errors, but sames some flames for Riggleman's ridiculously dumb managing last night that set up Clip & Save to fail. Nationals Fanboy Looser places the blame squarely on the manager's shoulders. My opinion? Rizzo needs to have some words with his manager and let him know that not only do things need to change, they need to change now if he wants to keep managing.

Looking at the defensive stats, it does look as though Desmond's glove has followed his bat into its slump. His range factor per nine innings has gone below the league average, as has Guzman's at second base, although neither of them are more than a couple well-played games away from getting back over that line. I'm still thinking that Desmond's errors are a result of him getting to balls that other shortstops wouldn't have gotten close to, but he does need to work on his throwing. Problem is, if they've been doing infield drills before every game, and he's just getting worse, what's the answer? More one-on-one work with Listach, who was a decent shortstop in his days with the Brewers? I don't know, but I hope someone on the Nationals staff figures it out soon.

Steven at Fire Jim Bowden turns a critical eye on the Jason Marquis signing. Nationals News Network joins the chorus calling for Willie Harris to be released; so far, we're the only ones suggesting that Maxwell come back up. 

Down on the farm, Rochester and Harrisburg posted wins while the Class A teams suffered the agony of defeat. April Whitzman at NationalsProspects has the rundown; Sue Dinem posts a game report from Woodbridge where the P-Nats fell to the Pelicans.Speaking of the P-Nats, they'll be having their annual silent auction on July 3. Lots of cool stuff available.

The Blue Crabs bounced back from their Thursday loss to the Newark Bears and  gave a 7-2 drubbing to Sparky Lyle's Somerset Patriots last night in St. Charles, pounding out six runs from the fifth inning onward to give reliever Chris Mobley his third win of the season. The Blue Crabs now have a two-game lead atop the Atlantic League's Liberty Division with ten games left in the first half. Tonight's game is NASCAR Night, with fireworks after the game.

Down on the Orioles farm, the Baysox kicked off their three-game series at Altoona with a 5-1 win, breaking a 1-1 tie in the top of the ninth with four runs scored off Curves reliever Mike Dubee and securing win number 7 for Baysox starter Zach Britton. The Keys took the rubber game of their match against Winston-Salem with an 11-2 laugher, lighting up Dash starter Charlie Leesman for six runs and going on to brutalize the bullpen for five more.

Inside blogball: Nationals Fangirls are moving up in the food chain later this summer, joining a blog network being launched by Albritton Communications, parent company of WJLA-TV here in Washington as well as News Channel 8 and those scumsuckers at Politico.com. Good luck to you, ladies!