'No offseason' for Nationals Lannan

The Earth Times reported today that John Lannan is in the midst of an extreme offseason workout regiment with professional athletic trainer Dean Maddalone. The owner of 'Professional Athletic Performance' will be presenting Lannan and their success in the 2009 National Strength and Conditioning Sports Specific Training Conference in Nashville Tennessee. 

"From the first day of our 12 week program we noticed an intensity usually reserved for guys who are trying to make a team or add years to their career," says Dean on Lannan's work ethic. 

"The last thing I want to think about in later innings is fatigue and the trainers at Performance have taught me how to prepare. I have never felt this good in my life," said Lannan.

John Lannan is slated to be the teams ace this year after an excellent rookie season in 2008. While many in the Nationals circuit believe Lannan has what it takes to be a true Major League ace, few scouts from other organizations see him more than a  number 3 starter on a division one team. Hopefully for Lannan, and the Nationals, this hard work ethic will just be used to shut the doubters up, and Lannan will be dominant yet again on the mound in 2009.

Poll Results are in:

Know Your Nats-John Lannan

John Lannan grew up in Long Island. He attended the prestigious Chaminade, a private all boys high school in New York, where he lettered in Baseball and became the teams captain. Lannan was a standout but not a superstar. It's hard to stand out though when your fellow alumni have names like Bill Oreilly, Bob Mckillop and Al Groh. Continuing the Chaminade tradition of 100% of graduates being accepted to college, and 99% attending, Lannan elected to attend the small Sienna College. As one of the smaller Division 1 schools in the country, Sienna proved to be a perfect place for the crafty6 foot 5 lefty to learn how to become a dominant pitcher.

His freshman year was rocky, but Lannan earned the chance to pitch a lot of innings and learn under fire. His guts and his potential earned him the chance to start against the #1 ranked team in the nation, Florida State. He held is own only allowing five hits and two earn

ed in five innings, causing scouts to start to take notice of Lannan's talents. He finished the season with a 5.44 ERA in 44 innings.

Lannan continued to improve throughout his career at Sienna, culminating with his stellar junior season. Sienna won 29 games and Lannan tossed 10 of them, finishing with an impressive line of 10-2, 2.29 ERA, and 83 strikeouts in 82 innings. He also contributed 8 complete games in 12 starts. Pairing with another stellar junior, Ken Grant, Sienna went on to one of its best seasons and drew many professional scouts.

Lannan was selected in 2005 by the Washington Nationals in the 11^th round, as the 324^th overall pick. He signed and was in the organization in no time, pitching for the Vermont Expos. It was a rough professional debut for Lannan, producing poor numbers for low A Vermont with an ERA of 5.26 in 2005 and a slightly improved 4.46 respectively for high A Savannah in 2006. His poor performance was probably a result of fatigue more than anything else, he jumped directly into professional ball after pitching more innings than he ever had before at Sienna, without much of a break. Lannan was confident about his performance however, telling Scout.com:

“I felt like I did well for my first season. I enjoyed playing in Vermont and I was glad I got as many innings as I did. And, I was able to get a couple of wins for the team. The only thing I wish is that I didn't walk as many batters as I did."

Lannan also said he had trouble adjusting to professional hitters and the tighter professional strike-zone, a common problem for new pitchers. His velocity was still only peaking at 87-89 MPH on his fastball at this point, which is relatively slow for a pitcher with major league aspirations.

2007 was a brand new story for the young lefty. After adjusting his delivery, and working hard in the offseason to boost his velocity, the soutpaw made his move. He opened in Potomac, blazing the competition with a 6-0 record and a 2.13 ERA. He earned a quick promotion to double A Harrisburg where he continued to deal his junk to a 3-2 record with a 3.25 ERA. He earned yet another promotion to triple A columbus where his fast track to the majors continued with a 3-1 record and a 1.75 ERA. With the Nationals going nowhere, and their starting rotation dilapidated, Lannan earned his call up.

Lannan made his MLB debut July 26, 2007, and in stunning fashion. While his start only saw him pitch 5 innings, and allow 3 runs to the Phillies, his antics in the 5^th inning are what made him an immediate impact player. With one out Lannan hit fellow lefty Chase Utley with a fastball, causing him to break his hand and go on the DL. The very next pitch he hit Ryan Howard, forcing him to leave the game as well. Lannan was ejected, becoming the first pitcher to be ejected in his debut in over a decade. More importantly he became the object of much animosity from Philly fans, as a 'John Lannan must die,' movement began.

Lannan couldn't manage to get out of the spotlight in his third career start either. It found him pitching in San Francisco, in front of the national media...against Barry Bonds. Bonds was a homer shy of breaking Aaron's all time home run record, and Lannan was the man standing in his way. Lannan stepped up and preformed, as we would go to see him to many times.

Lannan started 2008 as an inexperienced, but potential filled starter. Expectations were low, but hopes were high that he could develop and be a permanent starter in the Nats rotation. He began the rotation behind Shawn Hill, Tim Redding, and Odalis Perez, but quickly moved up the ranks as he preformed at an ace level.

He finished the year with a 3.91 ERA and 117 strikeouts in 31 starts. It was an impressive first full season for the Nats lefty and a good foundation to build his career on. When the Nats were in a losing streak, and needed someone to pitch a gem, Lannan more often than not stepped up. His demeanor on the mound has fans excited and hopeful that he can develop into the ace this team needs.

Nats give up 14 hits, lost 6-3

Pitchers Duel? Maybe not

How they did:

Maine:

6 innings, 2 hits, 1 ER, 2 R, 5 K
Result: Improved to 5-2, 2.81 ERA

Lannan:

6 Innings, 12 hits, 4 ER, 2 K
Result: Fell to 3-4, 3.74 ERA

Hit City

Through the first two games of this series the Mets have recorded 26 hits. That’s borderline ridiculous, the Nats are a team that’s built around a pitching staff and if they don’t keep runs off the board they cant, well, win. To their credit the Nats have only allowed 10 runs off those 26 hits, partly by allowing only 6 walks in the same period. This may show good concentration, or guts, or even luck that the Nats haven’t gotten scorched on the scoreboard despite the poor pitching, but what it definitely means is that the Nats top two starters this season Odalis Perez and John Lannan haven’t had any answers for the Mets.

Two hitters in particular last night gave the Nats the most trouble, Brian Schneider and Ryan Church. As most of you Nats fans know, Washington traded Schneider and Church this off-season for the young Lastings Milledge in a move that was considered by many as lopsided in the Nats favor. Church and Schneider were both considered replacement level players and Milledge is still considered a future star. However since arriving to New York both Church and Schneider are hitting well over .300 at .324 and .321 respectively. To put that in perspective no National who has played over 20 games this season is batting over .300, in fact only one, Cristian Guzman, is even close.

To add insult to injury Church and Schneider contributed greatly to the Nats loss last night by combining for 5 hits, 3 runs, and five runs batted in. Both players have contributed greatly as the Mets returnees from last season have all struggled. It’s frustrating to see, but hopefully 5 years down the line we’ll be getting the last laugh.

Church on the season: .324 BA, .385 OBP, 8 HR, 30 RBI

Schneider on the seaosn: .321 BA, .391 OBP, 1 HR, 10 RBI

GUZMAN WATCH

Cristian went 0-3 in a disappointing loss for the Nats last night. While he went hitless he did do something extremely rare for our prized shortstop, Guzman recorded a walk! That puts him at 6 this year, and counting!

Pitchers duel tonight

Tonight the Mets John Maine will go up against the Nats John Lannan in what should be a great pitchers duel.

John Maine-
Age: 27
Draft: 2002, 6th Round, Baltimore Orioles
Numbers: 4-2, 3.00 ERA, 33/21 K/BB Ratio
Interesting Fact: Maine has won 3 games in a row fallowing a Mets loss.

John Lannan-
Age: 23
Draft: 2005, 11th round, Washington Nationals
Numbers: 3-3, 3.40 ERA, 27/17 K/BB Ratio
Interesting Fact: Allowed 2 or less runs in 5 of 7 starts.

Both Lannan and Maine are smart young pitchers who have made it to the majors despite low expectations. Both were drafted in high rounds and both have low velocity and rely on good accuracy to get batters out. Most importantly, both pitchers have moved themselves into a position where you could argue they have made themselves the teams Ace despite having a bigger name pitcher also in the rotation. Lannan of course has Shawn Hill at the top of his staff, and Maine last year carried the load when Pedro Martinez was hurt, and this year has produced at the same level as rotation star Johan Santana. This should be a fun match up.

Note: In Lannan’s last start in Shea Stadium he allowed only 3 hits in 6 innings while recording a career high 11 strikeouts.

Lannan ends streak, so do the Nats

Sorry for the delay on this game report…. But I turned 21 last night…

Well that took the wind out of the winning streaks sails. Nothing like seeing your promising young starter get pelted for 3 innings only to be taken out only to see the good bullpen you have faith in get rattled as well. I guess it’s ok if we play like this once every five games, the Pirates were due for a win and let’s face it, the Nats were due for a loss.

Everyone on the Pirates hit well last night, it was one of those situations where nothing seemed to go right for anyone on the mound for the good guys. Five Pirates had multi hit games, including Jose Batista who tripled his homer count with two bombs. All the players I listed as having to keep quiet; Nady, Doumit, and McLoud had huge games, and despite the non stellar starting pitching for the Pirates, the bullpen shut the door.

Help! John Lannan shows mortality

Imagine having a starter who is 24 with a 19 inning scoreless streak, its easy if you try. In my life I’ve been waiting for that kind of pitcher to come along to D.C and take over the staff ace job, becoming one of the more dominant pitchers in the league. It would be a revolution for Washington baseball to say the least. John Lannan was that pitcher for the Nats in April.

Tonight he came down to earth. Was it the lousy weather? The windy conditions? Bad Beatles references? We may never know, but we do know that Lannan is capable of getting roughed up by some solid, but ultimately inexperienced hitters. I don’t think it’s time to panic, one bad start doesn’t mean much necessarily. The only thing that worries me is John Lannan was such a question mark leading into this game; how was he doing so well? This regression makes me wonder if it this is a dose of reality or an anomaly. Here’s to hoping it’s the second.

Box Score

No error here, Nats win 6-0

Two things the Nats haven’t had this season is run support and luck. They got a bit of both tonight as the Nats went on to score 4 unearned runs on way to a 6-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves. With the win the Nationals ended a three game skid and finally may have been able to regain a little bit of their pesky swagger they had last season.

After another brilliant start from John Lannan and a solid showing from the bullpen the Nats led 1-0 going into the top of the 9th. With two on and one out, Nieves bounced a ball to the pitcher that should have led to an inning ending double play, instead an arrant throw allowed Milledge to come around and score, starting a 5 run rally which ultimately lead to the Nationals victory.

John Lannan picks up his first “W”

After two great starts, including an 11 strikeout performance against the New York Mets, John Lannan finally picks up his first win of the season. Although ultimately meaningless in terms of the quality of his pitching, it’s got to be a confidence builder for Lannan to see a W besides the one on his cap. While the line up didn’t necessarily clinch it for him, the Nationals at least found one way to get it done for the pitcher quickly turning into the staff ace.

The only things that Lannan needs to improve upon right now are his consistency (obviously) and his control. After tonight, Lannan has 10 walks in 21 innings. A finesse pitcher needs to keep unneeded runners off the base paths. This is because:

1. Pitchers who don’t throw that hard are more likely to miss a spot and give up the accidental hit, and runners put on base by errors or walks will turn into RBI’s.
2. Finesse pitchers need to use the whole count, its just harder in general to pitch with runners on base.

If Lannan can decrease his walk rate it could really help a lot. If you look at the best finesse pitchers of their era, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, both had incredibly low walk rates.

Don’t be fooled

As I mentioned in the intro, 5 of the Nationals 6 runs were unearned. While I’ll take a run anyway I can get one, don’t think the bats are suddenly back(assuming they were ever here). Look at this line for the Nationals tonight: 9 hits, three walks, twelve strikeouts.

While the Nats may have only walked three times and struck out like a JV high school team, you may be excited about the 9 hits. Consider this however, four of those 9 hits came by the way of Willie Harris and Wil Nieves (By the way I am amazed at the different variations of the name William we have on this team; Wil Nieves, Willie Harris, Wily Mo Pena…and not one Will, Bill, or William). These two players are both reserves filling in for injured players (Lo Duca injured hand, Pena injured pride). While their effort is commendable, don’t think that this means the Nats line up as we know it is producing again.

Who’s going to lose playing time to who?

Austin Kearns was Jim Bowden’s joy, his prized pick. A megaprospect who he drafted 7th overall in 1998, Kearns went on went on tear to make it to the majors ahead of schedule in 2002. He produced, in only 370 at bats for the Reds he batting .315 with 13 homers with an OPS of .907. He was the crown jewel of the Reds franchise…then something set in…perhaps it was reality.
Since his fabled rookie season Kearns has batted .255, and averaged 13 homers a year. So far this year he has been equally awful, batting .213 with only 2 homers. While his on base percentage has continued to be solid, his batting average and slugging percentage have plummeted, continuing to decrease his value.
When Dukes gets healthy, and Wily Mo Pena starts to produce the way he has proven in the last several years he can, who loses playing time? We understand Mr. Bowden your affinity for you’re joy, but show some pride.

Box Score
(Photo’s courtesy of Associated Press/Gregory Smith and Alfredo Lee)

Nationals lose 9th straight, fall to the Braves at home

It’s a sad note that I am starting this blog on the night the Nats set a mark for their worst losing streak since coming to Washington. The season had started so well…a beautiful christening of a new ball park…a three game win streak….and the emergence of Nick Johnson and Ryan Zimmerman as the corner pillars of the 2008 campaign.
Nine games later, and nine losses later, the Nats are looking face to face with the down to earth reality that they are truly the 4th or 5th place team in the N.L East and that the new park alone may not launch them over any hump.

Let’s consider then the founding of NatsPark to be the official turning point in the franchise…YOU CAN BE A PART OF HISTORY!

Let’s take a look at the game today:

After an hour and a half rain delay the game looked to be over before the Nats even got an at-bat. A four run Atlanta inning left the Nats with a big deficit early. When you factor the Nats ability to play behind, and that they were facing one of the best starting pitchers of the last two decades, John Smoltz, it was really an unlikely deficit for the team to overcome. Which it was as the Nats didn’t score a run until the Braves had scored their sixth in the fourth inning. The final score was 10-1, but lets face it the game was over at 6-0.

Pitching woes:

John Lannan took a step back today (4IP 9H 6ER 4BB 2K). It was only his 8th career outing however, and if you consider his age and experience, he has put together a good number of quality starts. Oddly enough for the 24 year old Lannan his best starts have come on the road, away from the pitcher friendly RFK and this was his first game at Nats Park. What can we learn from this? Probably nothing, I would place the blame on the poor performance of Lannan on the rain delay and the fact that most young pitchers with his amount of experience haven’t learned to adjust to a delayed start time like that. Warming up, getting ready to go and then having to sit for 91 minutes can throw you off if you are not prepared. Smoltz on the other hand has just a few more starts under his belt…

Expect the young Lannan to have road bumps like these along the way, he is only 24 after all. The good news is young players don’t stay young for long, and we can truly watch him develop before our very eyes into a solid number 2 or 3 starter down the road.

After Lannan was knocked out, Jason Bergman came on to “relieve” him and had about the same amount of success. In two starts this year Bergman has just been plain awful (10.1 IP 16H 13 ER 2BB 10K), and with today’s outing, giving up four runs and two homers in only two innings, it is evident to say he is not comfortable in the bullpen either. This isn’t to say Bergman lost the Nats the game, it was out of hand by the time he got there, but he certainly didn’t keep the score down.

Hitting woes:

The good news is Zimmerman has seemed to bust out of his slump a little bit. He turned things around today going 2/3 with a double to right center and a Sac-Fly scoring Willie Harris after his triple. Leading into today’s game Zimm was 0 for his last 18 with only 1 walk in that span. The Nats need more productive days like today from their young star to compete in the most competitive division in baseball.

Despite my affinity for Felipe Lopez and all the talent he has packed into that small frame, he has not been much of an improvement over tubby Ronny Belliard at second. The Nats need constant production from everyone in their line up with the lack of a big bopper to rake in tons of runs on his own. The Nats drew six walks which is great but they also left 19 runner stranded. On base percentage, a virtue Manny Acta teaches, is meaningless if no one hits those runners in.

Jeff Francoeur woes:

Jeff Francoeur had a day for the Braves…..eight words that pain me to say. Francoeur “The Natural” went 3/5 with two bombs and raked 7 RBI’s. That’s right he drove in more runs then the Nationals did collectively. Francoeur only had 4 RBI’s total coming into the game…

Will the Nationals win their game tomorrow against the Braves and end this 9 game skid? What does Manny Acta have to do, if anything, to turn this team around? Paul Lo Duca, or Jesus Flores? Leave your comments.

Box Score

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