Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Game 120: Nats at Braves

Photo by Mark Zuckerman / NATS INSIDER
The Nats take yet another crack at Tim Hudson tonight at Turner Field.
Well, the Nationals are making a roster move today, just not the potential one we were discussing earlier. Josh Willingham will apparently go on the DL tomorrow, at which point Nyjer Morgan will be activated (tomorrow's the first day he's eligible).

Today's move is one that will probably get fans excited: Wilson Ramos has been recalled from Class AAA Syracuse because Wil Nieves is heading back to D.C. to be with his wife, Yormarie, who is due to give birth to a baby girl in the next few days. Ramos, acquired from the Twins in the Matt Capps trade, hit .317 with two homers, six RBI and an .833 OPS in 15 games at Syracuse. This, however, will just be a quick cameo appearance with the Nats. Ramos is expected to be around only until Nieves returns within a couple of days. He will, however, return when rosters expand on September 1.

Ramos isn't in tonight's lineup -- Ivan Rodriguez starts and bats fifth, answering our other question from earlier -- but I suspect he'll be in there for tomorrow's getaway day game.

Another tough challenge tonight for the Nationals, who face their arch-nemesis, Tim Hudson (owner of a 10-1 record and 1.49 ERA in 16 career starts against this franchise). Hudson's lone loss against the Nats came on June 5, 2006, when he gave up five runs in the sixth thanks to base hits by Brian Schneider, Marlon Anderson, Jose Vidro and Damian Jackson. Wow. The winning pitcher that night, though, was Livan Hernandez, who will again oppose Hudson tonight.

I'm not in Atlanta for this series, but please continue the conversation with each other...

NATIONALS at BRAVES
Where: Turner Field
Gametime: 7:10 p.m.
TV: MASN
Radio: WFED-1500 AM, WWFD-820 AM
Weather: Partly cloudy, 86 degrees, Wind 8 mph out to LF.
STARTING LINEUPS
NATIONALS (51-68)
CF Roger Bernadina
SS Ian Desmond
3B Ryan Zimmerman
1B Adam Dunn
C Ivan Rodriguez
2B Adam Kennedy
RF Michael Morse
LF Willie Harris
P Livan Hernandez

BRAVES (70-49)
2B Omar Infante
RF Jason Heyward
3B Martin Prado
C Brian McCann
1B Eric Hinske
LF Melky Cabrera
SS Alex Gonzalez
CF Rick Ankiel
P Tim Hudson

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

I,m thinking that Nieves needs to spend more than a few days with his wife and new baby; say 2 weeks?

Anonymous said...

Morse should be batting 5th, with Kennedy 6th, Harris 7th, and Pudge 8th or 9th.

NatsJack in Florida said...

It doesn't matter who hits where.....Tim friggin Hudson owns us.

Anonymous said...

we'll get him tonight !!

Aussie Gus said...

Hoping for a little help for the community. I've got some mates travelling from here in Australia to New York in late Sept. Obviously they want to go to a ball game, and it happens to be Yankees v Red Sox while they are in NYC. On the Yankees website, the cheapest ticket is USD$300. That's a little rich for us Aussies. Is StubHub the best bet for legit tickets? They don't want to go to a scalper and find they never see their ticekts.

Faraz Shaikh said...

I am trying really hard to like Dunn and find reasons to keep him on the team but he is trying his best to convince me otherwise.

Anyways, for second straight nights, out SP couldn't hold the lead. I am so mad. Livan, you are better than this.

Sunshine_Bobby _Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_For_Me said...

StubHub is a very safe, professionally run site. I've never had a problem. Having said that, between the seller's markup, stubhub's handling charge and the FedEx delivery charge, those $300 face value Yankee tickets aren't looking that unreasonable. Enjoy the states and good-day, Mates!

Sunshine_Bobby_Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_For_Me said...

@BQ: It wasn't Livan's fault that Adam Freakin' Kennedy got in Morse's way on that popout.

Adam Kennedy: If he's not killing you at the plate by hitting into double plays, he's making bonehead baserunning gaffes or Little League fielding mistakes.

Can you please DFA this stiff? Like NOW.

Hey, StanK: No more players with the initials AK. OK, please?

Anonymous said...

Congrats to Wil and Yomarie! Look forward to seeing Wilson Ramos play

Faraz Shaikh said...

@ Sunshine, to be honest, I did not watch the play. I am just following the gameday.

We have 8 hits against Hudson but only 2 runs to show for it. Why?

Livan is matching Hudson it seems. Also able to get 3 DP out of Braves in 6 innings. Phenomenal season he is having.

CapPeterson said...

Nice throw from Bernie. This is one of the reasons why IMO he needs to play every day in CF. His arm for RF is OK, but for CF above average. He could turn out to be an above-average all-around CFer. I guess Prado forgot--thought he was running on Nyjer's arm.

Sunshine_Bobby_Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_for_Me said...

@BQ: No offense meant by me. Yeah, Kennedy ran into mid-right field and got in Morse's way, leading to a drop.

Reason we have eight hits and two runs is Nats have slapped into four DPs.

Agree with you completely on Livan. He's pitching a gem, doing his best to stay even with Hudson, who is 10-and-1 lifetime against the Nats and is just a bear on this team.

Brian said...

Livan is matching Hudson it seems. Also able to get 3 DP out of Braves in 6 innings. Phenomenal season he is having.
************************************************

We've given Hudson at least as many double plays to help his cause, though.

dj in Fl. said...

@Sunshine,
We have the Braves broadcast crew in Fl. and their comments, espcially during the replay, were that Morse showed no hustle coming in for the ball. It should have been Morse calling off Adam.

Brian said...

Speaking of DPs, we could really use another one right here...

Brian said...

Another botched pop-up. Great. This game is one hit or sacrifice fly away from being over.

Sunshine_Bobby_Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_For_Me said...

@dj: they might be right. Morse didn't break on it well, but seemed to be closing and could have caught the ball. But kennedy faked him out, made like he was going to catch it and then moved off it.

Faraz Shaikh said...

Someone please tell me how Conrad hits a single on a popup to 2B. It makes no sense when I read it on gameday. What actually happened?

Brian said...

@BQ: The infielders were playing fairly shallow, and the outfield was in a "no-doubles" defense, and the ball was perfectly placed to drop in. No one could quite get to it.

Nice job getting out of a jam, Livo!

Andrew said...

How did Livan get out of that 7th inning! WOW

Sunshine_Bobby_Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_For_Me said...

@BQ: It was a bloop hit to right-center that just fell in no man's land.

Anonymous said...

OMG, great waste of a PH by JMaxwell. Should have let Livan hit as he has a much better batting average!

Brian said...

JMax strikes out on three pitches? I never could have seen that coming...

HabsProf said...

What can I say? Livan battled over these last four innings, but in the end he turned in a great start: 7 innings and only 2 runs. Great job of not giving in to the hitters.

Now if only our offense can pick up a run.

Aussie Gus said...

Why does Maxwell hit for Livo? Looking at their AVG, Livo is better at the plate!
Thanks for the help Sunshine.

Faraz Shaikh said...

Well I am glad Livo was able to get out of it. Pretty awesome performance again. I wish Riggs had kept him in the game. Now our offense needs to get going.

Brian said...

Ugh. I go to the bathroom and come back to see Zimm getting tossed. What is up with these umps and their quick trigger?

HabsProf said...

What's with this umpiring crew? They sure love to eject Nats!

greg said...

nice plug for zimmerman.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/4866/picking-your-franchise-player

JaneB said...

Zim did nothing wrong. These umps are delusional. Not to mention his strike zone tonight is ridiculous.

Jeeves said...

I was disappointed when the Nats did not trade Dunn For Hudson. The kid is pitching great for Arizonia and Dunn will forever be a streaky hitter who will go days not helping the team with his offense and be a defensive liability. I'm at a loss why so many are so firmly entrenched in his ballpark. No pun intended.

swang said...

Ok, WTF happened? I glance away from gameday for 2 seconds, and look back to find Riggs and Zimm tossed? Over a foul tip SO?

dj in Fl. said...

Once again the Braves crew said the tossing of Zim was uncalled for and Riggs should have been giving the ump heck for it. They showed replays to prove Zim said nothing to the ump. They also said last nights tossing was unwarranted.

Anonymous said...

It's the rookie ump behind the plate. I think Carpenter said it was the same ump who tossed Pudge last night.

Anonymous said...

This one hurt.

Anonymous said...

@Manassas

The ump that tossed Pudge last night was at second base tonight.

Carpenter was actually bad mouthing the crew chief for not controlling the crew, and watching them toss players without warrant.

Zim tossed his bat and hat down angry at himself and Carnak decides he was ticked about the pitch before. Well that would imply to me the ump would know there would be a reason to be ticked about the pitch before if he is going to make that inference.

I turned it over to the O;'s game as soon as I saw Clippard come in as I do not trust him in close games, 5 minutes I flip over and indeed he was as bad as I expected allowing the winning run to score.

Burnett give us a dinky single so we replace him. That is what is wrong with the team, the manager (in this case bench coach) are to trigger happy to replace pitchers.

Joe Seamhead said...

Ugh! This one was especially painful to watch. I'm sick of the umpires making the games about them.

Anonymous said...

Cry baby Zimmy got thrown out of the game for throwing a tantrum....way to lead...I cannot wait for Harper to arrive and Zimmy and Little Stephen will have to look him in the eye and deal with the negative comments they made about him....way to lead fellas!

Section 312 said...

Section 312
This is not a good baseball team, I am not sure I will go to another game this year--have been a season ticket holder since the beginning. Maybe they will win 65 games this year, is that an improvement. Very discouraging!

meixler said...

Anon 10:54

What d**k you are. If you're gonna say something like that at least put your name behind it. Now, I generally am not a fan of trash talking on blogs - especially this one which has a nice community going. But I can't believe you're a true Nats fan if you're talking about Zimm and Strasburg that way. Also, I don't think either has said anything that negative about Harper. If I'm wrong, give me the quotes. And even though I shouldn't have to mention it, I will point out that Harper is still 2 or 3 years out from being in the majors and until he proves something in the bigs he's still just a prospect like everyone else.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you meixler. But I have to say that anonymi's comment was so foolish it was funny in a surreal way. He's holding up as a maturing influence the teenager who managed to get ejected from his last college game ruining his team's chances at the championship. He did have the good grace (and this is said without irony) to cry about it afterward.

He's a good kid at heart but he's a kid.

Richard said...

I think the umps are (1) missing too many calls. Last year's World Series and the missed perfect game this year are examples. And, (2) are getting out of control. We need some instant replay badly and someone to supervise the umps and fire a few for being too ready to throw players out. Like Bob Carpenter and others have said, the fans go to games to see the players not the umps. That said, as much as it pains me, tonight I think Zimm was out of line. He threw his bat and then his helmut right outside the batter's box. Throwing equipment, I believe, warrants an ejection per the umps' rule book.

Anonymous said...

You make a good point, Richard. I think if Zimm had taken a few steps toward the dugout before slamming the bat and helmet to the ground, he wouldn't have been tossed.

Still, a veteran umpire (other than the odious Joe West) would likely have let it pass in a 2-2 game.

b said...

Put another "straight L" in the book

Tcostant said...

To funny last night the guys on MASN saying no rookie is "allowed" to hit on 3-0 pitch and that is what happen to end the game.

LoveDaNats said...

Are you sure Anon 10:54 isn't a Phillies fan?

natsfan1a said...

The umps certainly seem to have a short fuse in this series. Funny that Mench was in the dugout. Remember the televised Chiefs game where he was ejected for flinging his bat? (btw, the Syracuse skipper gets Best Actor for his post-ejection rant; Riggleman's was just so-so. ;-))

In other news, congrats to the Nieves family on their new addition, as announced by Ben Goessling over on the MASN site.

N. Cognito said...

Moronic A-hole said...
"Cry baby Zimmy got thrown out of the game for throwing a tantrum....way to lead...I cannot wait for Harper to arrive and Zimmy and Little Stephen will have to look him in the eye and deal with the negative comments they made about him....way to lead fellas!
My mommy says it's time for me to go to bed now."

Does it get chilly at night in your mom's basement?

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