The solution to all of Cristian Guzman's fielding problems

Hi there. Hey, did you see last night's game? You did? Yikes, huh!? You didn't? Ah, you missed the debacle of all debacles. I'm actually not sure whether to recommend you try and see it, or congratulate you on having missed it. It was... well... shitty. I'm talking rolling around in it for 500 yards Shawshank Redemption shitty. Steinberg has a really good wrap up with some screen grabs here.

I have no ideas to help Ryan Zimmerman, who grounded into two double plays last night . I have no ideas for The Big Donkey, who struck out three times with RISP. I have no ideas for Joey Beimel, who botched a perfect inning ending double play ball by throwing to the infielder who was actually backing up the throw to second. And, I certainly don't have any ideas for poor Wille Harris, who took a ground ball right to the nuts, except maybe a titanium cup. Nor for Austin Kearns, who would have had a yakety sax made by me except there is already one out there.

But what I do have, folks, is an idea for Cristian Guzman, who all of a sudden thinks he's playing fucking soccer. After kicking three ground balls in the past two games, I threw on my inventor hat, and got busy.

Without further delay (cause... seriously... I've built this shit up enough already, and it actually sucks), and as a tribute to Billy Mays (Hi, Death here for BILLY MAYS!) I give you...

"The Goozie Boots". Strap these puppies on, and you'll be fielding like Ozzie fuckin Smith. (As always, feel free to click to enlarge.)


HUGE hat tip to our own Natmosphere's Miss Chatter, who took this picture and loaded it on her Flickr photostream.

Blown save after blown save after blown save.

Yup, you guessed it! Another blown save last night, this time by Joey Beimel. Gah!

I haven't seen this many blown saves since the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1980! Hey-o!

What? Too dated? Sigh...

I haven't seen this many blown saves since the Navy Seal mission to save the people of Panama in 1989! Hey-o!

What? I'm still not making myself clear? Jesus, people... How about this:

The Nationals are as competent with saves as these two

Better? Yay!

Look, I haven't bothered reading any other blogs today 'cause I'm just so sick and fucking tired of the bullpen not holding leads. I did some digging, and came up with these stats, all courtesy of baseball-reference.com. I apologize if these were written up by someone else last night or today, but fucking deal with it.

The Nats are tied for the MLB lead in blown saves with 10, Houston being the other awesome team with that many.

The Nats are tied for last in MLB saves, with Pittsburgh at 5. (Can you spot the pattern here? Everyone knows bullpens are weak across the board, but the NL seems to be a little bit shittier than the AL. Which is weird since the AL uses that God damn abomination of a rule, the DH.)

Guess who leads the Nats in saves? My buddy, Joel (no longer being called Hammer Hands) Hanrahan. Guess who leads the Nats in blown saves? That's right, my buddy Joel Hanrahan. But it's cancerous, and spreads throughout the bullpen (Which I hope is not the case with Elijah's leprosy. Gah. Seriously, how much longer is dude gonna wear that thing on his face? That's covering up something awful, right?) as there are only two players on the current roster without a blown save, Kipper Wells and Ronnie Villone.

What's my point exactly? I'm not fucking sure. Maybe I'm thinking Manny has to get Ron in there when the team is ahead more. (He's only entered the game in that situation once, and he held.) Maybe it's time to get Logan Kensing the fuck outta Dodge. (He's 0 for 2 in save situations, and has allowed 45% of his inherited runners to score. Oh... he also has a WHIP of 3.20!!!!!)

I dunno. I'm not sure there are any quick answers at this point. But, if there's one cause I'm behind 100 fucking percent, it surely is this one.

Free Jason fucking Bergmann already!!

Star Wars. Washington Nationals style.

So, I was gonna huff a gallon of Behr paint last night to put me out of my misery. I only made it through an eighth of my supply, however, when I passed out.

After I passed out, I had the most vivid dream ever. It started with scrolling text from bottom to top, with the words

A long time ago, in a bullpen far, far away...

Then up popped these two words

BULLPEN WARS

It was all... so familiar, like something I'd seen before. There where characters with traits and dialog that reminded me of something, yet all the characters were actually Washington Nationals.

There was a robed (okay, maybe he was wearing a dress... but so what?!) Manny Acta pushing buttons on a little robot, while speaking...



The robot ends up on Jesus Flores' home planet, and he feels Manny's pain. He hunts down this Joe Beimel fella...


Joe Beimel does some soul searching, trains up on some Jedi, Ninjutsu, and Genghis Khan/Attila the Hun savagery, and comes to a decision...


It ends with Beimel killing people by crushing their skulls with 200 mph fastballs, and using the force when he needs to ("This is not the pitch you're looking for"). He also cut Pujols' arms and legs off with a light saber. The Nationals went 146-16, and won the World Series.

That shit was dope.

Then, I awoke from my paint induced stupor, looked to see if Joey B was off the DL yet, saw that he wasn't, and gouged my eyes out.

Oh, I also wrote this rap last night. Feel free to sing it all around the world. It goes a little something like this...

Life is hard... When you're a Nationals fan. Life is hard... Thanks to Joel Hanrahan.

I love you to pieces, Hammer Hands, but you've got to get your shit together, bro. I wish you the best. Maybe a case of Swine Flu to take your mind off the game for a week or so?

Washington Nationals do not lose.

Soooo much to write about. Soooo little time.

I'm trying to knock this post out before my boss sends me another email. We'll see how that goes.

My views from last night's not loss:

• I crushed a six-pack of Reese's peanut butter eggs in two innings. Them fuckers be delicious.
• Adam Dunn is so reliable, watches ask him for the time. (Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all the week. Tip your waitresses.)
  
• Shy Young could seriously do some damage if his three pitches can all be thrown for strikes. He can't bunt for shit, however.
• Zippie chance DOOKS! was taking on that 3-0 pitch. Before Dibble (Who I actually like!) and Carpy (Who I still hate!) had their green light conversation, I beat them to it. I'm in my living room, and I jump up and scream as loud as I can, in my best Bill Alfonso voice, "Green Light Daddy-O!" The man beast swung, and that shit was crushed.
• I think I'm gonna like Joe Beimel. Sure, he might look...um...different (is caveman-like too harsh to say?), but he just made the Phillies look silly in the 8th. The set-up job is his.
• If we just get some consistent pitching, we could be okay. Right now, we rank 5th in the NL with an average of 5.25 runs scored/game. We're dead last in runs allowed per game, however with 7. I'm telling you, this offense can score more times than Mickey Rooney had wives. (He was married 8 times. Seriously. Mickey fucking Rooney. This little guy.)

I know I promised an update last night, but I was so damn excited that I ran to downtown Rockville to celebrate with the other three fans. We were hooting and hollering, and then it turned into a riot donnybrook pathetic display.
We got all boisterous and flipped over a cop car motorcycle moped. Then we stared lighting huge bonfires sparklers. Fucking good times. I didn't make it home until 10:15, so I was dog tired.

Uh-oh, just got an email from the dictator. I'll talk to you deliriously happy folks later.