Salvation comes in strange ways. The Washington Nationals discovered it in the most unlikely place — the mound.
Once the black hole of the diamond, desperation created a solution. A group of young arms is giving the Nats some hope their second straight lost season won’t carry over into 2010.
Shairon Martis is 5-0. Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler are 2007 draft graduates. Craig Stamman just arrived and even the old man of the staff, John Lannan, is 24.
Nothing beats young pitching.
“Overall, I’m just happy that they’re going out there every five days for the last week or so and giving us a chance to win,” Nats manager Manny Acta said. “To keep it up will be a dream. It’s impressive that these guys at the end of spring training have no shot and end up being up in the big leagues. It’s refreshing what they’ve done.”
Refreshing? More like stunning. A bad bullpen may doom the Nats for another 100 losses, but the starting pitching is suddenly not the problem. Martis and Zimmermann could be the real thing and Stephen Strasburg should be the Nats’ first pick in the draft next month. That would be three-fifths of the rotation alone. Imagine if last year’s unsigned first-rounder Aaron Crow falls to Washington again with the 10th selection.
Three months ago, nobody expected this. A disastrous start forced the Nats to pitch the kids and they’ve blossomed.
“The bright spot about all these kids is they all have the makeup we’re looking for. They don’t get overly excited,” Acta said. “They’re easy to coach. They handle themselves like they’ve been around before, which is a good trait to have in pitchers.”
The Nats considered adding a veteran pitcher to double as a role model. Bob Feller showed some life with a high fastball for the first pitch on Sunday at age 91. Acta said mentoring by coaches and veterans is essential to growing the young staff.
“You either listen to the coaches and become who you are or you don’t listen and wander off,” he said. “But you have to be very careful É . If you just bring in a veteran who doesn’t earn the respect of the guys, they’ll all stay away from him.”
The Nats should just stay away from veteran pitchers. The youngsters are just fine.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com or e-mail [email protected]
