Opening Day 2010 - Hope Springs Eternal

As the Beatles would say, it's been a long, cold winter. Spring training couldn't come soon enough. So, here we are on the cusp of Opening Day (my favorite two words other than, Play Ball!) Will the younger players start producing this year? Will the defense get any better now that we have a greyhound in center and a gold glove catcher? Will the bullpen hold up over the season and the relievers find their roles? Will the starting rotation hold the fort until Strasberg and Storen come riding over the hill (thank God Ma, the cavalry has arrived). Sounds like that Steve Martin skit on SNL where he ends an extended conversation with himself about doing the right thing with: Nah! One significant (shocking) action the club brass decided on was to release Elijah Dukes and end the social experiment the Nats had been conducting for several years with Dukes. Their hypothesis was that if the team could take his mind off making babies, and given his considerable skills, that Dukes could provide an up grade from Austin Kearns in right field. The more the "R&R" gang aka Rizzo and Riggleman (Copyright 2010) protested that dumping Dukes was "strictly" a baseball decision, the more I wondered what had really gone down in the clubhouse - was he the proverbial cancer in the clubhouse? My Virtual Nats had him batting .249 with an on-base of .338 and an OPS of .743. In 60 games with the Toronto Bluejays he's hit 7 homers, driven in 25 and scored 33. April has arrived and the first team on the schedule is the freakin' Phillies and their travelling fan entourage. Seemed like half of Nats Park wore Phillies jackets. The virtual Nats couldn't get it started and were swept by the Phillies: 11-0, 13-5 for the ridiculous, and 1-0 for the sublime. Portents for the future? Will Riggleman last the season? Then our boys travelled to New York to take on the Mets. The virtual Mets included a now healthy Beltran and Reyes as well as a motivated David Wright. This series went to the Mets 5-0, 6-4 and the broom came out with a 14-7 drubbing. Our schedule had to be rated as "very difficult" in the early going; because we then went back to Philadelphia to lose 3 more 8-1 and 3-2and provide fodder for their Opening Day losing 8-6. Fortunately, the real Nats have played to a .500 level, and the forecasting continues to have them whacked around by Philly and then come home. Baseball Mogul has the Nats returning to D.C. to play the Brewers, Rockies and Dodgers. Not to get ahead too far, let's just say that April was a cruel month. The virtual Nats finally get their first win, 4-1 while playing the Brewers on April 16th. John Lannan would go 7.1 innings with Bruney and Capps successfully playing their roles. The trio held Milwaukee to 4 hits and in the game, Adam Dunn hit his 5th homer while "The Hammer" Josh Willingham has hit his 3rd. The VN (virtual Nats) would go on to win their first series, beating the Brewers 2 games to 1. The loss was a dreadful 12-3 pounding of the kind that inflates the pitching staff's ERA so that the individual pitching gems go unnoticed. Now that we're up to the actual team's schedule, I'm going to look at the virtual stats of the virtual Nats and see what is keeping them from carrying out "THE PLAN".
Dana