Te Nats regain the 2 games they lost last weekend, and lead the Braves by 7.5. According to James Wagner of The Washington Post, the divisional magic number is 13. John Lannan fills in for Stephen Strasburg today. Lannan is from Long Island and has experience pitching in New York, so it’s not like giving a spot start to some rookie. Young Matt Harvey, who has had a good start to this MLB carer, starts for the Metropolitans.

Eager? Not at all. This was a difficult situation. Perhaps it would have been easier if Strasburg had suffered his injury earlier or later in the 2010 season. Perhaps, either he would be past the need for a limit already, or would be recovering from surgery. But that’s just speculation. This whole thing was not about wanting to shut him down, it was about believing that shutting him down was the right thing.

The haters claim it was luck. As though luck were not a part of developing a good team. Yes, two of the best propects of their generation fell to the Nats. But another GM might have shied away from picking them. Another GM might have refused to negotiate record-setting contracts with Scott Boras. Another GM might not have had the leeway from ownership to pay the big bucks. Rizzo did not shy away, and got the deals done.

In 20-20 hindsight, Stan Kasten erred in keeping Bowden as GM after the Lerners took over the franchise. Bowden did a few good things (ex., drafting Ryan Zimmerman and Ross Detwiler), but was otherwise a failure. Kasten did not err in hiring Rizzo from the D-backs to implement his plan for rebuilding the Nats the way he did with the Braves, around young talent.

Before that, though, the wiggling act by Straily to get out of jam after jam (first inning, Angels on first and third, no outs: pop-up by Pujols, strike out of Morales, strike out of Kendrick.) had the old pucker meter twitching. So when Balfour decided to get nobody out, the pucker shot from already tense to DEFCON 5 with well practiced, well warmed ease.

Maybe some Angels fans are wondering what they have to do to beat the A’s. Well, just look at tape of last weeks’ sweep: don’t throw the ball down the middle. Moss has 18 HR’s in 201 AB’s. Carter has 14 in 177. There’s your slugging 1B alright, and all for around MLB minimum x2. And Crisp has two triples in two games. None of that happened in the Angels’ sweep last week.

Anyway, having guaranteed the series split, the A’s throw AJ “Mix-a-Lot” Griffin against Ervin Santana. I hope the Angels enjoy seeing right handed change-ups. They saw a few last night. They’ll see more, and better, tonight.

Hmm, interesting….

Now Maker’s Mark on the other hand…..

And the yard birds do it AGAIN! This time we owned Matty Moore, no so much in tacking a ton of runs on the board, but more so in the sense of plate discipline, and getting his pitch count well into the 80′s through 4 innings. Top to bottom the lineup looked good. Lew Ford played solid D in RF to replace Nicky Markakis, and Party Hardy went yard twice, driving in 5 all together for the night.

Right now, however, I am starting to worry about this teams post season hopes. We’ve lost our best pitcher (again) AND our leadoff who has been hitting up around .340 since the AS break. Definitely not a good combo. I hope we can make do with what we have, and I hope Tilly can get back into the rotation in Hammels absence, but man oh man would that be a painful way to go down.

On a brighter note, we’ve opened up a 2 game lead on the Rays and back to a tie with the Yanks! Hopefully Boston continues to be dream killers in their series, and the O’s keep on throwing out W’s vs. the Rays.

LEEGGOOOO!!!!

Coprolite studies? Don’t sign me up!

Somewhere in here, playing the string out just gets tiring, doesn’t it? Even as much as we love the game.