Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
A dozen thoughts for a Monday morning:
1) Keep in mind: You are never as bad as you appear to be when things are going poorly but you are never as good as things appear to be when things are going well.
2) Dave Martinez has slowly figured out his bullpen personnel, and when to push and when to back off. Most of the time he has hit the right buttons since the notorious Ryan Madson game in NY.
3) Dave Martinez has landed on a logical lineup alignment mostly based on: Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, Matt Adams and Howie Kendrick — 1 through 5 and Wilmer Difo 9. Then mixing and matching 6 and 7.
4) Our injury situation is no better than the Dodgers yet we seemed to have stabilized our ship, and they haven’t yet stabilized theirs. Don’t count the Dodgers out just yet even though they are 8-games under .500. The DBacks are good but they aren’t invincible as we just saw.
5) Mark Reynolds is light years ahead of Moises Sierra as a right-handed threat off the bench. Despite yesterday’s game, he is not quite Aaron Judge.
6) It doesn’t look like DM has much faith in Wander Suero. I would like to see him given a couple of opportunities in high lev situations before we give up on him. We already know who Trevor Gott and Carlos Torres are. Let’s find out about Suero.
7) Jeremy Hellickson is already better than anyone we had in the 5th slot last year. Huge shot in the arm. Kudos to general manager Mike Rizzo for bringing him on board and to Sao for calling for him.
8) Juan Soto looks to have found a challenging level (based on a small number of games) and that’s a good thing. It’s fun to see a prospect post video game numbers but it’s better for a prospect to confront challenges and improve.
9) Carter Kieboom is well on his way to figuring out High-A pitching with the Potomac Nationals. He may well end up in Double-A with Soto in the summer.
10) Austin Voth and Erick Fedde are a real cause for concern. They are both getting their clocks cleaned lately by Triple-A hitters in the warmer weather. They have not just been bad, they have been horrid and this is especially perplexing for Voth who was lights out for a month.
11) Gio Gonzalez is having a better year this year than last. When people instinctively accuse him of nibbling they need to keep in mind that his top fastball is 90 mph and he can’t exactly attack the middle of the strike zone. Fact is, he has gotten results for years, and I for one would try hard to keep him beyond this year.
12) Tanner Roark has been terrific. Stephen Strasburg has taken a bit of a step back compared to last year. Both are still excellent.
Bonus) Congrats to all Caps fans. I hope it keeps going your way.
Bonus) Belated happy mothers day to all the great moms.
