The Washington Nationals Are Good Friends

Odd day and game.

I mentioned this a week or two ago, but I find it amusing that we went from a collective state of pondering how Willy Aybar and Ben Zobrist would find at-bats, to having Evan Longoria, Akinori Iwamura, and Pat Burrell suffer injuries. I'm not amused at the injuries, but rather how things work out. This is why panicking about opening day rosters should be limited. It's a long season, depth matters and the Rays had/have it.

Randy Choate somehow has nearly five years of service time.

Fans of momentum, take note of this series. After winning back-to-back games in New York, the Rays looked pitiful in game one, losing 10-1, then bounce back and take the next two games handedly. Winning streaks are nice and losing streaks suck, but neither holds much predictive power moving forward. Oh, and by the way, the Marlins have won five straight.

Gabe Gross tripled for the fourth time in his Rays career. For some reason I don't remember any of the others.

Pat Burrell, another game, another extra base hit. Ho-hum. I could get used to this.

Gabe Kapler is probably the best slider in the league. Really, his slides are something else. Also, I was quite impressed with his read of Dioner Navarro's line drive. Some runners don't advance on that play, others do and get doubled up. Despite being a little wild at times, Kapler looks like a pretty nice signing.

In other AL East team news.

Angel Berroa was designated for assignment. Shucks. It's going to be quite a task for the Yankees to find someone quite as poor.

John Smoltz was tapped around a bit against the Nationals. I wouldn't read too much into it.

The Nationals of all teams have helped us out in the standings. Since being swept by the Rays nearly two weeks ago, Washington has responded by taking a series from both Toronto and New York, and avoiding a sweep against Boston. Indifferent for them, good for us.