Nats at Marlins

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Starts tonight (Friday) with Olsen making his return to face his former team. The Nats face Ricky Nolasco (2-0, 3.03 ERA), who seems to be becoming the ace we all thought he might a couple years ago.

Zimmerman finally returns to the starting lineup for the Nats with the warmer weather down south. Recently called up Roger Bernadina gets the start in right with his lefty bat with Willie Harris still not at 100%. With a day off before the series and after, the Nats sent down English as they only need six relievers at the moment.

Hanley Ramirez KILLED the Nats last year with an over .400 average, 5HR and 23 RBI. They'll have to control him a little better if they are to survive the Fish.

NL East is jumbled with the top two teams beginning a series tonight in Philadelphia (Mets (13-9) at Phils (12-9)). The Marlins (11-11) and Nats (12-10) are right behind those teams, with only the Braves (8-14) lagging behind.

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Wow, Nyjer Morgan bringing back the defense in a big way.

Diving catch in the bottom of the seventh on a tailing liner from Ronny Paulino with the bases loaded and two outs.

Tyler Clippard/Brian Bruney owe him big. Especially Bruney, who continues his horribly inconsistent pitching. Clippard doesn't look that great, either-- maybe his excessive innings are starting to catch up with him.

Ryan Zimmerman has two homers for the Nats, who have the look of a damn good team with him back and the pitching and defense they've gotten of late.

Olsen with another good start. Not making it easy to decide who goes with Wang and Strasburg coming this Summer.

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Nats finish it, winning 7-1. 13-10 now on the year!!! Second place!!!

Game 2 Saturday: Stammen at Chris Volstad.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji4EtcPEtEY&hd=1[/youtube]

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In the tradition of the good defense shown above--Nats trail 5-1 after six in Game 2 partly thanks to three DC errors.

Would be nice to somehow come back tonight since the Nats face the wicked awesome stuff of Josh Johnson tomorrow (5-0 career vs. the Nats).

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Well I guess the Nats only committed two errors--but still a poor performance Saturday.

Good pitching matchup today as Lannan goes up against Johnson. Gonna need some of our pesky left-handed bats to do some damage today. Maybe swipe some bases.

On another note I appreciate Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post asking about overuse of Tyler Clippard in his Nats' Journal yesterday as per my request. That guy is doing some good work.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nation ... ppard.html

Go Nationals!

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Marlins take the finale 9-3 to drop DC to 13-12.

Kept Hanley Ramirez under pretty good control until today, when he had two bombs--one off Lannan and one off Batista.

Lannan has been a battler this year, but things generally haven't gone that well. His ERA is now 6.34. Brian Bruney was again horrific in relief. At least MacDougal last year walked people but then ultimately generally got the job done. Bruney walks people and then lets them score.

It's getting to be a problem. Look for the Nats to call up an extra bullpen arm soon, as they don't have the luxury of another day off after Monday until May 24th. Look for them to also experiment with other guys in the seventh. At least Sean Burnett will have more lefty targets to pitch against in the Braves as opposed to the Marlins, so that might help.

They have plenty of options, including recently demoted Jay Bergmann and Jesse English, as well as several other guys that have been pitching well in the minors (Slaten, Garate, Peralta, to name a few).

I'll give a season recap so far tomorrow.