Hey, let's just screw with what worked.

You know that year that Nick Johnson proved he was for reals? 2006, it was. He did little things like..finish 4th in the league in OBP (.428), 10th in OPS (.948), 7th in doubles (46), 6th in adjusted OPS+ (149), 9th in times on base (268), 6th in Offensive Win % (.718), and 7th in intentional walks (15). He also hit .290 with .526 Slg with 23 HRs, blah blah blah.

Well, it turns out that the entire year, Nick was swinging like a moron. He's lucky he made any contact at all!

It turns out that newly hired hitting coach for the Nationals, Rick Eckstein, locked himself in his basement and watched videos of Nick swinging. He had some ideas about Nick's swing, and brought him over to his house. They watched the videos, had a discussions, then decided,

They want Johnson to master a new swing."I've been doing it wrong my whole life," Johnson said Saturday.

My God, man. Imagine if he could swing like a competent two-handed two-footed human being!

I was all for letting Lenny Harris (the old hitting coach) go after last years futile plate performance by the Nats. A change couldn't hurt, after all. But (deep breath) ...let me see if I get this right...you want to have Nick The Stick change his swing? Something he hasn't done since High School? Really? Like, really really?

If this ends poorly, Eckstein becomes my new Ray King. I will be obsessed with making his life miserable, and will be purchasing a rocket launcher from some post USSR stock pile to write his name on yelling at him about how rotten he is. While shaking my finger at him quite aggressively.

Speaking of post USSR...Alexander Ovechkin (Russian Superman to you and me) scored another hat trick last night. Ho-hum. Whoop-dee-do. This guys becoming more predictable than the Mets choking in September. I did have a chance to catch up with him after the game last night (flights to Florida are cheap these days, folks), and I asked him how he was feeling.



As you can see, the man is very quiet (might need to click the picture to hear his quote), yet very deadly. This Feb 22 Penguins game is looking like so much fun, right Puttzy?