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Saturday, June 5, 2010

Keeping the Streak Alive

My wife and I got together last night with several other former newspaper couples and had a great time catching up and revisiting the glory days. Terrific evening and I knew nothing about the game until I got the final score. I immediately said "Clip and Save" and, sure enough, I was right.

Capps, I've concluded, is a much better pitcher when the defense makes routine plays. Couple of those in Houston and he'd have 20 saves now. I'd say Clippard is back on track but the last time I raved about him, he went off the schneid so I won't say anything good about him ever again.

I also concluded that maybe the team would do better if I saw the game after it had been played. Watching it in recent days wasn't doing much good. So I decided to do that toda *** oh, wait, I'm going.

Well, when I'm there live, the Nats are 5-0. Might be the most impressive streak in baseball this season.

I'm actually going courtesy of the team. It's Bloggers Day. That's right, the TEAM is inviting us to come out of Mom's Basement for the day and act like real media. Actually, I hope we act better (kidding guys, KIDDING). They have all kinds of stuff planned for us, including some interviews. Poor Jim Riggleman. He does this twice a day with the (semi) legit crowd and now has to put up with it from us? Whew.

Seriously, it is nice of the Nats to at least recognize the online community exists in so many forms and fashions. The media world is a changed monster (I asked Rigs about that last season) and the Nats do a pretty nice job of dealing with that change.

The team even issued regular media credentials to the online outlets that try to operate as more news and information stations. They did not issue credentials to online outlets that are more opinion, commentary, rants, etc., like this one. Nor should it. I'm media in the real world but not media in this world. When you have "Fanboy" in your title, it's tough to claim the non-bias real media needs to have to do its job properly. Not to mention being a Looser.

A majority of blogs are essentially online diaries. Sharing my weirdo thoughts with the world through a computer. We are not media, nor should we claim to be.

That said, it is nice to know the Nats know we're out there and nice of them to let us inside the ropes once in a while.

And because Riggleman is so busy anyway and is taking on some extra duties with this deal today, I've done him a solid and I will present him with his lineups for the rest of the homestand. I'm sure he'll appreciate that.

Guess who's starting in right on Wednesday? I'm going to do busy Mike Rizzo a solid, too, and get that deal done. I'm Facebook friends with the agent, I can make it happen.

6 comments:

Mike said...

Any pitcher is a much better pitcher when the defense makes routine plays.

That's to disparage neither Capps nor your observation. If anything, it should bring a blush to the cheeks of us :: raises hand :: who worshiped for too many years at the altar of HR / RBI / OPS, to the exclusion of defense (hello, Matt Stairs). One hopes we're smarter now.

Good luck with your assistant manager / GM duties. You will have a full week in front of you.

MikeHarris said...

I can multi-task. I'm geeked for it. A lot is riding on my success, so I need to make it happen.

Hope to see you today.

Anonymous said...

I'd say Clippard is back on track but the last time I raved about him, he went off the schneid so I won't say anything good about him ever again.

Going off the schneid is a good thing, dude. Being on the schneid is bad.

For reference, consult that old Seinfeld episode with the joke about being on or off the wagon.

MikeHarris said...

Well, hell. Can't believe I messed up my slang.

Going off SOMETHING is a bad thing. I thought it was schneid. Now I'm really confused!

bdrube said...

It was actually Clip, STORE and Save last night. Literally in that order.

I was in the Diamond Club seats thanks to Red Carpet Reward (and boy is THAT ever sweet). After six innings of watching the Reds struggle to make solid contact with Livan's amazing junk, it was a burst of adrenelin to see Clippard and Storen busting heaters past them. Either of those two could step in as closer if Capps falters or get injured. We are in a great situation with our bullpen now. And who would have thunk THAT a year ago?

BTW-I'm 6-0 on the season now. :)

Anonymous said...

Going off SOMETHING is a bad thing. I thought it was schneid. Now I'm really confused!

It is the schneid, you just had the direction wrong. When a player is going bad, it is said that he needs to get off the schneid. (I'm sure Brian Schneider just loves the term.) No one ever wants to get on the schneid, except maybe for Mrs. Schneid. But if he's on the schneid, even she probably doesn't want to hop on.