The Nationals Inquisition will be on vacation from now until Tuesday because I am heading north to New Jersey/New York City for a family reunion. 

I know. My kith and kin are so inconsiderate. Don’t they know baseball is being played and I have a blog to run?

I intend to hit Chinatown, check out the Ghostbusters firehouse and drink a whiskey sour at the Slaughtered Lamb. In the meantime, keep checking our Twitter account because we will try to post anything Nats related that we can get up there. It probably won’t be much. I am sure the Nationals are not a favorite up there in that burg currently. We will then be traveling and staying in the backwoods of Virginia so Internet access will be limited, but expect us to return on Wednesday and go from there.

Adieu, Nats fans. I hope to return to you without smelling like smog and with a fake accent like I came out of Goodfellas.

    

Edinburgh A-Z (2) : A is for Astronaut, Explorer & Dinosaur., originally uploaded by stonefaction.

I would like to thank the Twitter peoples for this posting because without their 140 word allotted blurbs, this posting would never have come into existence. I am sure Phil Wood will thank you later.

MASN Sports contributor, back-up to Ray Knight, and avid blog hater, Phil Wood wrote a doozey of a blog of his own today saying that he wishes that he could punch the announcer of the Washington Nationals games in the face because Phil just doesn’t like it when the guy puts emphasis on the player’s names when they are announced.

This of course goes against years of such vocalizations by multiple announcers in multiple sports.

It’s when he announces the Nationals that I have to resist the urge to find him and, to quote Fred Sanford, give him one across the lips.

Is it really necessary to announce the Washington shortstop as “Cristian Goooooooooooooooooooozmonnnnnnnnn.” Or the right fielder as “Elijah Doooooooooooooooooooooooooks.” What is this, professional wrestling?

It’s not just me who finds this annoying. It’s a frequent topic of conversation in and out of the pressbox, and I’ve yet to find anyone who likes it. That type of theatricality might be okay in the WWE, or maybe in the minor leagues somewhere, but this is neither of those.

I don’t know, Phil. The WWE and MLB do have their fair share of steroids and prima donnas. I might also suggest never attending a minor league game. You’d hate it for the amount of fun and pizzaz people have there.

For a guy who loathes bloggers because they aren’t ever in the locker room, Wood’s view has an amateurish quality that rivals any high schooler with a computer and time on his hands. The announcer doesn’t do it for anyone in the press box. He does it for the thousands of people who actually paid for a ticket, not for the guy who flashes his media badge and then disappears into the press box to read the paper and check his Facebook page.

Sorry, Phil. The Jurassic Period is over. Call this a changing of the guard. The game is evolving and being passed down to the next generation. It might pick some things up that you might not like, but PLENTY of other people not in the locker room or press box do. It happened with my father and it is no doubt going to happen to me with my daughter. But the naaaaame emphasis isn’t anything new. I’ve gone to sporting events for nearly 29 years and never have walked out of a stadium, park, rink, or field that didn’t have some sort of call like that.

Maybe the announcer does it because some old fart from the yesteryear has already nailed him in the face and now he can only say “Goooooooooooooooooooozmonnnnnnnnn” because of his sore jaw.

Someone beat you to the punch, Phil.

On a 3-2 pitch to David Ortiz last night, Nationals starter Craig Stammen had a moment where he mentally lost his pitches. Instead of throwing his sinker, he threw a change up. It was that one moment of loss that led to the Nationals 6-4 defeat at the hands of the Boston Red Sox and a 20-49 record. Ortiz, the tired and beached whale of a designated hitter of the Banger League, did the only thing he knows how to do in the game: jacked a 3-run home run.

You can’t really blame Stammen for this. Young, rookie pitchers thrown into the meat grinder like he has are expected to make mistakes. It’s part of the game and part of any pitcher’s growth. No, you can’t blame Stammen, not when the organization he is in seems to accept losing as part of it’s culture. Let’s face it, the Nationals are good, but they are only good at losing right now. It has become a way of life.

Just look at last night’s game for example and only last night’s game. The Nationals saturated themselves in a state of LOSING. Last night they ultimately LOST the game, but they also LOST their powerhouse hitter to a wrist injury who seems to have LOST a lot of that power and drive he had experienced in five previous seasons. They are now back on a two game LOSING streak and LOST any momentum they gained from taking the previous series from Toronto. The Nats have now set themselves up to get swept  for the eighth time this season if they LOSE today, but that never would have happened if they didn’t LOSE last night. They have set themselves up for another fall.

Let’s face it, when your TV color man goes on Twitter and tweets, “Thanks Red Sox Nation for helping set new attendance records I’m [sic] DC! Sox have great, loyal fans!” then you ultimately know deeply ingrained losing has become on your team. I mean Rob Dibble baring his ass to the rival team? I’d never thought I’d see the day. Of course, opening your doors to legions of bandwagon opposing fans, marketing your product towards the fans that won’t ever come back to the Park after today’s game, selling the opposing team’s merchandise in your team store, and ultimately alienating the only fans that continue to give one toot about this team who will still be here after the smell of drunk Bostonians has been long washed away off the Park seats is a recipe for only one thing: more losing.

You could argue that this is all bull because the young starting pitching isn’t doing that bad. In fact, they might be doing better than expected. They are feeding off each other, being competitive against each other, trying to outdo one another for the benefit of the team which is how it should be. But those youngsters haven’t been around as long as the veterans of this team have. They haven’t had the time to soak in the futility and desperation yet. But give it time. The FAs the Nationals picked up off the heap already came in with a loser’s mentality even if they didn’t know it. They were picked up off the trash heap, no one wanted them because they weren’t really that good. They knew they were coming into D.C. as spare parts. That isn’t really an atmosphere that promotes winning.

I remember Ryan Zimmerman’s post-game interview at the end of last season’s historic Home Opener. After hitting the walk-off home run and giving such an electric charge to DC Baseball, he challenged, “We are tired of losing.” Four days later, a nine-game losing streak started and it seems it hasn’t stopped since. 

I guess the Nationals weren’t that tired after all. The question is: when will they be drained?

The day they truly are should be a day of hope, indeed.

 

Twitter, originally uploaded by tiago_custodio.

Or tweet, or whatever they call it.

Yes, the Nationals Inquisition has finally caved and joined the nerd revolution. You can now follow us on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/natsnq

We’ve been tossing this idea around for awhile now and know of several other Nationals blogs that use this service to varying degrees already. In fact, it was talking to the other bloggers during Blogging Night that finally sold the idea on us. Whether or not it is successful or how we are going to fully implement it with the actual blog remains to be seen.

For now we plan to use it for a variety of smartass comments, drunken posting, blog updates, and Nationals news that didn’t make the main page. We’ll also “tweet” a few games for your pleasure and will be sure to let you know which ones beforehand. In the near future you will be able to snag the Twitter directly from the NQ homepage, but for now, during this trial run, just type in the address.

We are moving up in the world or down, depending on how you view it. There will be no pictures of us taking our own photo in the mirror in our underwear while the bathroom door is locked behind us. 

Sorry.

  

Kip Wells with the pitch against the NY Mets, originally uploaded by hazboy.

The Nationals Journal reports that the Kip Wells experiment has ended as he was DFA’d today and pitcher Tyler Clippard was called up from AAA Syracuse. Some info on the two:

Clippard, 24, who was 1-1 in two starts last season, moved exclusively to the bullpen in 2009 and has flourished. In 14 appearances since May 18, he has worked 19 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run. He is 4-1 with one save and a .92 ERA this season.

Wells, 32, was 0-2 with two saves and a 6.49 ERA in 23 relief appearances with the Nationals this season.

The day the Nationals signed Wells was the day we all knew he was doomed and wouldn’t work out. That was a desperation signing in an attempt to find lightening in a bottle, a bottle former GM Jim Bowden drank and took with him to L.A.

Clippard has been a bit of a mystery. Why he wasn’t called up sooner is a call for much debate, but he seems to have thrived since being switched to a reliever which would make sense since the Nationals label him as “durable.”

I’m not lying. They call him durable in the 2009 Nationals Media Guide. It’s like the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook for the Nationals. It’s a pretty sweet read the Nats gave to us for free last Saturday.

I read it in the bathroom all the time.

Last night’s Nationals vs. Red Sox game could have gone better. It was a hard loss to swallow, so much so, I found myself upchucking into my mouth this morning when I was going over the headlines and reports from the game. No, it wasn’t the lopsided score of 11-3. Nor was it the bullpen blowing yet another game or the offense not showing up to play ball. That sort of thing is expected when a 20-47 team with shaky talent and coaching takes on a powerhouse that has talent up and down the line-up and doesn’t take losing lightly in any sense of the word. That usually means that team goes 20-48 by the end of the 9th inning which was the case sadly.

I’m not even really that upset that Nationals Park got swarmed by a legion of festering bandwagon drunks which led to the attendance record of 41,517. God knows I am more than happy to let the team fleece them of their money on overpriced T-shirts and booze so the Nats can put that money to use elsewhere in the organization. 

No, I am more inclined to vomit when I read stuff like THIS and read headlines like, “Red Sox Nation in DC: Record crowd cheers 11-3 win.” That sort of thing makes my English Muffin want to make a resurrection. These things, in fact, anger me to the point where I sometimes want to chop my hands off so I can never blog again. There is that old sports saying, “This is OUR house” that tells the opposing team that they will play by house rules and you will not run us over in our own place.

I know the Nationals are all about going International and D.C. is the breadbasket of the American Dream, but since when did they post a sign on the outside of the stadium that reads, “Mi casa, su casa?” That isn’t even in english, let alone should it be true.

What is going on DC? And when I say that, I am talking to you, the fans. What is going on? Why did we just break an attendance record and did it only by inviting with open arms one of the Top 5 Worst Fanbases in the Major Leagues? Why does the team feel the need to invite disreputable fans like the ones that belong to the Phillies and sell the opposing team’s merch IN THE NATIONALS TEAM STORE? The Nationals just got their asses handed to them so why were there cheers of excitement coming out of Nationals Park all night? What gives DC?

Why are you not going out to these games when you know your house is about to be invaded by hooligans? Why aren’t you out there defending the territory and supporting the troops? I really want to seriously hear from you. I want to gauge the mood and reasons. If I get some responses, I’ll return to this post later and we’ll discuss. 

I know I am thinking very primitive here, very naively. I understand that and I am doing it on purpose because I want to stroke that side of the beast for a little while. Am I the only one sickened by having these teams take over Nationals Park? Am I the only one that has the balls to say that, “Yeah, I am pissed off at the team and how they are playing and how the team is being run, but you know I am pissed off at the fans too?”

I don’t know. I’m not sure where I was going with this post, but I open the floor to you to either talk or to dance.

We’ve blogged so much about last Saturday’s Blogger’s Night that the keyboard keys were getting stuck to our fingers and people were going around giving us weird looks and calling us “Edward Keyboardhands.” I didn’t write that joke. It was written by another staff member before I had him hung in the gibbet-irons. But back on point, we’ve been working really hard the past few days with representing the Natosphere and doing multiple write ups, hell, we have even begun the building of a new feature to debut on this site in the near future. So we decided to put it in cruise control tonight and just do a nice, simple, posting. I promised you a final Blogging Night recap post, but I want to sit on that one for awhile so the event can finish germinating in my mind.

Tonight, we give you your Nationals news in quick, easy to read blurbs. It isn’t laziness, it is relaxing. Currently we are writing this blog by candlelight to the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf and with a Jack Daniels bottle nearby. We are also keeping watch on the Nats/Boston game. Top of the 7th, 4-3 Boston and Taravez looks a little in trouble. Though the Nats are being out hit, it looks like they are putting on a show. Or trying to.

Like a local community theater trying to put on a version of Jesus Christ Superstar but thinking they can do it without the character of Jesus.

Bird Droppings – Old news, but I feel the need to report it. The Nationals dropped the last game of the series against the Toronto Blue Jays, 9-4. It snapped the Nats longest winning streak of the season at four. Shairon Martis threw 38 pitches in the first inning that lead to four runs.

The Nationals pitchers are feeding off each other and trying to 1-Up the outing of the guy before him. Competition is good. Let’s just hope they don’t try to replicate this outing and try to prove who can blow it the most. To use a Spaceballs reference: “It’s the Nationals, sir. They’ve gone from suck to blow.”

Matt Chico Sighting - Guess who is wandering around the clubhouse tonight, but no one has been able to get a picture of the mystical creature? Starter Matt Chico. What is he up to these days?

He will have a bullpen session on Wednesday and then join Double-A Harrisburg to continue his rehab assignment on Friday. Chico has already pitched three games for Class A Hagerstown this season, giving up three runs in 11 innings.

There is no timetable as to when Chico will return to the Major Leagues. Chico hasn’t pitched in a game for the Nationals since May 21, 2008.

During Blogger’s Night, manager Manny Acta mentioned that Chico would most likely return to the Nationals by the end of the year when the younger arms are shutdown.

An unconfirmed report says they saw the Matt Chico creature lumber across the locker room, grab a sandwich, and then lumbered out of view. Government officials say it was a weather balloon.

Fenway Park Sucks – Ditching their prima donna attitudes, the Boston Red Sox showed a surprising bit of unity tonight and unanimously agreed that Nationals Park is a pretty darn cool place. Said David Ortiz:

“Boston needs a place like this.”

Boston needs a lot of things, but only the Romans can give it them. You know, stuff like the aqueduct, sanitation, education, and spears with metal heads.

The Birth Of A Nats Blog – It’s amazing the amount of Nationals blogs that keep popping up. It’s like if you throw water on them, they multiply. If you feed them after midnight, they turn into blogs like the NQ. Give them whiskey, they take your daughters. Anyways, the newest blog on the block is Nats By The Numbers which hopes to find it’s own niche in discussing the “jersey numbers, uniforms, and the aesthetics of the Washington Nationals.” 

It is only four days old, but the idea and layout look terrific and I like the use of the uniform numbers in the graphics. Check it out and keep your eye on it. It looks pretty damn cool. Not as cool as this blog, but really, what blog is?

Don’t answer that.

Thank God it is an off day today. Now I don’t feel so bad for having to play catch up from Bloggers Night. There will be this posting about interviewing  a few of the players and then there will be on final post about the overall feelings about Bloggers Night that will encompass final thoughts and things I just couldn’t fit anywhere else. Then we will be through with it all. I promise– except for a Mike Macdougal dog story that will have your heart strings plucked, but that won’t be rushed to the forefront of our schedule. We’ll treat it as a late night aperitif.

On our itinerary  it said that we would get 10 minutes with Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman. This is exciting enough, but everyone lost their breath when Dunn, Zimmerman AND Willie Harris and Nick Johnson walked in as well. It was sort of an added bonus though Harris and Johnson were quick to say they were only there to watch, especially after they realized the bloggers were the ones asking the questions. However, it was in good fun, lots of jokes, informal, but serious at the same time. Dunn was definitely the most vocal and comfortable with handling the new media press. Zimmerman seemed bored at times and we caught him at several points watching the ESP vs. RSA soccer match that was playing on a TV nearby. Willie Harris was nice enough to go back on what he said and talk with us. Nick Johnson was an observer who injected a few jokes at points.

Harris, Dunn, and especially Johnson were caught stuffing the chew in their mouths like crazy. And here we all thought sunflower seeds were the new thing in the MLB.

What  Surprises Adam Dunn About Playing In DC So Far:

“What surprises me is not good, you know, how we have played, that surprises me.”

Zimmerman’s Thoughts On The Young Pitching Staff:

“I think it’s great having such young starting pitchers who are pitching so well at such a young age. I think starting pitching is the hardest thing you can go out and get and obviously the most expensive thing for them to go out and get and for them to show what they got and to know that you have them here for at least four, five, six years without having to go out and get anybody I think is going to help us get better in the future.”

Nick Johnson On Patience When Up To Bat:

“I don’t know, it’s back and forth for me and sometimes we talk about being patient and you know– I don’t mind if my lower half is good.”

*At this point Dunn, Zimmerman, and Harris break out into hysterical laughter.

“– my lower half of my swing is [Tape fart at this point. Our apologies] uh, it works for me.”

Adam Dunn On Patience When Up To Bat:

*Still laughing* “Oh, God, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s really good and sometimes it’s bad. I think sometimes, what Nick was trying to say, is we are too patient sometimes, we get pitches early in the count that we don’t take advantage of it and then we have to take their pitch therefore, I strike out 200 times. It’s something I’m trying to work on. You know, walks are good, but a lot of times there are a lot of bad walks and what I mean is you take a pitch early in the count with men in scoring position and then you take the walk. To me that is a bad walk. I mean, it is good, but you gotta take the good with the bad. I wouldn’t say I like walking, but it happens.

NICK: “I like to walk.”

“Okay, I’ll do it for you.”

Willie Harris On His Positive Attitude In The Clubhouse:

“Mainly it’s because I know I’m going to have way more good days than I am going to have bad days. Guys feed off that kind of stuff, even when you aren’t playing so well like I am right now, not getting a whole lot of hits, but a lot of the younger guys like Anderson and Alberto are here and they are looking so you kind of have to think positively and keep everybody upbeat. I don’t want to go around pouting and have it rub off on everyone else so I just try to stay positive, play the game hard all the time, play the game right, and if you do all that, the game will come back to you eventually.”

Dunn On The Current Win Streak:

“I didn’t think we’d come out and play as badly as we have played. I know a lot of people have said it, but we have a lot better team than what we’ve shown. I think now you are starting to see that, our young pitching is coming together, we are playing a lot better defense, I mean the last five or six games we’ve played pretty good, really good baseball. I think it’s a bright spot and I think our second half is going to be really good, I really think we are going to have a good second half. Our young pitching is coming along and if we stay healthy I think our second half– nobody wants to play us now, I mean there is nobody that wants to play us right now and we have the worst record in baseball. It will turn around.”

Dunn On If The Bad Press And Bad Season Bothers Him:

“Yeah it bothers you. But then again you gotta look back on yourself , I mean we did it to ourselves. No one else did to us. We did it ourselves. It would be like someone making fun of your family. You’d be mad about that too.”

Dunn On Blogs:

“I’m not going to lie, I don’t even know what a blog is. I’m serious. Is it like Facebook?”

I would also like to point out that Nationals Pride has some more stories and video from this Q&A period. Major props to them.

Adam Dunn gots wood– and big sunglasses.

Elijah Dukes committing offensive crimes in a cage.

Willie Harris, you sly dog, you. A walk-off is in your future. If you only knew.

Rick Eckstein looking to turn boys into men in a non-Michael Jackson sort of way.

View of the game from the NQ’s Press Box position. We could get used to this.

They have been called geniuses, scoundrels, snake-oil salesmen, and Master Team Builders. They are both feared, respected, hated, and loved. They are Washington Nationals acting GM Mike Rizzo and Team President Stan Kasten. They graced us with their presence in the Bloggers Press Box on Saturday night and gave us a few minutes to shoot some questions at them while Teddy stood by getting bored with all our jock talk.

All he wanted to do was race–

Rizzo and Kasten On Their Thoughts On How The Team Is Doing This Season:

“Perplexed.”

Rizzo On The Types Of Players He Loves To Go For:

“I love, and what this team needs more of is players that are athletic, speedy, and good defensively. That is what we are going for. In terms of pitching I like to look at hard throwing sinkerball pitchers.”

Kasten On The State Of The Young Pitching Staff:

“I had Bobby Cox on the phone the other day and I kid you not: Bobby Cox thinks we are on the right pitching track. It reminds him of how we built up the Braves pitching staff.”

Rizzo On Sending Lastings Milledge To The Minors:

“Milledge needed to figure things out.”

Kasten On Manny Acta:

“Manny and I are completely in sync.”

Rizzo On Options and Opportunities:

“We have lots of interest right now from other teams about 10 to 12 players, both on the Major League roster and in the minors. Right now all doors and options are open to us.”

 
The dynamic duo talked to us for about 15 minutes, up until game time. At one point Teddy leaned his big head against the wall like he was completely bored. Teddy and Rizzo went back to their respective duties elsewhere, but Kasten visited the Blogger’s Press Box several times throughout the night and was surprised how serious this blogging business was…

Nope. No room for craziness in Natstown. We be all serious beeeeziness here.