Battle of the Beltway...and a promotion you won't believe.

The first half of the annual battle between Baltimore and Washington took place over Memorial Day weekend--and I've long maintained that with these two teams the Nats glass has been half-full while the O's glass has been half-empty (face it, both are rebuilding while competing in top-notch divisions). This year the roles are reversed--I know its like differentiating crayola crayons "Orange-Red" and "Red-Orange" when you're really looking for blue--but this year it's the O's who are looking up while the Nats are looking up for what might be falling on them next.

It all begins in the bullpen--the Orioles George Sherrill has 10 saves in 12 opportunities and an ERA of 2.75 while Brian Bass and Danys Baez haven't been completely awful in middle relief roles (each is 3-1; Baez is holding hitters to .165 while Bass has a 25 to 9 K to BB ratio)--and setup man Jim R. Johnson has gotten the job done in 16 of his 20 outings.

The Nationals Hot Mess has been well-documented--a 3-17 pen record with a 6.09 ERA and 13 blown saves has overshadowed what has turned out to be a pretty decent lineup: 6th in batting average and 11th in runs scored with pop in the middle of the order (Zimmerman and Dunn combining for 25 homers and 74 rbi).

Defensively, this year's team is a disaster as well-- the club has the worst fielding percentage in the majors and is the only big league team to average more than one error per game played (45 in 44). Poor pitching and despicable defense two seeem to feed off of one another--especially in the late innings.


The Nats are getting the reputation as the team that can't shoot straight--figuratively and perhaps literally. From last week's Washington Post: the teams latest promotion has gone awry--during every game the Nats mascot Screech fires t-shirts into the stands from the famed "T-Shirt Gun"... well, earlier this month the Nationals promotional staff thought to give fans some "added value" by placing a sausage sandwich in one of every ten t-shirt wraps-- thus, one has a one in ten chance of getting two prizes. Unfortunately, the physics of shooting a sausage sandwich wrapped in a t-shirt out of a gun caused the bread to disintegrate and sausage to explode and shower fans like shotgun pellets. Those "lucky" enough to catch a bonus prize t-shirt were greeted with a sausage casing inside and a soiled shirt ready-made for the washer.


Spare us the attendance spike--every year since interleague play began Major League Baseall has been quick to trot out attendance figures...and I'd like for them to stop insulting the fan's intelligence. Interleague play is here to stay--and although I wasn't an early proponent of it (like the wildcard) I understand it's been a boon. But by having the major interleague phase one take place during Memorial Day weekend and treating the attendance spike like breaking news--come on, everybody draws more during the holiday weekends. (MLB's first year of Interleague play saw games during Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends). So guess what--this past weekend's games drew more than last weeks!! Cool, lets move on.


Longest race becomes short-- rain washed out Sunday's Coca Cola 600 for the first time in the history of the NASCAR race. After a noon Monday start the clouds would not cooperate and they stopped the race several times before calling it a day after lap 227--David Reutimann capturing the soggy checkered flag. With 173 laps shaved off, shouldn't they re-title it the "Diet Coke 300?


Congrats to the Cavaliers--Virginia earned its way into the NCAA Tournament as the ACC champ...topping 13th ranked Clemson, 4th rated North Carolina and 7th ranked Florida State en route to the title. Their reward? A #7 ranking and a trip west to play in the Irvine, California Regional. Hello? Shouldn't we reward those who fare well in their conference tourneys? UVa's first round matchup will be against San Diego State and projected number one overall draft pick Stephen Strasburg. Good luck. (George Mason makes the field as an at large--and faces South Carolina in Greenville NC.)