This isn't (or shouldn't be) that big a deal

The press is focusing on two things this morning, one which doesn't seem to matter much to us and the other which is no surprise.

The first is Livan Hernandez' decision last night to divide his effects among the Nationals faithful behind the dugout. Why should we care that Hernandez exploded in anger after pitching badly in a game the Nationals should have won? He's a competitive guy and was probably angry that he hadn't met the challenge of bringing the Nationals back into a tie for the wild card. Sure, he shouldn't have displayed his anger so publicly, but it's not like he was threatening to leave the team. We've seen that before from Livan, and if this outburst in a precursor to another such episode, well, then we'll condemn Hernandez, but not now.

The second issue is Jose Guillen's decision to rest his shoulder. Don't get us wrong, we're upset that Guillen won't be in the lineup on a daily basis, but let's be honest: Guillen has been terrible lately. His stats in the last seven days are awful: .211 OBP, .222 SLG, .433 OPS. He hasn't hit a homer since July 17, and his slugging percentage has dropped almost 50 points in the last month (.540 on July 5; .501 today). There's something wrong with Guillen, and he isn't the same player he was in June, so it's not surprising that he wants to rest. Given that he's not playing well, that normally would help the Nationals both now and during the stretch drive, assuming that rest heals his injury. Players suffer these type of injuries over the course of a long season, and good teams have to be able to deal with, and rise above, these setbacks. The obvious hole in applying this logic to the Nationals is that they don't have much of a bench. Of course, had they shored up their bench at the trade deadline they'd be in a better position to handle this kind of injury.