Some of this pressure on Stanton will be alleviated a bit when Bonifacio comes back and has had a few games to get into his rhythm; it will certainly allow Slobbering Ozzie to bench Coghlan (and I predict that he’ll get no more than one more stint in Nawlins before they release him, assuming his performance remains so awful).

Ruggiero has looked promising so far, but you always have to assume there’s a reason some guy his age has been knocking around the busball leagues for as long as he has, and you kinda just have to wait and see if the gremlins show up in his slash line once you’ve got a representative sample to work with. Bench depth always helps, but the Feesh really need to fix their missing link in the outfield with a genuine starting player. A .240-.250 hitting Tweeter or, if he ever regains his big-league stroke, Gaby Sanchez at first can be carried even with the spotty RISP numbers if they get one more guy who can drive in a run or two at the bottom of the order.

Then there’s Buck, whose offense is nonexistent. Sending him out every day to anchor the whoopee cushion end of the lineup and praying that one of his swings might accidentally come into contact with a pitch is a lot like sending the Polish cavalry into action against the Panzers. I don’t know what they can do about him short of eating the balance of a contract that any fool could see was a boondoggle the day he signed it.

Good news on the health front. Jesus Flores returned from a hamstring tweak without time on the DL, hitting a homer and continuing his excellent blocking of pitches in the dirt. Michael Morse returned, pushing Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa down a slot, and Rick Ankiel to the bench. A defensive downgrade, but this team’s problem has been scoring runs. Morse should help, not just with his own hitting, but by getting Ankiel’s strikeouts out of the lineup.

Much respect to Brian McCann, but it seems that when the Bravos play the Nats, he either gets hurt or has to play hurt. The latest was taking a Jonny Venters pitch on a kneecap.

Gio vs. Tommy Hanson this afternoon. The Nats tend to do well against Hanson.

By and large, if the competition keeps avoiding the Iron Giant, they’ve still got a better chance of beating the Feesh even if they serve up a couple of fat ones to his predecessors – because they can still face Tweeter and his awful .146 RISP (which is about what he hit last season, so we’re talking about a fairly long term trend here) with men on base and get that strikeout, popout or DP. I’m still in favor of trading him for any ballplayer of value that the Feesh might be offered.

Let’s see how Krazy Karlos fares today against Blanton.

Watching Torrealba do the Aybar Wiggle on Trout’s safe call was a riot, though. I half expected him to grow big and green, his uniform stretching and tearing, as he wreaked havoc on the field.

And that was before he realized he’d been tossed four minutes earlier.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_06_02_texmlb_anamlb_1&mode=wrap#gid=2012_06_02_texmlb_anamlb_1&mode=video

Hanley is hitting as well as anyone in the game right now and I drool when I think of how difficult it will be to pitch to Reyes, Infante, HanRam, and Stanton going forward when LoMo is actually hitting as well

Hats off to my Yankees, whose RISP hitting woes continue. /sarcasm