My brain is filling with crazy thoughts - well, two stand out now and one is much more crazy than the other. To avoid a craziness overload (and pad my post total), I'll break them out one at a time this week.
We'll go less crazy first, particularly in light of Nats.com posting this story that THE debut will be June 8. Sweet, because I already own a ticket.
Let's take crazy back a couple of months first. Let's suppose when I did my poll about which pitcher would lead the team in victories I'd included some cat named Luis Atilano.
How loud would the laughter have been? How crazy would I have been to even think about that? Man, that's just NUTS. Who?
So here we are two months into the season. One-third done. A .500 record and as many victories as the team had when Manny Acta got the ziggy last year at the All-Star break.
Luis Atilano isn't leading the team in victories and he won't lead the team in victories.
He is leading the starters in victories. With five. In six decisions. Talk about a nice week - who had ol' Luis going 2-0 in back-to-back starts with Tim Lincecum and Roy Oswalt as the opposition? Sure, he had some help today with Roy throwing a (minor) hissy fit that did (but shouldn't have) get him ejected. The runs explosion didn't come until late.
Look, I know exactly what the numbers say. Chris at Capitol Punishment had a good note or two about Luis in his post today. The guy has been pitching, it seems, with a horseshoe further up his fanny than Nyjer's head is up Nyjer's fanny. He strikes out barely more people than I would.
Still, he's 5-1. The Nats win when he starts. Is he the guy you take out of the rotation when Jee-SUS finally arrives?
Call me nuts. I wouldn't. Ugly may be ugly (not you Luis, your numbers) but 5-1 is 5-1. Do Stammen and Lannan have five wins combined? Throw in J.D. Martin and you're still two short. Stammen has started 10 times, has one win and an ERA a run or so higher than Atilano. Does he deserve to stay in the rotation?
Lannan has pitched pretty well lately, much better than he was earlier. Right now, I rank the five starters this way: Livo, Lannan, Luis, Martin, Stammen. You start from the back when making changes, right?
Good Lord I cannot wait until June 8. That's draft night, right? Wow and more wow.
2 comments:
I wish Atilano would be given a little credit. Yes the K numbers aren't great, but getting people out is getting people out any way it can be done!
It's funny how this June sets up like the one in 2005. A crappy division in interleague play and another raft of struggling teams. Maybe another magical early summer run in the works?
FYI, Draft is June 7, not June 8. To me, Stammen hasn't done much to deserve losing his spot. JD Martin should know what the score was when he got called up. He's got to be lights out in all of his starts to get some consideration and one of the others has to fail.
This movie with Atilano has pretty much played before, right? Martis was a lucky dog last year and on a weaker team he stayed in the rotation longer than he should have. It's Martin and then Atilano that I would send down. Atilano needs to go somewhere when he can get innings and be encouraged to pitch to contact.
He was fine today, but it's the Astros and he was pitching with a lead and he still gave up a home run to the opposing relief pitcher.
I appreciate his efforts, but I'm not going to be fooled into saying he's better than Stammen yet.
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