More good news on the hitting front. The Nats just scored again, they are now leading the Braves 37-6! In all honesty, this has been an incredible weekend for the Nats struggling offense, something to give them a little confidence and show that they aren’t a complete joke. Willie Harris has been playing lights out – if he wasn’t a 30 year old journeyman, I’d even say “maybe they’ve found their leadoff hitter” but I’m not going to say something like that. Guzman and Flores continue to impress, while this weekend other players decided to actually get on base as well. But the really good news…
Ryan Zimmerman is set to rejoin the team today. Despite a ridiculous weekend in which they scored 6, 8 and then 15 runs, this team still needs as much help as it can get on the offensive side. Don’t believe me? Reference the first 95 games of the season. Zimmerman, in a few rehab games in the minors, seems to have hit fine. He went 7 for 25, 3 of those hits were for extra bases, and he also actually had 2 walks. Now he still may be a bad swing and a miss away from being hurt again, I really don’t know. But if he is healthy, they can play him up in the majors or they can play him in the minors, so they might as well play him with the big league club. My only fear is that he is going to hurt himself again, or play hurt and do some more damage.
Meanwhile, Austin Kearns seems to have found something since his return off the DL. I don’t know what it is, perhaps some sort of magical talisman, but whatever it is, he is hitting again. Now, let’s not get too excited, he has, after all, been back for exactly 13 games so far. But in those 13 games, he’s reached base safely in 11 of them, has 4 doubles and 2 HRs, and is hitting .327/.414/.531. Again, in just over 50 PAs, this isn’t alot to judge him on. However, it does show that the talent is still there, and maybe it indicates that his elbow was bothering him all year, rather than just before he was put on the DL. Who knows, in 2 weeks he has brought his OPS up .090, and while I don’t expect these numbers to stick, perhaps we’ll get something closer to his last 2 weeks that his first 2 months for the rest of the year? The trade deadline is probably too soon (July 31) to think about dealing him considering how he started the year, but if he hits well for the remainder of the year, there will be teams interested.