A badly needed win against a very bad team

If you haven't noticed, the Colorado Rockies are not a good baseball team. They are 44-72 and 15 games back of the San Diego Padres, who are just two games above .500. It takes a lot to be that far back in such a mediocre division, but the Rockies have what it takes to do the trick. Before we dismiss Colorado, though, we should be mindful that they've scored 70 more runs than the Nationals this year. In other words, this was a game the Nationals should have won, although no one can be very confident when it comes to the Nats these days.

Happily, the Nationals beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-2, in Colorado to keep pace with the Houston Astros and remain three games back in the wild card race. Despite playing in the most extreme hitter's park in a very long time, neither team put up the offense one normally sees in Colorado. Esteban Loaiza was particularly effective, giving up only one run, five hits, and three walks in 6 1/3 innings. Luis Ayala pitched one inning and gave up one run, a solo homer to noted power hitter Jorge Piedra. Joey Eischen closed out the eighth, and Chad Cordero pitched a perfect ninth for his major-league-leading 38th save.

The Nats scored all of their runs early. In the first, Brandon Watson walked, Jose Vidro singled, and Nick Johnson doubled Watson home. Jose Guillen then drove in both Vidro and Johnson with a single, and the Nationals led 3-0. In the fourth, Vinny Castilla walked and Brian Schneider doubled him in.

And that was the game. Oh, other than Cristian Guzman's obligatory error.

Interestingly, neither Vinny Castilla nor Preston Wilson, who both padded their stats in Colorado, got a hit. We were hoping that a return to the friendly confines of Coors Field would rejuvenate the Colorado couple's hitting strokes, but there doesn't appear to be anything capable of doing that right now.

So, the Nats beat one of the worst teams in baseball. No big deal right? Wrong. The Nationals are playing so badly that they'll take any win they can get. Of course, if that were their credo they would have played a very different series in Houston, when they had a chance to close the gap in the wild card race. Had that been their credo, they would have played each game like they had to win it, and they would have been very aggressive in doing the things necessary to build and then maintain a lead, like making early pitching changes when a pitcher looked to be tiring or approaching ineffectiveness.

Unfortunately, the Nationals didn't do that and never seemed to muster the urgency the situation required. In particular, Frank Robinson left Livan Hernandez in to pitch to Morgan Ensberg with the bases loaded in the sixth. It was clear by that point that Hernandez wasn't effective and didn't have his best stuff. Yet rather than bring in a relief pitcher, Robinson let Hernandez pitch to Morgan Ensberg with disastrous consequences--Ensberg doubled in two runs.

Given Robinson's apparent laid back approach in the Houston series, we were surprised to read that Robinson said this after tonight's game: "Two games is a must. We don't have to sweep, but to win two is a must. Anything less than that, it's a bad series. We got to pick it up. We have to start winning series."

Hey, Frank, what took you so long to come to this realization?