Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post


Monthly archives
(all categories)


August 1, 2008 [LINK / comment]

New month, new team, new hope

I hardly recognized any of the names in the Nationals' starting lineup this evening: Alberto Gonzalez? Emilio Bonifacio? I figured that Manny Acta was getting desperate, letting the new guys have a shot. Right off the bat (literally), the personnel shift paid off, as the Nats scored twice in the first inning and three times in the second. That was all they needed, as Odalis Perez kept the Cincinnati Reds under control, and the home team won, 5-2. Jesus Flores, Willie Harris, Lastings Milledge, and Elijah Dukes (who just came back off the DL) all had solid batting performances. Thus was the awful nine-game losing streak broken, and what better way to start off fresh with a new monthly calendar page. July 2008 will be a month to forget, and things can only get better from now on. (I think.)

It's too bad the Nationals had to let go of veterans Felipe Lopez, Paul Lo Duca, and Johnny Estrada, but they just weren't performing. No other team wanted them in a trade, so the Nationals front office released them unconditionally. Those three players will still get paid a total of $11 million under the terms of their contracts, however. See MLB.com.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 01 Sep 2008, 2: 23 PM

(unformatted URL)
      .



This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

Category archives:
(all years)



This (or that) year's
blog highlights

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)