{"id":2125,"date":"2007-05-31T09:32:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-31T09:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yurasko.net\/wfy\/2007\/05\/improvement.html"},"modified":"2007-05-31T09:32:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-31T09:32:00","slug":"improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yurasko.net\/wfy\/2007\/05\/improvement\/","title":{"rendered":"Improvement!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles 5 WASHINGTON 0 (<i>ESPN<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/scores.espn.go.com\/mlb\/boxscore?gameId=270530120\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Boxscore<\/span><\/a>) <\/p>\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON, D.C. &mdash; <\/strong>When a franchise is rebuilding, wins and loses are not necessarily the most important aspect of a game. Take last night for example. The Nationals gave up half as many runs to the Dodgers as the night before &#8212; they lost 5-0 instead of 10-0, a 50% improvement. Way to go guys!<br \/><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\"><br \/>Mike Bascik<\/span> made his third start of the season for Washington. He had a solid outing, giving up two in the fifth. In the sixth, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Cristian Guzman<\/span> made an error fielding a <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Jeff Kent<\/span> groundball. The next batter, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Russell Martin<\/span> made him pay when he homered. Bacsik was on the hook for four runs, though two of them were unearned.<\/p>\n<p>The Nats couldn&#8217;t get anything going at the plate. The few baserunners they had seemed to come with two outs. I don&#8217;t recall ever seeing a runner get past second base. Dodgers starter <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Derek Lowe<\/span> went seven before yielding to the bullpen. He also had a hit and walked twice.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"post-article-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/30\/AR2007053002542.html\"><b>Nats Spend a Couple Quiet Nights at Home<\/b><\/a> &#8211; <i>The Post<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"post-article-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washtimes.com\/sports\/20070531-123427-1082r.htm\"><b>Nats&#8217; scoreless streak continues<\/b><\/a> &#8211; <i>The Wash. Times<\/i><\/p>\n<p>RHP <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Shawn Hill<\/span> is getting a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/05\/30\/AR2007053002465.html\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">second<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washtimes.com\/sports\/20070531-121110-6085r.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">opinion<\/span><\/a> (<i>The Post<\/i> and <i>The Wash. Times<\/i>, respectively) on his pitching elbow. It started bothering him during a throwing session the other day. He beleives he may have changed his mechanics due to his injured left shoulder. In other pitching, pitching, pitching news, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Luis Ayala<\/span> was in D.C. for the time this season yesterday. He is recovering from Tommy John surgery. Another reliever, <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Ryan Wagner<\/span>, is headed for Birmingham to have his ailing rotator cuff looked at by <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Dr. James Andrews<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/ted.aol.com\/index.php?ID=919\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Ted Leonsis blog post<\/span><\/a> defending <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">The Plan<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washtimes.com\/sports\/20070531-121114-5259r.htm\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">inspires an article<\/span><\/a> from <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">The Wash. Times<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>GM <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Jim Bowden<\/span> is talking about the draft in &#8220;his&#8221; weekly <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">Wash. Examiner<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/a-755969~Draft_week__Sleepless_nights_filled_with_anxiety.html?cid=rss-Washington_DC\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">column<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>C <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Brian Schneider<\/span> and P <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">John Patterson<\/span> want the Nats to eat healthier in the clubhouse, <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/news\/article.jsp?ymd=20070530&#038;content_id=1995139&#038;vkey=news_was&#038;fext=.jsp&#038;c_id=was&#038;partnered=rss_was\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">so no more candy or fried chicken<\/span><\/a> (second item; <i>nationals.com<\/i>).<\/p>\n<li type=\"square\">I made it out to RFK for last night&#8217;s game. My mom had a pair of 200 level tickets and asked if I wanted to go with her and I said sure. We had a good time together.\n<li type=\"square\">There was way too many Red Sox fans there. I&#8217;d say that New England must be losing most of its population to here (like Pittsburgh) except that none of these people had the &#8220;Pahk ya cah in Havud Yad&#8221; accent. That bandwagon is too full.\n<li type=\"square\">I ran into <span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Joe Riley<\/span> of <a href=\"http:\/\/natspower.blogspot.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Nationals Power<\/span><\/a> on the concourse. Always good to see a fellow blogger.\n<li type=\"square\">Saw a few Brooklyn hats &#8212; why? The Dodgers left the borough 50 years ago. That would be like me going to a Twins or Rangers game wearing my old (and long lost) <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.mlb.com\/product\/index.jsp?productId=1890616&#038;cp=1895815.1902046.1169016&#038;parentPage=family\"><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">Senators hat<\/span><\/a>.\n<li type=\"square\">Teddy didn&#8217;t even race and waited until the t-shirt toss to make an appearance.\n<p><!-- a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/www.yurasko.net\/wfy\/uploaded_images\/wfybly-727141.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.yurasko.net\/wfy\/uploaded_images\/wfybly-727138.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles 5 WASHINGTON 0 (ESPN Boxscore) WASHINGTON, D.C. &mdash; When a franchise is rebuilding, wins and loses are not necessarily the most important aspect of a game. Take last night for example. The Nationals gave up half as many runs to the Dodgers as the night before &#8212; they lost 5-0 instead of 10-0, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,31,48,96,106],"tags":[493,539,580,1153,1222,1531],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-datelines","category-i-was-there","category-natsmlb-2007","category-the-district","category-washington-nationals","tag-cristian-guzman","tag-dc","tag-dodgers","tag-mike-bascik","tag-nats","tag-rfk-stadium"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Improvement! - William F. 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