Emergence of left-hander has helped form elite staff
For once, Gio Gonzalez was not smiling.
The Nationals left-handed pitcher has been beaming for months — at his introductory news conference following a Dec. 22 trade from Oakland, all through the grueling six weeks of spring training in Florida as he got to know his new teammates and again during his red-hot start to the 2012 season.
But underneath that happy-go-lucky demeanor lies a fierce competitor, and Gonzalez’s trademark smile was missing after a 7-2 loss to the New York Yankees on Friday night at Nationals Park. Not that he pitched poorly. Gonzalez allowed just three runs on five hits, after all. But a leadoff single in the seventh inning knocked him from the game and started the rally that would break things open for New York.
“We’re out there competing against the best,” Gonzalez said. “Not only with the Yankees, but there’s been some other great teams out there that we’ve been trying to stay at their level and compete against them.”
That’s why upstart Washington entered Father’s Day weekend with a healthy lead in the National League East. But if it wasn’t a perfect night for Gonzalez, and if that ate at him, he’s earned some leeway. Because as good as ace Stephen Strasburg has been this season, Gonzalez has been better.
Through 13 starts, he has a 2.52 ERA and 97 strikeouts. His ratio of walks and hits to innings pitched is a miniscule 1.02. Only Strasburg and Detroit’s Max Scherzer have more strikeouts per nine innings than Gonzalez. And there is no platoon split, either, with right-handed batters (.169 batting average against) struggling even more than lefties (.186 average).
His walks in total, a serious issue during his days with the Athletics, are also down to 32 overall. That is a pace for about 80 — high but still manageable given his impressive strikeout numbers and that Gonzalez walked 92 and 91 batters the previous two years. The Nats acquired their legitimate Cy Young candidate by trading away four well-regarded minor league players.
“To me this is one of the greatest trades made in a long time,” said MLB Network analyst John Smoltz, who himself was part of a doozy when Detroit flipped him at the trade deadline for Doyle Alexander in 1987. Smoltz, a struggling Double-A pitcher at the time, went on to form one of the greatest rotations in baseball history in Atlanta with Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.
Indeed, the Nats are reaping the immediate rewards. Gonzalez has teamed with Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Edwin Jackson to form the league’s best rotation along with fifth starters Chien-Ming Wang and Ross Detwiler, who have both had their moments. None of the top four has an ERA higher than 3.02. The combined ERA of Washington’s starters was 2.97 after Friday’s loss — far better even than the second-best team in the majors, the Los Angeles Dodgers (3.11).
So why was Oakland so eager to dispose of a quality pitcher? It was part economics, of course. The Athletics play in an outdated stadium and don’t have the financial resources to pay high salaries to arbitration-eligible players. Gonzalez had two straight seasons of 200-plus innings and ERAs of 3.23 and 3.12. But there were some on-the-field concerns, too, starting with all those walks. They limited his ceiling, which he appears to have broken through with the Nats.
“[Gonzalez is] flat-out nasty. He’s got a fastball in the upper 90s, a wicked curve ball, good change,” Smoltz said. “He’s throwing strikes. He’s cut down his walks. Throws across his body. I don’t think any left-hander in the world has a chance against him. That’s a pretty awesome trade, and one that single-handedly put the Washington Nationals in the position they’re in.”
