It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Not Christmas, silly! Baseball season has arrived! As such, that means it's now time to have a look at my most favorite of baseball teams, the Washington Nationals.

We're going to start today's post from the cheap (yet really good) seats at Cooper Stadium in Columbus, OH, where the Nats played the Baltimore Orioles in preseason exhibition action. Cooper is the home stadium of the Nats' newest farm club, the Columbus Clippers, and it looks to me like the partnership has gotten off to a great start. First of all, I can't remember a time when the New York Yankees, Columbus' old Major League affiliate, actually came to Ohio and played a game. Of course, the Yankees don't have the same commitment to their farm system that the Nationals do. The Nats' loyalty to their top farm club was shown through and through by bringing not only the team, but the three main cogs in the managerial gears, President Stan Kasten, GM Jim Bowden, and part-owner and overseer of day-to-day operations Mark Lerner. In fact, Lerner himself threw the first pitch to Nationals catcher Brian Schneider:



The game itself showed that there is yet some promise in this Nationals team. The most notable performance was by starting pitcher Shawn Hill, who has only pitched a few real games in the big leagues. Despite a rocky second inning, the youngster threw seven solid innings, giving up only three runs and striking out six batters. Hill is expected to be one of the top pitchers of the Nats' future, right behind the ace of the lineup, John Patterson.

There were also some fine performances by newcomer Dimitri Young (who has definitely lost weight from his days in Detroit), second-year National Felipe Lopez, and the always-reliable Ryan Zimmerman. Young, despite being called out on strikes on a couple of questionable calls, did well to fight off Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera and he made a fine diving play at first base to snare in a grounder. Lopez, who also had a couple of nice defensive plays, also showed potential at the plate. In two at-bats, he rocked the ball to deep center, but couldn't get the ball past the fence. If he can just speed up his swing a little to pull the ball, he would have had a five-RBI game on Thursday.

Despite the solid showings by the opening-day starters, I think the best performance came from the backups in the eighth inning. While much of the Nats' offensive production in the eighth can be attributed to the atrocious performance by Orioles reliever Danys Baez and a number of fielding issues by his defense, the Nationals still managed to pull back from a 3-0 deficit and tie the game. That definitely shows a lot of heart coming from the bench, which is where teams need their best efforts coming from late in games.

Much like the bench, the Nats' bullpen put up a solid performance, allowing a total of two hits and striking out three batters. The two hits came off of closer Chad Cordero, but he also had two of the strikeouts, which means he looks to be ready to face a tough situation when the time comes.

All in all, while the Nationals do not look particularly stellar, they may just be able to pull off a few surprises this season. The four victories over the defending NL East champion New York Mets in spring training are something that this team can hang their hat on as they begin the regular season in about an hour. As we go into opening day, I don't see this team going to the playoffs or anything. But I do think this team can surpass 70 wins this season and finish maybe fourth in the East ahead of the Florida Marlins. I will close off this entry with some more pictures from the ballpark in Columbus.