[April 15th] -- The Washington Nationals looked great on Friday night. For about two innings. Then, "same old-same old" came back and bit them in the butt.

How does 2-9 grab you?

The Nats fashioned a nice start to Friday night's game against Dontrelle Willis & the Florida Marlins. After two innings, the boys had scored two runs on six hits. They got just three more hits, and one run, over the next seven frames, losing to the Marlins 5-3.

Now, on to the bad news (you know things are looking bleak when the good news was the team's 9th loss of the season). Ryan Drese left in the 5th inning after experiencing pain in his recently repaired right elbow. He was immediately placed on the 15 day disabled list (you know things are bad when a player is DL'ed before the game is over). Move over, Pedro Astacio. Make room for Ryan.

Jose Guillen strained some part of his body that wasn't hurting earlier in the day (I think there was only one of two of them left) and is day to day. He was replaced by Marlon Byrd, who has a neck injury following a run in with an Astro player last weekend. Jose Vidro's hamstrings have been giving him problems and left the game early too. How bad? I don't want to know.

What the heck is going on around here?

Any ideas on why Matt LeCroy started the game behind the plate, this coming less than 24 hours after manager Frank Robinson said that Jim Bowden's decision to send Wiki Gonzalez to New Orleans would force Brian Schneider to play "almost every day?" Maybe Frank is doing a little "in your face" with his boss? I think Frank is saying, okay, buddy, you want LeCroy to catch, FINE!, you've got it. Past Ball. Horrible throw to second on a stolen base attempt. Yep. I think Frank made his point.

Now, I'm a Ryan Church fan, but my gosh, he looked terrible, going 0-5 with three strikeouts. I can forgive the at bats against Dontrelle Willis, but his swing-and-a-miss to end the game against Joe Borowski was downright horrid. Joe Borowski???? C'mon Ryan.

The Washington Nationals are slowly becoming the New Orleans Zephyrs, or at least a major league version of that minor league team. A thin team is becoming thinner. A bad team is becoming badder. A long season is becoming longer.

Where is Robert Fick when you need him???

# posted by Farid Rushdi @ 8:52 PM