February 27, 2009

Houston? No Problem

Nationals 2 - Astros 0

Good pitching, great defense and just enough offense equals an uneventful win. (Box Score)

Shawn Hill didn't disintegrate in his brief first outing of the spring, and the pitching that followed was uniformly solid, highlighted by Joel Hanrahan's 1 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 2 K to garner his first save. The offense managed 7 hits, but there were no breakout performances. RBI doubles from Cristian Guzman and Jesus Flores accounted for all of the Nats' scoring.

Alberto Gonzalez continued to impress with the bat and the glove. The middle infield competition, where there are likely only two roster spots for the Attorney General, Ronnie Belliard and Anderson Hernandez, is shaping up to be one to watch. Big league quality roster depth, what a concept.

Honorary 25-man roster spots go to: GUZMANIA! and Hanrahan.

2 comments:

Positively Half St. said...

I hope that the AG and Anderson Hernandez turn out to be more than AAAA players. I don't know what their option status is- if one of them is out, he gets a real advantage. Hopefully they all have great springs, and make it hard, or a trade easy.

Anybody have thoughts on whether the Nats ought to try to sign Adam Eaton?

Nate said...

PHS-

My 2 cents: If Eaton wants the "Odalis Perez Special" (~$1M, non-guaranteed) I'm all for it. Anything more than that and rather run with Lannan, Olsen, Balester, Cabrera, Zimmermann, Hill, et al, plus whatever's available as the first few rounds of camp cuts start coming out.