Ted Leavengood: It all goes back to Zimmerman

Ted Leavengood: It all goes back to Zimmerman
There are landmark moments that stand like Mount Rushmore looking down upon the crowd of gameday events that have transpired since the first pitch was thrown out at RFK Stadium in 2005. There was Jayson Werth's walk-off home run to send the Nationals to a Game 5 in the 2012 National League Division Series, Stephen Strasburg's 14-strikeout debut in 2010 and maybe Bryce Harper's breakout game against the Phillies when he stole home. But the launch date for the current Nationals team happened...
    

Ted Leavengood: Keeping our Navy Yard neighbors in our prayers

Ted Leavengood: Keeping our Navy Yard neighbors in our prayers
Events like those that transpired at the Navy Yard yesterday seem to plague our country with disturbing frequency. It is unfortunate that they happen at all, or that they happen in any neighborhood or any work place. But they came home yesterday to the Navy Yard, part of the neighborhood around Nationals Park. The most exciting thing happening Monday should have been the Braves series about to begin, but unspeakable tragedy intervened. The Navy Yard begins just across 1st Street from Nationals...
    

Ted Leavengood: Nationals' sun may be setting, but what a view

Ted Leavengood: Nationals' sun may be setting, but what a view
Five home runs in a 9-0 blowout, and still Gio Gonzalez completely stole the spotlight from Rick Schu's offense. He flirted with history for six innings, taking a no-hitter into the bottom of the seventh. Then one got away. It was so close, so close to being corralled by Adam LaRoche, so close to being foul, but it was a hit. Gonzalez left the mound at the end of the inning muttering to himself, but he finished the game off as a one-hit complete-game shutout. Just that one cheap hit. Gonzalez...
    

Ted Leavengood: Desmond is Nationals' rock-solid rock star

Ted Leavengood: Desmond is Nationals' rock-solid rock star
You will not find his picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated nor Rolling Stone, but Ian Desmond is a rock star. He is a rock, one of the most solid players on the Nationals roster, and he is emerging as a star who deserves to be recognized as such. Desmond's WAR rating currently stands at 5.2 for the 2013 season. Wins Above Replacement - or WAR - is the blue ribbon of baseball analytics. FanGraphs is one of two Web sites that provide ongoing WAR ratings. WAR provides one magical number...
    

Ted Leavengood: Finally making a game of it

Ted Leavengood: Finally making a game of it
The Nationals have started to dig out of the hole. The mark of the good ballplayer and the good team is competing consistently, going out and playing to win day-in and day-out. Washington has been consistently competitive in recent weeks. Even when they have been down early in games, they have punched and clawed their way back to key wins against the Royals and Phillies. Had they not lost six of seven games against the Braves during August, the Nationals would be 12 of 16 for the month,...
    

Ted Leavengood: Can Nats compete without more international signings?

Ted Leavengood: Can Nats compete without more international signings?
As an organization, the Washington Nationals have largely eschewed big international signings. Last week, they paid $900,000 for Anderson Franco and the front office has said it will be more aggressive in international markets moving forward. Prior forays have been disappointing at best. They got nothing except legal fees for the $1.4 million they paid to Dominican phenom Smiley Gonzalez in 2006. They tried again in 2009 when they landed Cuban emigre, Yunesky Maya, who commanded a four-year, $8...
    

Ted Leavengood: Playing for pride

Ted Leavengood: Playing for pride
Stephen Strasburg's complete-game shutout on Sunday was an exclamation point at the end of a weekend statement that the Nationals have found their sense of pride. It was the best game of Strasburg's young career. He has said many times that he wants to go deeper into seasons, deeper into games and it doesn't get much deeper than a complete-game shutout. Coming at the end of the weekend sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, it emphasized Davey Johnson's assertion that the team needed to play...
    

Ted Leavengood: Seeking 2.75 million heroes for 2013

Ted Leavengood: Seeking 2.75 million heroes for 2013
There was a point several months ago, before games against Atlanta became object lessons in what the Washington Nationals have failed to master. It was opening day, when last night's game was projected to be a key matchup between the key contenders for the NL East title. On that cool April day, Stephen Strasburg pitched seven shutout innings and Bryce Harper hit two home runs as the Nationals started the season with a 2-0 win against the Marlins. The beginnings seemed auspicious enough and...
    

Ted Leavengood: A bull market analysis

Ted Leavengood: A bull market analysis
The weather has been remarkably cool and crisp for late July, as if a hand reached out and parted the humid air to allow fans a better ending to the last homestand of July. On Sunday, before the team went to Detroit, there were little kids running the bases. Surprisingly, there were Nationals running them as well, and with almost as much joy and abandon. It was a perfect day in D.C., almost too perfect, like one of those television shows that paints a Washington political scene so much more...
    

Ted Leavengood: On NL mounds, youth being served

Ted Leavengood: On NL mounds, youth being served
Watching Matt Harvey and Zach Wheeler pitch for the New York Mets this past weekend, one has to be concerned about the quality arms that are sprouting like weeds around the National League. The Nationals still have the best threesome of starting pitchers in the NL, but the performance gap is narrowing. The Nationals avoided Jeff Locke in their first series against the Pirates, but he is right behind Harvey in the ERA race. Harvey leads all NL pitchers so far in 2013 with a 2.00 ERA to Locke's...
    

Ted Leavengood: The ugly downside of the nouveau riche

Ted Leavengood: The ugly downside of the nouveau riche
The Nationals front office wants to do something about the mess the team finds itself in. But where do they turn? Tom Boswell on Monday made the case that the Nationals have joined the club of elite teams with money enough to buy their way out of the jam. Washington has been a huge untapped media market for decades and one lonely winning season is all it took to bring baseball fans out of the woodwork in D.C. Average attendance in D.C .is almost 34,000 per game. Fans are coming out because...
    

Ted Leavengood: It's going to be a long and bumpy ride

Ted Leavengood: It's going to be a long and bumpy ride
Chad Tracy could be a poster child for this season. He has been down so long, that any kind of up looks awfully good. One wonders if the high expectations for a team still lost in the desert, are weighing this whole enterprise down. Would that Tracy home run have been enough last season? Tracy took out Jonathan Papelbon, which is no mean feat. It was Papelbon's first blown save of the season. But only scoring two runs against John Lannan, that is a mean feat. It is hard to watch Lannan...
    

Ted Leavengood: The third No. 1 truly arrives

Ted Leavengood: The third No. 1 truly arrives
Anthony Rendon leapt high into the air to snare a line drive during Sunday's game. It was not until the slow motion replay was available that the athletic nature of the play could be appreciated. Rendon was easily three feet or more off the ground when the ball settled into his outstretched mitt. His standing leap was one that most basketball players would covet. It was the kind of play that Danny Espinosa has been making routinely at second base for the past three seasons. When Rendon made...
    

Ted Leavengood: Winning is never a sure thing

Ted Leavengood: Winning is never a sure thing
The exuberant confidence that gripped Washington in March was a false dawn. It was not backed up by the play of the Nationals in Viera, Fla., and now two months later, the giddy talk about the postseason does not deserve ink. Happy talk does not win games. The precious commodities absolutely essential to winning - determination and focus -were not there in the spring and they have been missing for much of the first two months of the season. The hell-bent-for-the-World-Series Nationals have a...
    

Ted Leavengood: The malaise of near-.500 baseball

Ted Leavengood: The malaise of near-.500 baseball
The pitching match-up favored Washington at Nationals Park yesterday. Gio Gonzalez had home field advantage and the better record in the majors going for him against the Orioles' Jason Hammel. But he could not beat Hammel because he could not get Yamaico Navarro out. The scrub second-baseman, just up from Triple-A Norfolk, got a key hit for the Orioles in the fourth inning that proved the undoing of the Nationals. When things are going well for a team, their call-ups from Norfolk will...
    

Ted Leavengood: Is it time to fish or cut bait?

Ted Leavengood: Is it time to fish or cut bait?
The end of a tough road trip may not be the right moment, but the time is coming for the 2013 Nationals to fish or cut bait. The basic facts were laid out in a USA Today article Monday that cited the Nationals' offense as 29th in batting average and OBP, and 27th in runs scored among major league teams. It did not get better last night as another struggling pitcher, Ryan Vogelsong, found his A-game against the Nationals, crafting a three-hit shutout over five innings before leaving with a...
    

Ted Leavengood: A glass half-full

Ted Leavengood: A glass half-full
Losing two home games against the Chicago Cubs is disheartening and, after the excellent game Friday night, it was as if a switch just flipped and the progress of the prior week vanished in the flash of a Stephen Strasburg meltdown. There wasn't much to like on Saturday and Sunday unless you are a ticket rep for the Nationals. They are selling ducats like snow cones in 100-degree heat. Sky-high expectations bring in the fans and despite the cool weather and the failure of the real Nationals...
    

Ted Leavengood: Winning a championship, one series at a time

Ted Leavengood: Winning a championship, one series at a time
There was too much Sterling Marte and A.J. Burnett in Pittsburgh, too little Bryce Harper. Yet the Nationals still looked like the better team when all was said and done. The Pirates are capable of beating anyone. They won their series against the Nationals in 2012 and recently swept the Atlanta Braves. Pittsburgh has an obvious weakness in their bullpen, however. They lead the league in bases on balls and a good team will exploit that. On Saturday night, the Nats' veteran hitters took the...
    

Ted Leavengood: In Span, Nats have a glove of a different kind

Ted Leavengood: In Span, Nats have a glove of a different kind
Denard Span is no Michael Morse. Morse had the kung-fu warm-up cut - immortalized in his bobblehead - and there was his A-Ha walk-up music. Span had large shoes to fill on many levels. It did not get easier when Morse ripped up the Cactus League for nine home runs and a .357 batting average in spring training. It was reminiscent of the 2011 spring when he had his breakout season, hitting .303 with 31 home runs. There were more than a few call-ins to radio shows bemoaning the loss of Morse and...
    

Ted Leavengood: Déjà vu all over again

Ted Leavengood: Déjà vu all over again
There was something eerie watching Drew Storen work a perfect eighth inning against the Cardinals last night. More uncanny is the similarity of Ryan Zimmerman going on the DL on both April 20, 2012 and April 21, 2013. Zimmerman was hitting a lusty .224 with a single home run and seven RBIs last year and fast forward to Sunday, and Zimmerman is hitting .226 with a single homer. Last year, Bryce Harper was summoned just a week later. He was well ahead of schedule and started slow. But he caught...