At the midway pole of the 2007 season, the Nationals featured the exact same won-lost record as they had in 2006, 33-48. It projects to a 66-96 seasonal mark: bad, but not historically bad. In 2006 they finished 71-91, but that team featured the bat of Alfonso Soriano, currently on display at RFK in the road threads of the Chicago Cubs.
Do the Nats miss Soriano? Of course they do, but given the All-Star-worthy performance of Dmitri Young, and the pre-injury career-best numbers posted by Cristian Guzman, the club has been able to keep up with last year’s pace.
Don’t count on last year’s better second half, however.
When Washington signed Young to a minor league contract, their fondest hope was that he’d perform well enough to be attractive to a contender down the stretch. He’s been that and so much more. Ryan Zimmerman may be the club’s most popular player overall, but Young is pretty close behind. Beyond his bat, which has been pretty amazing — it’s a rarity to see his name in a box score without at least one hit behind it — he’s been a clubhouse leader, and a better-than-expected defensive player. He’s also one of the club’s better baserunners despite his size. Having missed post-season play with Detroit last year, he figures to prop up somebody’s offense after the trading deadline. He’s been such an asset, you’d really love to see him hang around for the rest of his career.
Guzman is another story. Signed as a free agent before the club played a game at RFK, he struggled mightily with the bat in 2005, and finished at a measly .219. He was a frequent target of boos, but showed up everyday ready to play. He actually hit pretty well from August on that year, but had dug himself such a hole, it was hard to finish with any kind of decent numbers. He missed all of 2006 with a shoulder injury, and was pretty much written off by those fans that visit the online message boards and call the radio shows.
Apparently, whatever good swings he didn’t use in 2006 he saved for 2007. Guzman was hitting a solid .329 at the time of his season-ending injury, and that he stayed in the game that day and tried to hide it from the club says a lot about his passion for the game. (It also makes me wonder if he was hiding a physical problem from the club in ‘05.) His absence from the lineup was all too obvious on the road trip to Atlanta and Pittsburgh. Cristian Guzman might not be Derek Jeter, but this year he’s meant as much to the Nats as Jeter has to the Yankees.
The ’06 Nationals had a 38-43 second half, but that club had Soriano and a healthy Nick Johnson. If Washington deals Young to a contender for prospects, and Guzman is out for the season — and it’s not out of the question that Ronnie Belliard ends up somewhere else, too — the Nats would head down the stretch without their top three hitters from the first half.
Simply repeating their first-half win total may be asking too much.
Hear Phil Wood Saturdays at 10 a.m. on SportsTalk 980 AM and weekly on Comcast SportsNet’s WPL through the World Series.
