Jayson Werth and the Nationals Ring of Honor

I took my kids to the Washington Nationals-Chicago Cubs game on Wednesday. The Nationals lost 3-2 and are now 39-80. They are a bad baseball team and that says something from someone who follows the Pittsburgh Pirates! While looking around the stadium, I noticed that Jayson Werth’s name is included in the team’s Ring of Honor. Apparently, this induction occurred in 2018, but I have no recollection of this happening, and I guess I never noticed this before.

I’m not a Jayson Werth fan. I think he’s a bully who should have got suspended for attacking a mascot and is a jerk for pouring chocolate syrup on Nationals' reporter Dan Kolko. Nats fans like Werth though. My question is this: why does Werth deserve to make the team’s Ring of Honor? According to this September 2018 article, the team credits Werth for changing the culture from the Nationals being a mediocre (and sometimes awful) team to a team that won 4 NL East titles in his 7 years. Pay almost anyone $126 million over 7 years, and I’m sure they will help bring a winning culture too. Of course, let’s not forget the addition of guys like Bryce Harper Stephen Strasburg, and later Max Scherzer. Ryan Zimmerman was also really good during this time. They helped the culture too. Oh, and for all of that winning culture Werth brought, do you know how many playoff series the team won with him? It rhymes with “Hero.”

In 2012, the first year the Nationals won the division, Werth had 5 home runs and 31 runs batted in over 81 games in an injury-filled season. Adam LaRoche, Danny Espinosa, Mike Morse, and even Tyler Moore had more, and in some cases, significantly more home runs that season. Werth ended up with a 9.0 WAR (wins above replacement) during his time as a National. He made 0 all-star teams. For $18 million a year, I think you would expect more. You know who should have been inducted into Ring of Honor before Werth? Ian Desmond who had a 16.5 WAR and an all-star appearance in his 7 seasons on the team. Maybe Alfonso Soriano with his 6.1 WAR with 40 home runs/40 stolen bases 2006 season. Maybe even Mike Morse who had 67 home runs in 1353 plate appearances during his 4 seasons in DC compared to Werth’s 109 home runs in 3427 plate appearances. And if you want to talk about culture, put Howie Kendrick, Adam Eaton, and especially Gerardo Parra in the Ring of Honor. Everyone loved Baby Shark during the team’s World Series run.

Basically, what I’m writing is Jayson Werth was a good baseball player in DC, but the team put him in the Ring of Honor to justify $126 million contract. And that’s one of my hills I’m willing to die on.

Werth photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Imagess

Washington Nationals World Series Videos

The Washington Nationals won the 2019 World Series. Living in Northern Virginia, this is kind of a big deal. Of course, I also saw a guy wearing a Steelers long-sleeve T-shirt on the Metro this morning, so maybe it's not a big deal for everyone.* Anyway, if you're a baseball fan, I think you have to appreciate this series and the Nationals. The road team won every game of this 7-game series which has never happened before in major league baseball, the NHL, or the NBA. Juan Soto just turned 21 and is about to become a superstar. Stephen Strasburg represented San Diego State well too. Anthony Rendon and Howie Kendrick are also awesome. I thought I would share a few videos to celebrate the Nationals.

This is from the final out of the game.



I'm really happy for Daniel Hudson, the Nationals pitcher who got the final out. I'm also really happy that there is a net behind home plate and down the third base line. That glove being thrown at approximately 200 miles per hour could have really hurt someone. Anyway, Jeff Passan's book "The Arm" followed Hudson after he went through Tommy John surgeries. After reading this, I've rooted for the guy, even though he struggled in Pittsburgh.

The next video is one that I took from Washington's FOX affiliate. I apologize in advance that the sound is poor. I love the guy saying, "I don’t know how I feel right now. I feel amazing.” Then, watch how he interacts with the camera after they go to someone else. And by someone else, I mean the woman who has been a die-hard Nationals fan from all the way back in 2012.



Finally, one of the reasons why this team is fun to watch is Gerardo Parra and his walk-up music of Baby Shark. (Another reason is because Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth are no longer on the team.) This is a video of Parra at bat during an August 30th game I attended with The Moose and Pedro Tulo.



Congrats to the Nats!


* Full disclosure. That person was me!

Pirates-Nats 18-Inning Game Recap (With Comments From The Moose)

On Sunday, I took The Moose to his second professional baseball game to see the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Washington Nationals. The Moose witnessed a no-hitter and near perfect game in his first game last year, so there was no way that this game could match its significance, right? Please note that this post mixes a recap of the game with my own thoughts and quotes from my five year old. For example, upon seeing Pirates first basemen John Jaso, The Moose said, "He has girl hair." Back to the game.

All-Star and former Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, the pitcher who threw the no-hitter last season, matched up against Pirates rookie Chad Kuhl. Not an ideal match-up for the Bucs. As I know now though, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE CHAD KUHL. All Kuhl did was throw 6 scoreless innings of one-hit baseball. More on Kuhl later. With the Pirates leading 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth, the Nationals played AC/DC's Thunderstruck as Pirates pitcher Mark Melancon warmed up. The Nats probably thought they were pumping up the crowd, but this is also Melancon's entrance music. Arguably the best closer in baseball over the past 3-4 seasons, Melancon retired the first two Nationals before All-Star and this season's best hitter, Daniel Murphy pinch hit. With a 2-2 count, Murphy did this.



And this was The Moose's reaction.

(Actually this picture came later, but seemed appropriate to go with the huge home run.)

And what was a not too exciting of a game turned very interesting. The game went on to the 10th inning and then the 11th. And the 12th. Throughout this, my friend and I discussed how long we would stay. Although we were in the shade, it was still over 90 degrees and we had three boys ages 5, 6, and 9, who we knew only had so much patience. In the middle of the 13th, there was a second Presidents race. The Moose was a bit freaked out by the giant Presidents. (Yet, when we left, he wanted to stay to see another Presidents race even though that wouldn't have happened until the 22nd inning! By the way, major props to the people in the Presidents costumes who were still there well after all beer sales ended and most food concessions closed.) And then there was the traditional 14th inning stretch! We moved our seats a few times, once in the 10th or 11th inning to get out of the sun which started hitting our backs and then to seats on the third base line about 20-25 rows from the field. Again, being in the shade was huge!

We interrupt baseball for The Moose's thoughts on Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth.

"He has a scary beard."
"That's the bad guy."
(When in the on-deck circle) "The bad guy is going to be next."

I can't disagree with any of these assessments!

We made it through the 15th inning, approximately 5 hours in the stadium, and that was it. Of the announced attendance of 32,775, we outlasted at least 20,000 people. That's a lot of baseball for three little guys. While walking to the parking lot in the 16th, we heard a loud roar. Did the Nationals have a walk-off win? Fortunately, no. As I heard on the radio, Pirates Josh Harrison hit a double, but Eric Fryer was thrown out at the plate by a perfect relay from Nats' center fielder Michael Taylor to SS Danny Espinosa to catcher Wilson Ramos.

My reaction:

With no traffic around the stadium and (amazingly!) on the drive back home, the 17th inning just ended when I turned off the radio. A few minutes later, I turned on the TV to see that the Pirates were ahead 2-1. WHAT HAPPENED? Starling Marte happened:



Jon Niese gave up two hits in the bottom of the 18th, but struck out Espinosa to give the Pirates the win. A few more thoughts about the game:

- Including Sunday, Chad Kuhl has started four baseball games. He pitched against probably the best pitcher in baseball Clayton Kershaw, the May 2016 AL pitcher of the month and should have been all star Rich Hill, three-time all star Jon Lester and now Scherzer. The Pirates are now 4-0 in his starts. Can he start against some below average pitchers some time?

- When I was in college, I had an internship with a Pittsburgh-area Congressman. We also had an office softball team and played against a local fire department twice (and against a Senator's staff too...we destroyed them). Anyway, I annoyed many of the firefighters for constantly getting on base in our games. I was not a power hitter, yet I managed to get hits through seeing-eye singles or balls that landed between the infielders and outfielders. Why do I mention this? Pirates rookie Adam Frazier is me 20 years later. (Well, at least in this analogy.) When you look at the Pirates line-up, teams are going to be concerned with Marte, McCutchen, Freese, Harrison, Mercer, and others. Yet, Frazier went 3 for 6 Sunday with two walks. For the season, he's now hitting .355 with a .412 on-base percentage. He must be such a pest for opponents.

- The Moose's thoughts on National's 23 year-old Trea Turner: "He is a kid."

So The Moose has now been to two games, one a no-hitter and the other went 18 innings. He's going to be disappointed someday when we attend a regular 4-2 game!

Want to know more about the game? Here's the recap from The Washington Post, ESPN, Bucs Dugout, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Seeing A No-Hitter With My Son

One of my dreams/bucket list items is to attend a no-hitter in person. In July 2001, I saw Todd Ritchie (yes, Todd Ritchie) go 8 1/3 innings before giving up a single. After seeing probably over 100 baseball games in my lifetime, that was the closest I've come to seeing a no-hitter. Meanwhile, I took my son (The Moose, age 4) to his first baseball game on Saturday night. He has now attended one single baseball game and has witnessed a no-hitter (and almost the 22nd perfect major league game since 1900). He has no idea that this is a big deal. On to my notes and thoughts on the game and taking The Moose to his first game.

- Breaking news: Max Scherzer is really, really good. Maybe that's why the Nationals paid him over $200 million. I'm a Pirates fan and definitely wanted the Bucs to win, but I can appreciate an amazing pitching performance and found myself rooting for a perfect game in the top of the 9th.

- After the first inning, The Moose told me that he wanted to go home. That's when I went into food mode. I offered him a fruit bar that I had in my bag and then we quickly went to the concession stand to get french fries and a Sprite. He loved the Sprite and made it through the rest of the game (sitting on my lap for nearly all of it) without any complaints.

- In either the 7th inning or top of the 8th inning, I looked at the scoreboard and mentioned to my friend that we were watching a perfect game. We knew it was a no-hitter but had no idea we were watching a potential perfect game until then.

- I did a terrible job of taking pictures during the game. Really, I just wanted to make sure my kid was happy and that I didn't lose him in the crowd of over 40,000. I did take this picture of several members of the Pirates walking to the bullpen before the game. Plus, both Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen sat in my section!

- I also should have taken a picture of someone wearing a Pirates' Garrett Jones jersey.

- Unwritten rules in baseball are stupid. In the 8th inning, the Nats shifted against Pedro Alvarez. Pedro could have bunted towards the deserted third base line to reach on a single, but that's not permitted in baseball. Well, if it was a 1-0 game, maybe that would have been a little acceptable, but baseball folks would have gone insane if Pedro did this on Saturday. If you think the reaction to Jose Tabata reaching on a hit-by-pitch was crazy, Pedro would have been vilified even more.

- The Nationals had a promotion on Saturday where after the game, Seniors could stroll the bases. During the game, I talked with my friend about the fact I tweaked my knee (for the second time in a month) earlier in the day working as a soccer referee), probably will need bifocals soon and that I recently went to the dentist and learned that I have receding gums. Basically, I could have been eligible to run the bases!

- When we got home, all The Moose talked about to my wife was chocolate syrup. Naturally, she had not idea what he was talking about. I mean why would there be chocolate syrup at a baseball game? Here's the answer:



MASN's Dan Kolko did not look happy about Jayson Werth dumping chocolate syrup on him. I'd bet $10 that Werth doesn't pay the dry-cleaning bill.

- The Moose wasn't very impressed by the Presidents/Pierogi race. I think he found the characters a little scary.

- I'd like to give the Nationals credit for posting the artist and song title for each hitter's walk-up music on the scoreboard. That was a nice touch particularly since I didn't know many songs.

- Quick rant: I love keeping ticket stubs of sporting events/concerts I attend. However, there are less and less ticket stubs these days and you generally print off your tickets now. Even Nats season ticket holders get a card that they swipe or scan at the gate instead of receiving individual tickets. Here is part of my ticket from Saturday's game that is now folded up on a regular 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.

- I don't ever want to drive through a hurricane, but I feel like I got a taste of what it's like to do so going home after the game. There were massive thunderstorms on Saturday evening with extremely heavy rain and lightning everywhere. I'm glad that the game was at 4:05 since a 7:05 game would have been postponed.

Here's more about the game:

The Washington Post (here and here

People were mad at Tabata (also The Washington Post)

Dejan Kovacevich wrote a really good piece in support of Tabata. [DK on Pittsburgh Sports]

Clinton Yates agreed with DK. [Washington Post again]

Josh Yohe of DK on Pittsburgh Sports
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ESPN

Video of the top of the 9th [MLB]

BadGirls

I received a message in my Spam folder recently from someone named BadGirl28. Yes, it really was a Spam folder. Anyway, I was curious about why BadGirl28 went by BadGirl28. My theory was that maybe she was a big fan of Marshall Faulk. If she's from Pittsburgh, maybe she loves Brandon Cumpton, Ian Cole and/or Cortez Allen. If she's in the DC area, perhaps she is a big fan of Jayson Werth (and she probably supports his abuse of mascots).

Unfortunately, her email doesn't give any information about her favorite player. Instead, all I got was this:

Name: Adriana
Age: 21
Eye Color: Light Blue / Brown
Height: 5"6
Hair Color: Blonde / Light Brown
Submissive: Yes
Sexual orientation: Bi-Sexual
Star sign: Sagittarius
About me: Into being tied up and used like the little slut i am :)

send me a quick text so i know youre real (with a number that I'm not sharing here)

I'm really curious about the eye color thing. Is one eye light blue and the other brown? Is she like Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer?

I also got messages from BadGirl22 and BadGirl25 with the exact same message, so I'm thinking that maybe there is no significance to BadGirl's numbers. Wait, stop the presses!



Is this the same Adriana from a few years ago? If so, I'm happy that she's just giving basic information rather writing a long message. Based just on her last sentence, her grammar is still poor.

Jayson Werth Deserves Suspension

Baseball and even non-baseball fans remember when Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon hit a woman wearing an Italian sausage costume with his bat during the Milwaukee Brewers' costume race in 2003. Major League Baseball suspended Simon for three games and fined him $2,000. Additionally, Simon was fined $432 and cited by the sheriff's department for disorderly conduct.

On Saturday afternoon, Washington Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth incorporated himself into the Presidents race. Take a look:



Werth actually shoved Thomas Jefferson to the ground. Well, not the actual Thomas Jefferson since he would be 268 years old, but the person in the Jefferson costume. While the announcers and fans all took this as a fun attempt to let Teddy Roosevelt win, take a look at this second video from the folks at Let Teddy Win:



You can see Werth start to take Jefferson down at the 45 second mark. Once Jefferson is on the ground, Werth pushes him again. At 1:10, Werth attempts to kick/trip Jefferson.

According to Let Teddy Win, this "was not scripted by the Nationals, and caught the team’s in-game entertainment and mascot team by surprise." Essentially, this was a premeditated attack that was not planned by the team or major league baseball. Therefore, why isn't Werth subject to the same punishment as Simon?

Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post has more about Werth and the race. This was clearly premeditated which I don't think you can say about the Simon incident.