Playing for the Name on the Front of the Jersey

On Thursday night, at Nationals Park, the ace of the Washington Nationals staff answered anyone who had been naive enough to question where his fastball had gone. It was back and it was beautiful to behold. He looked every bit the part the ace of a very talented mound corps in DC in his most recent start, striking out 12 in six and two-thirds innings, walking only a single batter and giving up only three hits. The last batter that he faced still had to contend with the 96 mph fastball that Strasburg threw to start the game.

The lanky Californian got many if not most of his swings and misses off the change up, but it is the heater that makes that pitch work and getting enough separation between them seems a key. The velocity that was missing during his first two starts made success difficult and was certainly a factor in the two losses and the seven earned runs he had given up in 10+ innings.

But it is not just Strasburg that has keyed the Nationals 7-2 start to the season, nor is it Bryce Harper. Although they are the most visible members of the team, they have been the hardest to find when explaining the fast start for the team overall. Rather it has been different players almost every night. Jayson Werth is the hottest bat on the team along with Ian Desmond, and Anthony Rendon the most consistent.

The best starters not named Gio Gonzalez–he has two wins in as many starts–have been the two unknown names appended to the back end of the rotation: Tanner Roark and Taylor Jordan. The team has won behind them both, but it was the gutty performance by Jordan against Atlanta that may be looked back upon as an early watershed moment in the season. After losing the first two games against the Braves he pitched six innings of one-run ball and Ian Desmond’s home run gave Washington a win against a team that will be their closest rival all season long and one that bedeviled them in 2013.

And then there has been the bullpen. After Strasburg left with his bag full of strikeouts, Jerry Blevins, Aaron Barrett and Raphael Soriano continued the mastery by striking out five of the final seven batters. Barrett is another new name in Washington and one that fans are taking a shine to.  Keep him on your “Closers of Tomorrow” list.

At this time last week t he thud heard round the Beltway were expectations plummeting when Zimmerman’s second errant throw sailed over LaRoche’s head and doomed a promising start by Strasburg against the Braves. The same thing occurred last season with both Desmond and Zimmerman making numerous errors, Ramos going down and the negatives just piling one on top of another.

But instead of looking for a quick answer to the problems that piled up around Davey Johnson, the team waited for it to all sort itself out. Davey seemed just as certain as anyone else that success was just around the next corner. It never happened. This season Matt Williams has the benefit of 2013 to work from. Before the Zimmerman shoulder becomes a lingering malaise or the team batting average settles at the bottom of the tank, Williams has been quick to confront the issues.

He has been helped immensely by the new faces however. Anthony Rendon has led the team in batting average and OPS for the first two weeks. He has played a flawless third base when Zimmerman sat. Barrett and Blevins have lessened the pressure on Storen, Clippard and Soriano, and Roark and Jordan have taken up the slack for the starters who have been less than stellar at times.

Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg are just the icing, the part of the cake that everybody talks about. But the substance of the team is the roster as a whole and no where has that been more apparent than in the first weeks for the Nationals. New manager Matt Williams is hitting all the right buttons so far, but any manager looks a genius when all of his players step it up and so far the 25-man roster has been doing just that.