First Shut Out. First Lost Series

The Nats/Phillies game just ended, and for the first time in the 2016 season, the Nats have been shut out. Since the team lost last night, they have also lost their first series of the year,  since tomorrow will be the last of the 3 games. Our record is now 14-6, and the Mets, who have won 6 games in a row, are 1.5 games behind us for first place in the NL East.

For whatever reason, our bats simply didn’t come alive tonight, even with the immortal Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy in the line up. You would think that after sweeping the Twins and the dramatic walk off homer in Sunday’s 16 inning marathon would have kept the winning fires going. Instead we’re stirring up dying embers as we prepare for a road trip to St. Louis and Chicago.

The good news is the Gio pitched well tonight, going into the 7th inning. We also got word that Ben Revere may be ready to resume playing next week, so that will add some potency to our lineup. While I have great hopes for Michael Taylor, he has not been a good lead off man.

We’re still in first place and the season is still very young. Let’s go out and win tomorrow and keep on winning series on the road and at home.

Nats Improve to 3-1 with a 4-2 Win over the Marlins

Jayson Werth as he gets his first hit of 2016

Winning Pitcher-Joe Ross

Losing Pitcher-Tom Koehler

Save-Jonathan Papelbon

Today’s game started out a little rocky, as the first pitch from Joe Ross was a stand up triple, sending Dee Gordon to third. Fortunately Ross settled down, allowing only one run to score. Tony Two Bags Rendon hit a double and Harper hit an RBI to bring Rendon home, making the score 1-1. It was a tie game until the 7th inning, when both Werth, with his first hit of the 2016 season, and Clint Robinson, playing so that Ryan Zimmerman could have a day off, hit back to back RBIs that made the score 4-1. Treinen took the mound in the 8th and went lights out, and at the top of the 9th Papelbon came on to save. The only blip in his effort was a homer he gave up to Christian Yelich. Other than that, Pap induced strikes and outs to close the game with his third save of the year.

Highlights of the game: Werth, Taylor and Robinson getting their first hits of the 2016 season.

Concerns going forward: Ben Revere’s MRI confirms that he has an oblique strain. Given how long it takes these things to heal, I don’t expect him back before early June. Once the strain has healed, he’ll have to rehab, then go to either AA or AAA to get back into the swing of the game before rejoining the lineup. Not too wild with Taylor as our lead off batter. Out in center field he’s awesome. At the plate? For every homer or hit, there are at least a dozen strikeouts.

National League East Standings:

Nationals     3-1

Mets               2-3 (Loss to Phillies today, and Matt Harvey is 0-2 for the first time in his career)

Philadelphia  2-4

Miami             1-3

Atlanta           0-4

Jayson Werth and Clint Robinson-7th Inning Heroes of the Miami-Nats Game 4/10/16

Nats are off to a 2-0 Start

It’s been a good season so far. The Nats are 2-0 having feasted on the Braves at Turner Field. In both games the Nats came from behind to win, and both wins were in dramatic fashion. On Opening Day (why isn’t opening day a national holiday?) Bryce Harper shrugged off the inevitable boos of the Atlanta crowd and hit his first homer of the season, maintaining his tradition of hitting a homer on opening day. Scherzer was on the mound and he pitched well, despite giving up a homer to Freddie Freeman. Daniel Murphy proved his worth when he hit a solo homer, bringing the score to 2-2. Nats nation nearly had a heart attack when Felipe Cordero and Shawn Kelly put men on base, with Kelly throwing 4 balls (!) to walk in the go-ahead run. Fortunately we have some pretty good bats this season, and an RBI from Michael A. Taylor, followed by a beautiful RBI from Murphy put us ahead, allowing Pap to come to the mound and go lights out in the 10th.

Last night’s game was also awesome. Strasburg pitched well, but the true gems of the night were new manager Dusty Baker and pinch hitter Matt den Dekker. With men on base in the 7th inning, and the Nats down by a run, Dusty decided to pinch hit for Stras. den Dekker, who had just arrived in Atlanta in mid game, came to the plate, waited for the pitch he liked, and BAM! Out into right field. Nats are up 3-1 and this time, both Cordero and Kelly were masterful on the mound. Pap did put two men on base in the 9th with singles, but he shut the game down in masterful fashion, once he got his signs clear with Ramos.

I’m very pleased with Dusty’s management so far. Before the game he jokingly predicted that den Dekker would save the game with a hit in the 8th or 9th inning. It happened in the 7th, but it shows that Dusty has an instinct for this game as to when to pinch hit, when to do the double switch, and when to trust your gut. A 2-0 start. I love it.

The only sad note is that CF and lead-off hitter Ben Revere is on the DL with an apparent oblique injury. The team physician will have an MRI of Revere’s rib cage done today, but I’m having nightmares of the core injury Dennard Span had last year, along with Rendon’s oblique injury, both of which made the 2015 season one to forget. The good news is with Taylor and den Dekker in the line up, it looks like we can handle business until Revere returns.

Nats are in first place in the NL East…for now.

Matt den Dekker after saving the game with his awesome pinch hit in the 7th

First Game of the 2016 Nats Season

Well, it wasn’t the first official game, since last night’s match-up between the Twins and the Nats was an exhibition game. A friend of mine pointed out that this could have been called a Nats-Senators game, since the Twins were the old Senators team. In any event, it was a great time. The weather couldn’t have been better, and all the players looked pretty good, despite Jayson Werth missing two catches out in left and Tanner Roark committing a throwing error from the mound. The most pleasant part of the game was seeing Trea Turner, our future shortstop, make a sac fly in the 8th that gave us back the lead in a 3-3 tie game. That kid is pure gold, and I look forward to seeing him again.

Papelbon came on to close in the 9th, and there were some scattered boos as he took the mound, but the boos dissipated as he quickly retired the side, thus doing his job as our closer. I know that a lot of people are still angry at him for the Great Choke Out, but the dude has apologized, Harper has said it’s all over, and we have him on contract for the 2016 season. Deal with it.

Has the GOP Lost the White Working Class?

The amazing  electoral success of Donald Trump among the white working class has shocked nearly every pundit and political expert. Since the wave election of 1968 the white working class has nearly always broken hard for Republicans, whether it was Richard Nixon’s call for law and order, Ronald Reagan’s question “are you better off now than you were four years ago”, George H.W. Bush’s “read my lips, no new taxes” or George W. Bush’s “my tax plan is simple: you pay taxes, you get a tax break”. 2016 is different. None of the establishment candidates (Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, George Pataki, etc.) have caught on with the white working class. No matter how many times each of the aforementioned candidates talked about tax cuts, cutting government regulation, gutting the Affordable Care Act, or any of the usual Republican standard platforms, white working class voters just didn’t vote for them.

Enter Donald Trump, who has never run for office, never held office, and is as crude and brash as a barker at a carnival. The vast majority of Trump’s rallies have taken place in downtrodden portions of the country that were in the shitter before the Great Recession of 2008. While those of us in the information and creative fields have recovered the wealth we lost in the Great Recession, those in the Rust Belt and other permanently depressed areas of the country are probably worse off than they were before the Great Recession hit. Trump hits the same themes over and over: trade deals don’t work for the average American, America doesn’t win anymore, he’s going to make America great again. If you haven’t finished high school, college is completely out of reach, and your best job is an $11.00 an hour in the service industry with no benefits, Trump’s words resonate a lot more than a cut in the capital gains tax.

Another intriguing aspect of Trump’s campaign is his foreign policy, which like everything else he says is simplistic and inconsistent. He wants to destroy ISIS, but he wants to get rid of NATO and other alliances we have with other nations. His call for destroying ISIS resonates with working class whites, who see Islamic terrorism as an existential threat to Western civilization, but his call to end our alliances, despite being a logical disconnect, also resonates. Why? Because the greatest burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been carried by working class families. The all volunteer force is one of the best paths out of the grinding poverty one sees in Appalachia, the trailer parks of Florida, the rust belt cities of Gary and Muncie, and the ‘hoods of the major cities. Trump has been brilliant with calling for taking the fight to ISIS without calling for additional sacrifice from the very people who have been fighting the wars.

So the question remains: has the Republican party lost the white working class? Perhaps for this electoral cycle, when the anger against those who are on winning side of the economic equation is truly palpable. The GOP is being torn apart by its business sector that wants a cut in corporate taxes and immigration reform so that they can have an abundant supply of cheap labor. Social conservatives want a full throated roar against all the elements in society that they feel are “wrong”, which has been the biggest push behind the wave of religious liberty laws. White working class voters have usually been treated with benign neglect by the GOP leadership, since those at the top of the party pyramid knew that Democratic campaigns for clean energy, same sex marriage, diversity, and stopping climate change were never going to play in Stilwell,  Oklahoma and other hardscrabble areas of the country. Voters in those areas were always going to vote Republican, so those at the top of the party could continue to focus on the true power brokers: business leaders and social conservatives. This year it looks like the white working class voter is leading a revolt against the power elites. Where it will lead no one knows right now.

This piece from Thomas B. Edsall brilliantly sums up the contempt that the GOP party elites have for the white working class Who Are the Angriest Republicans?

The Adam LaRoche Situation

By now everyone has read, heard and opined about Adam LaRoche’s decision to retire from baseball and to walk away from his $13 million contract with the White Sox. As an avid Nationals fan, I have always admired  LaRoche, and like all Nats fans, I had gotten used to seeing his son Drake with him at all games. LaRoche is a truly dedicated and devoted father, and he views having his son with him every day to be a part of his life. When LaRoche left the Nats for the White Sox, Drake continued to accompany his dad to the clubhouse every day, until White Sox team president Kenny Williams asked LaRoche to cut back on the amount of time Drake was spending in the team clubhouse. LaRoche ignored the suggestion, so Williams upped the ante and forbade Drake to come into the clubhouse. At this point a near mutiny broke out amongst the White Sox players, with nearly all of them refusing to take the field for an upcoming spring training game. LaRoche defused the situation by abruptly deciding to retire, stating that family time was more important than his career.

I have mixed feelings about this situation. On the one hand, I heartily commend LaRoche for being such a great father. There aren’t many dads that are this dedicated, and LaRoche was blessed with having a job that allowed him to take his son to work every day. There are very few people who can say that. From what I’ve read on Twitter and other sources, LaRoche’s teammates from both the Nats and the White Sox have said that Drake assisted clubhouse personnel with menial chores and teammates loved having him around. With all that being said, I’m not sure why LaRoche couldn’t meet Williams halfway. I know that there are 162 games in the season, with half of them on the road. The average player with a family also doesn’t live in his team’s hometown, making it extremely hard to maintain a semblance of family normality. As stated earlier, LaRoche is that rare exemplar of a father, but it would seem to me that some time spent with Drake in the clubhouse would be better than no time. In any event, I wish Adam and Drake LaRoche all the best in the years ahead. Hopefully we’ll see LaRoche back in MLB as a first base coach. In my baseball fantasy world, he comes back to the Nats.

Adam and Drake LaRoche at Nationals Park

My first time seeing Othello

Othello at the Shakespeare Theater in DC

For the first time in my life I saw Othello today, and I was entranced. This production was done at the Shakespeare Theater in DC, and Othello was portrayed as a Muslim, which is probably what Shakespeare meant when he called him “the Moor of Venice”. I’ve seen and read quite a few Shakespeare plays in my life, and I have to say that Iago is the definition of evil incarnate. I’ve never encountered a more malevolent villain in literature or theater, and I was impressed at how he expressed his hatred. It wasn’t “I hate Othello”, it was “I hate the Moor”. By reducing Othello to his racial and geographic origins, Iago can’t see Othello as a man, only as an object of his own bigotry.

As with most Shakespeare theater productions, the set was rather stark, which is fine with me, as it allows me to focus on the language and and nuance of the performance. The actors all wore British army uniforms from World War I, which had an added irony, as the UK was the ruler of Cyprus from 1877 until the mid twentieth century.

A very powerful performance, and one that will stay with me for the next several days.