What would you do?

Last night in the bottom of the first inning, the Nationals had Felipe Lopez on first and Ron Belliard at the plate with no outs and with the score tied 0-0. Ryan Zimmerman, the Nats' best hitter, was on deck.

What would you do in this situation?

There was obviously the potential for a big inning, and the Nats don't get enough of those opportunities. Zimmerman was in a slump, but this early in the season you have to hope that your best hitter starts to produce at some point soon. After Zimmerman was Dimitri Young, Austin Kearns, Ryan Church, and Brian Schneider. That isn't Murderers' Row, but it's the heart of the team's order. One would normally let them hit and see whether they could produce a big inning.

The Nationals didn't do that. Instead, Manny Acta put on a hit and run. Belliard promptly struck out and Lopez was caught stealing. Now Zimmerman was up with two outs and nobody on. Goodbye big inning.

We're not the kind of fans who blame the manager for everything. In fact, we think managers actually have a very limited effect on a team's won-loss record. Having said that, this is the kind of managerial mistake that we can't stand.

The Nationals have to assume that a single run in the first inning is not critical. That's because their pitching staff is so bad that there won't be many games where the opponent scores one run or less. More often, the Nationals are going to have to score at least a few runs to win.

Assuming that's true, a hit and run in this situation makes no sense. The most you can hope for is to put Lopez on second and avoid a double play. But since one run wasn't critical in that situation, Lopez on second wouldn't have added much and wasn't worth the risk of ending the play with one out and maybe two.

Last year Lopez stole 21 bases and was caught 6 times, meaning that he successfully stole a base 78% of the time, so sending Lopez wasn't, by itself crazy. But Belliard last year had an adjusted OBP of .347, meaning that he'll get on base 35% of the time, which isn't bad. If he gets on base and moves Lopez to second, the Nationals then have the chance for a really big inning.

And it wasn't like Belliard was facing Roger Clemens. Pitching for the Braves was Chuck James, who is pretty good, but inexperienced and definitely not great. With the heart of the order coming up, the Nationals had the opportunity to score some runs.

Had this been the ninth inning with the score tied, sending Lopez would have made sense. But it was the first inning and Acta had to assume that the Nationals needed a bunch of runs. A hit and run wasn't the way to reach that goal, and let's hope we don't see a lot more of these tricks early in games.