Williams said in the post game interviews he benched Harper for not running out a ground ball back to the pitcher earlier in the game.

Glad to see a manager have some balls honestly. The Nats are greatly underperforming so far.

The Cards are slightly but I would rather have a slow start and strong middle and finish than the usual strong start and fart out in the middle causing a late season surge to be necessary

dude, he got hit by the ball and it threw him off. He's 3 years removed from high school. It was a high pressure situation. People are asking him about his velocity, whats wrong? He's had some bad outings. He's handled pressure situations pretty damn good for his age. Can't expect perfection.

We have made some real bonehead plays lately and throwing to the wrong base = bench the closer?:shake:

His velocity is an issue. When he is throwing 94-95, it looks flat and hittable. He throws it 98-99 he looks like nails out there.

He was throwing upper 90s today, and throwing to the wrong base is a Little League mistake.

I can live with physical mistakes. Hell, I can even understand someone loafing out a ball on the infield. But that shit is intolerable.

The Nats are on pace for a 90 win season right now and the Cardinals are on pace for 99-63 while playing a murderous schedule.

Think about who they've played so far:

Washington: very good team
Milwaukee: best record in baseball
Cincy*2: playoff team last year; very good team as well
Pittsburgh: 95 win team last year; very good this year
Cubs: Yeah, they suck dick.

They've also played 6 games at home and 12 on the road. Altogether, the W-L is fantastic at this point.

No wonder people hate Cardinal fans....slow start? ROFL

Today was the first time. After getting hit by the ball and the visit to the mound did he start throwing 98-99 mph. Something changed. Maybe the coach saw something in his mechanics. Pitchers don't just start throwing their boiler plate fastballs 5 mph faster in the same outing.

I think you see this in all the top teams fans in all sports. Go look at any top teams fan forum no matter the sport. The bar is set high. Expectations are different. It's not a "Cardinals" thing.

There's a difference between high expectations and ridiculous ones. The Cardinals haven't played a representative schedule so far; they've played an incredibly difficult one--two thirds of their games on the road and almost all against teams that will win 85+ games. Nevertheless, they have won over 60% of their games.

My comment was more in line with their slow offensive start.

If we can keep the pitching solid and get Craig, Holiday, and Carp rolling it will be fantastic.

That just shows you how much the small things matter. Bourjos gets hosed on a 3-1 call and could give up on the AB, but sticks in and draws the walk. Then Strasburg finally makes a mistake and Miller pounces on it, hitting a double to left and driving in the run.

That's excellent baseball.

Incredible job by Choate....nice call Matheny

....and Martinez blows it. 2 to 2.

They had an excellent chance to steal that one, but played a pretty shitty baseball game overall. The quality of baseball was ass for most of that series.

Once Kelly comes off the DL I'd like to see them keep Fornatoro or Rondon up. I'm tired of Maness. He needs batted ball luck to survive because he has AA stuff.

Carpenter is pretty awful at third