William World News William F. Yurasko's blog v.14 – Nats, Redskins, Capitals, D.C. life, transportation, not so much Penn State anymore,

That was a weird weekend for the Washington Nationals. After taking the first two of a four game series at the San Diego Padres, the Nats lost a tight one on Saturday evening. They didn’t hit (recurring theme) and when they did they ran the bases poorly. Jordan Zimmerman got a hard luck loss — 8 inning complete game (85 pitches) with the winning run coming after he threw a pick-off away. Sunday, Dan Haren put them in a 3-0 hole early and it just got worse, a 13-4 loss and series split.

Now, the Nats are finishing up their California trip with a 3-game series in San Francisco. Mercifully, the last two 10:00 or later starts are over after tomorrow. They face the defending World Champion Giants and as always, I’ve invited my friend David to talk about them like he did in 2011 and 2012. I’ve included some notes he shared with me late last week before asking some questions:

The Giants are a baffling team at the moment. The pitchers keep getting rocked with long balls that always seem to come in clusters. Cain gave up two bombs in one inning last night and then another one inning later. I think much of baseball is randomness and deviation or reversion to the mean. Cain for many years had a spectacular ratio of fly balls to home runs. It appears that is working its way to the league average in a terrible hurry.

What has been so fun about this team is they are actually starting to hit consistently. They are putting up over 5 runs on the board with regularity. That never happened in the 2010 season and happened in 2012 only from the All-Star Break onward. It has allowed for many exciting comebacks and a few terrific walk offs. Last night was no exception: down 6-0 after two or three innings and they managed to win the game.

I had a nice moment on (last) Wednesday. I went to this delightful diner/shack on the Embarcadero for a burger and a coffee for lunch. When I left I started to walk down the Embarcadero back to my office. Brian Sabean, the Giants GM, was walking the other way to the ball park. I gave him a thumbs up and he responded with a head nod. It was a pleasant little exchange. Then a few hours later the Giants gave up 11 runs to the Blue Jays.

Now, on with the questions:

WFY: Looking at the standings, I see the Giants are in the third place with a 24-20 record (better than the Nats) and a 4-6 skid (just like the Nats). The whole team wore high-cuffed pants as a slump-buster yesterday and it didn’t work. Is there a bit of concern about the overall team?

WFY: I know there is concern about Tim Lincecum — what’s going on with him? Bad mechanics, too skinny, other issues (Editor’s note: not an endorsement, just a link)? How long is he signed for?

DFS: I believe this is the second of Lincecum’s two arbitration years. After this season he will be a free agent. Lincecum has no command. Batters know to take pitches and draw walks. Then he pitches out of the stretch and his 89 mph fastball gets killed. The loss of velocity has hurt him badly. His reliable out pitch used to be the changeup, but that’s not terribly deceiving when there is little difference between the changeup and the fastball. An interesting stat on Lincecum is looking at balls in play. He gets batters out exclusively with strike outs. If the ball is in play, it is a hit. I felt for a while that that was just randomness and would self correct. Now I’m not so sure. I’ve stopped wondering or caring about what Lincecum’s problem is. The most creative excuse is that he has stopped smoking dope during the winters, due to more regular drug testing, with the result of him putting less weight on during the offseason. In any event, he is not the pitcher he once was nor do I have any notion that he will be again. The fans love him for nostalgic reasons, but he is a liability on the staff.

WFY: How is Barry Zito doing this year? Does anybody still care that he has a big contract that he hasn’t lived up to?

DFS: Zito started out very strong. After the first few rotations, he and Bumgarner were the only two starters that seemed to have a chance to go 6 innings. He has reverted to the mean and had a few poor outings recently. There is next to no ill will towards Zito from the fan base over his contract. Of course, he has been grossly overpaid, but over the past few seasons the Giants haven’t been in a situation where they lost bidding wars to keep other great players. For instance, they recently shelled out ton of money to Cain and Posey. Also, Zito was electric in the playoffs last year. The win in Cincinnati and Game 1 against the Tigers had Giants fans chanting “Barry!” His RBI in the World Series had to one of the great moments of collective joy that I experienced during the Series. He also handled being left off the 2010 playoff roster with dignity. As crazy as it sounds, the Giants could very well sign him again at the end of the contract.

WFY: I haven’t kept up, but what’s the situation with closer (former closer?) Brian Wilson?

DFS: Wilson is not on the team. He pitched in one game in 2012. He had a second Tommy John surgery and evidently there hasn’t been much interest in him league-wide. The team clearly committed to sticking with Sergio Romo as its closer during the off season and hasn’t looked back. During the Wilson Era, Romo played the role as set up man and/or right-hander specialist. I enjoyed Wilson’s flamboyant personality and his antics, but he was a Mitch Williams-style, take you to the brink and walk the bases loaded, strike out the side type. My aging heart can’t take much more of that. I would have thought he would be popping up locally in lots of ads, radio spots, TV bits a la a recently departed Theismann or Riggins, but he hasn’t.

WFY: What’s the best way to get to whatever phone company the ballpark is named after this week? How is the beer and food at the ballpark? Are craft brews hard to find like they are a lot of parks? What’s the signature foodstuff? Are the hot dogs any good?

DFS: I like to walk to the park. I work in the Financial District. It is a pleasant walk to the ball park from the office. Public transportation options are good as designed on maps, but the practical reality is the ride to the ballpark is sweaty nuts-to-sweaty butts. On the 100 level, craft brews are probably easier to find than macrobrews. In the view reserve, there are fewer beer options, but there’s no problem finding the San Francisco standbys like Sierra Nevada.

The signature food is probably garlic fries. I tend to limit eating at the ball park to hot dogs. The food generally is decent. I tend to just stick with beverage. I think I’ve written to you about this before, but AT&T Park could be a little jarring at first for an East Coast sports fan back in 2003, accustomed to the Spartan offerings of RFK, Veterans or Shea Stadium. Bread bowls and sushi at the ball park felt hopelessly out of place and indicative of a stadium experience for non-fan sports fans. But, in fact, the offerings merely reflect what Californians and San Franciscans like to eat and, more importantly, people’s willingness to not restrict themselves to the limited choice that traditionalists allow.

WFY: Is San Francisco a Giants town or a 49ers town? With both teams playing for the title last year, either way it has to be a good time to be a San Francisco sports fan.

DFS: Tough question. Particularly tough for a transplant who has been here for only 10 years. Before Jim Harbaugh took over, I would have said that San Francisco is a Giants town. You see more Giants hats, sweatshirts, colors every day than you do Niners gear. I think a big part of that has to do with the fact that the Giants play every day. Living and working in the city you see people going to the games. In the morning, you’ll see people with their gear because they are going to the game that night. The Niners play 8 home games a year and they play in a place that everyone drives to.

WFY: Are you enjoying Bay Lights (LED display on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge)? Have you seen them from the ballpark while attending a game?

DFS: I can see the Bay Bridge from where I live. So, it has already become wallpaper for me. I loved the white lights on the Bay Bridge. The dancing lights seem like a logical, natural extension of that. I’ve been to three games this season thus far. But from where I was sitting I didn’t see the Bridge. AT&T Park has a nice democratizing dynamic in that that the cheapest seats have the best view of the Bay.

WFY: Is there any excitement for the Nats coming to town? I mean Zach Duke, yes, ZACH DUKE, is starting for the Nats tonight…

DFS: I don’t think so. The Giants just finished a road trip in which they went 1 and 5. I think people would be excited if they had a three game set against a cream puff. This team really needs to win a series. The Nationals are a good team and my recollection is that the Nationals have gotten the better of the Giants in the past few seasons.

WFY: Your prediction for this series and the season series?

DFS: Nats win this series and the season series.

Wilson Bridge trail encourages bike commuting between Pr. George’s and Northern Virginia – The Post
Years ago, not long after it opened, I raved about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge trail – The Wilson Bridge trail is wonderful. At the time, I thought it was mostly a “great to have” recreational facility, but it is becoming a viable commuter option as well, despite not being in a particularly dense employment area on either side of the river.

Prince George’s officials said use of the 3.5-mile Wilson Bridge trail has increased dramatically since it opened in 2009. In March, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission recorded 26,827 crossings, up from 13,998 in March 2012. (In both cases, a trip back and forth was counted as two crossings.)

Biking across that sounds a lot better than my commute.

I’ll have several more bicycling posts over the next week or so.

Yesterday, Thomas Boswell wrote a Post column about how awful the Washington Nationals offense has been:

The Washington Nationals may have found their weak spot. It’s called the offense

So, the Nats hit four homers in a 6-5 10th inning win over the San Diego Padres. Chad Tracy hit the game-winner (if it had been Bryce Harper, the video would be embeddable, CHADITUDE isn’t enough apparently) in the top of the 10th for the first RBI of the season by a pinch hitter. Good thing you brought in the fences at Petco Park, Papas!

Good work Bos, good work Nats.

Today’s game is even at a kind of reasonable time – 8:40 p.m.

The Washington Capitals made their seemingly traditional first round exit on Monday and while that is still being discussed (remember, D.C. isn’t a hockey town at all) I’m post, for posterity, recent coverage of rink side broadcaster, Smokin’ Al Koken. Dan Steinberg has been profiling Koken, who was “present at the creation” of the Caps, on DC Sports Bog but all in a long feature.

‘Smokin’ ’ Al Koken has ties to Capitals and Washington, D.C., sports going back to 1970s – The Post

Koken’s Caps responsibilities allowed enough free time to serve as the third sports anchor at WUSA along with Ken Mease and Brenner. Among Koken’s duties was doing live interviews from RFK Stadium during Redskins postgame shows, and out of nowhere one weekend, Brenner threw it back to “Smokin’ Al Koken” at the stadium.

The WUSA sports desk kept the nickname going over the objections of the station’s news director, who worried that it sounded unprofessional.

“Whenever Glenn threw to him, he’d say Smokin’ Al Koken,” said Larry Duvall, then a sports producer at WUSA and now with Comcast SportsNet. “I would type in ‘Smokin’ Al Koken,’ like it was his official name. The news director would say, ‘No, no, no, we shouldn’t do that.’ But Glenn said, ‘Aw, c’mon, keep doing it,’ so we just kept going.”

Being nicknamed by Glenn Brenner equals all-time cred in DC sports.

Today, DC Sports Bog has Al Koken, from the archives which features a pre-Smokin’ prior to the first Caps game.

The Town of Vienna, Va.’s preeminent historian Mayo Sturdevant Stuntz, aged 97 years, has died. Stuntz was a lifelong resident and co-author of the book “This Was Vienna, Virginia” that was published in the late 1980s. He visited my social studies class and shared with us his memories of the town.

My brother Christopher, who provided a photograph of the book included here added “the town of Vienna will owe him a debt of gratitude for generations to come.”

FROM VIENNA PATCH
Remembering Vienna’s ‘Unofficial Historian’

Obituaries: Mayo Sturdevant Stuntz, Sr., 97

Lost in all the coverage of Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper running into a wall (still a bad route from an inexperience outfielder everybody!) and getting his beard knocked off to remind you that Stephen Strasburg makes his hometown San Diego MLB debut. The Union-Tribune has a story about how he evolved from a lazy, fat kid into a disciplined gym rat: He wasn’t always THIS Stephen Strasburg.

2013 is supposed to be the first full season of Strasburg in the majors after his rookie year, Tommy John surgery and last year’s much discussed shutdown. It hasn’t gone well for him at all – he’s 1-5, despite a respectable 3.10 and averaging over a strike out an inning. He’s had trouble getting out of the first inning cleanly and has collapsed under the weight of defensive errors behind him, last Saturday evening’s 5th inning as the prime example. Eight of his 25 runs allowed have been unearned. Strasburg has looked dominate at times (like the first four innings on Saturday) but the root problem is that he’s regressed emotionally. It seemed last year whenever some misfortune would come the Nats way, he’d get extremely focused and strike hitters out in bunches. He hasn’t been able to flip the switch this year.

Tonight’s game against the Padres presents an interesting challenge for Strasburg. It will be his first start in his hometown since entering the majors. Given his tendency to have rough first innings, how he handles all of this will be quite interesting and I’m surprised there is not much attention out of DC media. Maybe it is just because they are on West Coast time, but perhaps it works out for the best for Strarsburg. While Harper enjoys being the center of attention, Strasburg resents it, perhaps so much that the shutdown and being a #1 pick has hurt his game.

I don’t know if it will be tonight or later in the season, but I think Strasburg figures it out and returns to dominance. It is better for him and the Nats that he get this out of his way in the first half of the season and gets ready for the stretch run. Even with all the misfortune the Nats are dealing with — injuries, some bad series and bad luck, the Nats are still a mere game out of first place. The schedule eases up soon too, so without the emotion tied to all of this, the Nats are doing fine. It may not always feel like it though.

By the way, the Nats lost last night, the second in a row, costing them the series with Los Angeles Dodgers: Zack Greinke latest Dodgers pitcher to quiet Nationals bats in 3-1 loss at Los Angeles (The Post). Wilson Ramos is hurt again too. Remember when the Nats had a surplus of catchers? Ross Dewiler may miss a start or two as well. Remember when the Nats had a surplus of pitchers?

More good local beer news — DC Brau and DC United are teaming up for a new beer. Here’s the DCU release – D.C. United and DC Brau collaborate to create DC’s only team-specific beer:

D.C. United, in collaboration with DC Brau Brewing Company, LLC, today announced that DC Brau will brew a limited edition D.C. United specific beer – the only one of its kind in the DC sports world. While the beer is currently without a name, the two have partnered to launch a contest giving D.C. United fans the opportunity to name the new brew. Fans can submit their suggestions online.

Here are the prizes:

• Two (2) field-side seats and field level gameday experience (includes food in the D.C. United Hospitality tent and parking)
• Your submission will be the official name of the beer
• D.C. United/DC Brau prize pack

That’s a pretty sweet prize pack, even for a casual soccer fan like myself. I have some United on the tube this season which isn’t going well at all. Perhaps this can be a rally beer that gets them playing respectable soccer again. I hope so, Dan Steinberg of DC Sports Bog, The Post has pointed out over the years that his favorite fan base is DC United. Oh and of course, there is a worthwhile Bog post on the subject: DC United getting a team beer from DC Brau.

I’d love it if other area pro teams could do this, but I suspect national beer contracts with their respective leagues and official team beer sponsors will keep it from happening. Those deals bring in a lot of money for the big 4 teams and are also the same reason why getting local beer into the venues occurs slowly — the macro brewers are losing market share to the craft brewers, so they are just going to go harder on sports sponsorships and pouring rights.

There has been a lot of discussion and pixels generated over Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper’s collision into the right field wall the other night. All of this talk about toughness and such (I’m guilty of it too) has overshadowed the the actual story — a fairly inexperienced outfielder took a bad route on a fly ball and in trying to catch up to it, ran so hard he didn’t see the wall.

Prior to last night’s Nats 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Charlie Slowes of the Washington Nationals Radio Network interviewed legendary voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully and Harper’s wall collision came up. Scully reminded us all of the real story:

Charlie Slowes: Speaking of shoulders and knees and collisions, how about Bryce Harper into the wall last thing last night.

Vin Scully: The only good thing about is it knocked his beard off …and I was delighted to see…(Slowes heard laughing in the background)…I went down to the clubhouse because I admire his play and there he was clean-shaven, uh stiches under the chin…such a fine young man and an outstanding player…and it’s none of my business but I hope he stays clean shaven.

I’m sure somebody will get the audio into embeddable format, but until then MLB Gameday subscribers can here it by going to this page, clicking on the WJFK link and starting to listen around the 12:00 mark.

UPDATE: Legendary Dodgers Voice Vin Scully ‘Delighted’ Harper’s Clean-Shaven – CBS DC
The audio is now available from the link above.

The interview also touches on the current Dodgers, the movie “42″ and his start on the radio at WTOP in Washington when he lived at 29th and O Street for $15 a week. Good stuff, but what else would it be? The interview, between to New Yorkers and Fordham graduates) could have been something like:

Vin: Charlie, nobody outside of New York knows how to fold a newspaper

Charlie: Can’t good hard rolls either, Vin

and it still would have been good.

OTHER NATS NEWS

Clayton Kershaw out-dueled Dan Haren (The Post), but with the lineup the Nats put out last night, how wouldn’t he?

Eury in for Span against Kershaw. No Harper:. Espinosa 4, Lombardozzi 7, Zimmerman 5, Desmond 6, LaRoche 3, Moore 9, Ramos 2, Perez 8, Haren

— Adam Kilgore (@AdamKilgoreWP) May 14, 2013

More troubling – Harper is feeling nauseous which suggests he has a concussion.

Booming sales prompts Port City Brewing’s expansion – The Alexandria Times
Good news for beer drinkers, particularly those that like the hoppy stuff, my hometown brewery Port City is going to expand for a second time:

Owner Bill Butcher, a native of the city, is waiting for a trio of 120 barrel tanks to finish making their way from Oregon to Alexandria. When they arrive next week, the massive vats will double the brewery’s output, from roughly 100,000 cases of beer a year to 200,000.

The other week, I had a six pack of their Optimal Wit, a Belgian style beer ideal for cool late spring evenings. Back in 2012, some friends and I took the Port City brewery tour which I recommend. Also, Butcher has more promising things to say for craft beer fans:

“This market is still underserved, but fortunately there are more breweries in planning that are going to be opening up.”

I know the city of Alexandria is expecting another brewery soon in the next few years too.

The Washington Capitals season came to an abrupt halt (Japers Rink) in game 7 of the 1st round of the playoffs as they were dominated by the New York Rangers, 5-0. It was a brutal end to a strange season that started late due to a lock-out that team owner Ted Leonsis was reportedly hard-liner on. The Caps recovery from a 2-10-1 start to win the final Southeast Division crown was impressive, but they led yet another game 7 egg at Verizon Center. Caps fans deserve better, but after presiding over two NHL lockouts in eight years and a season removed from a NBA lockout (Leonsis also owns the Washington Wizards), I think Teddy Lockout could use some humbling.

Next season will be different, the Southeast division heads to the dust-bin of history. The Caps will return to what will hopefully be called Patrick Division with Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and the Rangers. No more cheap division titles moving forward. I think the franchise will benefit from the new surroundings, though it may not be right away.