Exhibition: WSH v. LAD
March 19th, 2007 | by jg3 |Today it is back to Viera and HSCS for a spring training game with the Dodgers.
Geico gave away Nationals visors at the game today, red ones with the DC logo. Nicer than the blue visors they gave away at RFK before.
From the mound, Shawn Hill walked the leadoff batter and let the bases get loaded before working out of the first inning, but after that he seemed more settled and in control. Through the fifth during which he gave up just two hits and no walks or runs he managed four strikeouts and no walks. A respectable performance against a worthy opponent. Josh Wagner came on in the sixth where he gave up three singles and a walk which lead to the Dodgers’ only run of the afternoon, but in the seventh and eighth he was much more in control of the situation giving up just one hit and taking one strikeout and leaving the rest to the fielders.
A few more defensive notes here, in the first a grounder went past Christian Guzman that looked like either a bad hop or a misjudgment by Guz. Had he gotten to it, Hill’s first inning would have been half as long and much less stressful. Then in the ninth a what should have been a 4-6-3 double play didn’t get turned quickly enough, and I’m not sure why. The next batter hit into a 1-6-3 double play (Josh Hall on the mound at that point), so I guess that may have evened out. I’m the last one to talk bad about Guzman, but he is under the microscope right now (and there’s lots of chatter in the stands whenever he is part of a play). At the plate the Gooz put wood on the ball every time, twice for singles and twice for infield outs (one was a double play). Not outstanding but better than anything he did last year. Little Bro and I were talking about it yesterday and we decided that a middle infielder needs to be outstanding in at least one regard, either as a fielder or as a batter. Being just passable in either aspect isn’t enough. For us, anyway. Catcher Juan Brito got to the plate twice, striking out once and laying down an excellent sacrifice bunt. For a backstop he seemed to hustle pretty well.
But let’s get to the good part, let’s talk (or you read, I’ll type) about the offense the Nats put up today. Before I get to that though let me just say that I heard other folks picking up on my nickname “Big-D” for Dimitri Young. I’m not claiming that it is original or even very creative but I was a little pleased and surprised to hear other people yelling it on Monday after I’d used it several times on Sunday. And the Big D did not disappoint when he legged out another double in the fifth and came around to score later when Lopez lined out deep enough to center to advance the runners. Also notable was Snelling’s performance at the plate today where he walked in the second (and participated in a double steal with Kearns) and racked up singles in the fifth and sixth innings. But it was the second stringers that came on in the eighth inning that smacked around the Dodger bullpen. Let’s see Nunez, Casto, Fick, Belliard, and Logan all got base hits and a bunch of others got walks (one run walked in, I believe that was on account of Snelling’s patience) before the eleventh batter came up and flied out to left.
Except for the intermittent rain and temps in the mid 60’s it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. Especially because of the win but since these are spring training exhibition games I’m a lot less focused on the sequence and the outcome than of the performance of the individual players.
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