Perhaps Obama's arrant first pitch was a sign of bad things to come. Despite pouncing to an early 1-0 lead, Washington fell behind after a five run fourth inning that saw Ryan Howard hit a two run homer, and even Roy Halladay get an RBI single. The Phil's would add on two more in the sixth and four more in the seventh to come out on top 11-1.

GAME NOTES:

Picking up where he left off: Nyjer Morgan picked up where he left off when he went down to injury last summer, going 2-4 on the afternoon with a stolen base and the Nationals only run. Morgan got on base in the first with an infield single, and hit a double later in the game off of Bastardo.

Opening day, a national Halladay: Roy Halladay did not disappoint Phillies fans in his first outing. The new ace allowed only six hits in seven innings, while striking out nine and only walking two. At times Halladay made Nationals batters look silly, forcing backawards K's and weak hit pop-ups.

Outside of Batista, bullpen shines: Jesse English made his first career major league appearance in the top of the fourth with the bases loaded and Ryan Howard at the plate. He forced the lefty to ground out to second to end the inning. English went on to retire the next three batters in order. Sean Burnett and Brian Bruney each pitched a scoreless inning in the eighth and ninth innings respectively.

The future hall-of-famer earns his keep: Ivan Rodriguez, making his Nationals debut, shut up skeptics who said he no longer had the ability to get it done at the plate, at least for now. The 38-year-old catcher went 3-4 on the night with a pair of doubles against one of the better pitchers in baseball. Rodriguez also made an excellent defensive play in the third firing a rifle of a throw to second base to break up Roy Halladay's sacrifice attempt.

WIN PROBABILITY:

(WPA Charts from Fangraphs.com, the BEST stat site on the net)

With opening day finally upon us, the Washington Nationals' right field platoon remains the same. As of now, the team has chosen to stand pat and promote players internally rather than looking outside the organization for a solution. An important factor that played into this decision was the relative weakness of available right fielders. Though it appears that the Nationals have spoken with the Cubs, Rays, and Brewers about Kosuke Fukudome, B.J. Upton, and Corey Hart, respectively, each has at least one significant obstacle restricting their tradability.

Fukudome, 32, has a partial no-trade clause on his contract current contract, from which he is slated to receive $26.5 million over the next two years. Moreover, though the Cubs' outfielder would serve as a marginal offensive upgrade over the two Willies, that improvement would be offset by Fukudome's -3.4 UZR last season. The minimal offensive improvement would not be worth the veritable fortune it would take to acquire it.

Hart, 28, though younger and cheaper ($4.8 million) than Fukudome, posted similar offensive statistics last season, hitting .260/.335/.418 with 12 home runs; however, his UZRs over the last two seasons are -4.7 and -5.1. Thus, Hart is essentially a more cost-effective, worse version of Fukudome, which is certainly not sufficient praise to warrant further pursuit.

The Nationals open their season at home this afternoon as President Barack Obama will mark history by throwing out the first-pitch 100 years after William Taft threw out the first-ever first-pitch for the Senators in 1910.

The Philadelphia Phillies and the Washington Nationals enter the 2010 season on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Phillies (93-69) won the National League pennant last season after cruising to a NL East Division title, edging out the Marlins by 6 games. The Nationals (59-103) on the other hand, enter 2010 after finishing with the worst record in baseball for two consecutive seasons.

Both teams made strides that they feel proud of this offseason, and both have left their fan base feeling they will make the step to the next level in 2010. The Phillies replaced Cliff Lee, an ace in his own right, with Roy Halladay, a man who has arguably been the best pitcher in baseball for the last decade. The club also bolstered their defense by adding Placido Palanco, giving them arguably the best infield in baseball. The Phillies are trying to recapture the World Championship.

The Nationals made moves of their own, bringing in starting pitching and bullpen help. Washington looks to improve the leagues worst pitching staff and defense. The club allowed a league-high 143 errors last season with a league low .977 fielding percentage. The pitching staff struck out a league-low 911 batters while walking a league-high 629. The Nationals are looking to make the move towards respectability.

Probable Starters

John Lannan (0-0 -.-ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (0-0, -.-ERA)
Jason Marquis (0-0, -.-ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (0-0, -.-ERA)
Craig Stammen (0-0, -.-ERA) vs. Joe Blanton (0-0, -.-ERA)

Comparing the bats

While the Phillies have arguably the most famous one-two-three punch in Rollins, Utley, and Howard, the Nationals tied them in 2009 with the ninth-best batting average in the National League. Both clubs batted .258, the Nationals slightly edged the Phillies by getting on base at .337 compared to .334, but trailed in slugging as Philadelphia slugged .447 to Washington's .406.

John Lannan Must Die

Nationals ace John Lannan made his major league debut in July of 2007 against the Phillies. He lasted five innings before earning the only ejection of his career. Lannan, pitching mostly on nerves, hit Phillies star Chase Utley with an inside fastball in the top of the fifth. The pitch broke Utley's hand forcing him out of the line-up for five weeks and severely hampering their playoff chase (no pun intended). Lannan plunked slugger Ryan Howard on the very next pitch, earning an ejection from home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.

This series of two pitches automatically made Lannan one of the most hated men in Philadelphia, which is saying something. Philly fans are notorious for their ability to hate, but earning such a distinction in your first ever major league outing, that's saying something. Philly's fans soon organized and to this day still boo John Lannan.

Since the incident Ryan Howard remains hitless in 12 plate appearances vs. the lefty. Howard has struck out four times against Lannan and has reached base only once. Utley on the other hand has been able to earn his revenge. In 11 plate appearances he is batting .500 with two homers and a double vs. Lannan.

Numbers of Note:

The Nationals enter today's game with a seven-game win streak extending from the end of last season, leaving them three shy of their franchise record for consecutive wins.

The Nationals were 2-0 when George W. Bush threw out the first pitch, and Washington baseball is 25-23 overall when a president throws out the first pitch.

What to look for

While the Nationals have stated that Ian Desmond and Willie Harris will be starters this season, pay attention to how Jim Riggleman manages uses both Cristian Guzman and Willy Taveras. Guzman is owed $8 million this season but after losing the competition for the starting shortstop role, it's unclear where he will play and how often.

Taveras is in Washington as a defensive replacement and as part of the platoon in right. With only four outfielders on the opening day roster, he could see a lot of playing time at all of the outfield positions. This time a month ago Nats fans would have been surprised to read that last sentence, but with the cutting of Elijah Dukes things have been shook up for opening day.

The Washington Nationals finalized their 25-man roster Saturday by optioning Scott Olsen and Roger Bernadina to Syracuse while re-assigning former closer Mike MacDougal and infielder Eric Bruntlett to minor-league camp. The club will wait to activate starting pitcher Livan Hernandez until his first scheduled start, and will instead carry eight relievers for the first week of the season. Among them are left-hander Jesse English and right-hander Tyler Walker, two relievers that were believed to have been vying for one spot left in the Nationals bullpen.

With all of the fielding starting positions locked up, and the one meaningless bullpen spot in limbo, one of the biggest surprises of the spring came Saturday as the Nationals announced that 26-year-old Garrett Mock would enter the 2010 season as the clubs fifth starter and not Scott Olsen.

Mock had all but locked up the position in the middle of March when he was named by the Nationals as the one pitcher outside of John Lannan and Jason Marquis who had made their case for the rotation. However since that time Mock has struggled more and more as the spring has gone by,  culminating in an abysmal performance in his last start which was considered his last tryout for the team. In that start Mock allowed five earned runs, and more importantly, seven walks. His spring ERA now stands at 5.79, where just several weeks ago it was between three and four. no comments

Over at the Real Dirty Mets Blog, the expectations for the upcoming 2010 season are set. The past week has been up and down for New York as the injury bug from last year still haunts the Mets clubhouse.

Having been a lifelong Mets fan and being convinced that they were the favorites to win the World Series from 2006 to 2009, I have only seen my hopes and dreams crushed by the most traumatic, shocking, unusual, and quite literally most painful ways to lose. Right when you think you have seen it all, they pull something else out of their bag of tricks. I think all Mets fans owe it to themselves this year to go in with absolutely no expectations, because let's be honest, the Mets may not even be one of the top two teams in their own division. But with names like Wright, Reyes, Santana, K-Rod, and now Bay all on the same roster, what are they waiting for? Of their first 23 games of the season, 16 of them will be a Citi Field, which depending on the team's success, could turn out as a positive or negative. Somehow, someway, New York will have to find a way to put it together because if they stumble early out of the gate, heads will roll, jobs will be lost, and all hope will be gone.

Interesting link from FishStripes on how a simulation done by ESPN the Magazine predicts the Marlins to finish dead last in the division. That's right Nationals fans, if the prediction is correct you may have some company down there after all.

The difference between Jim Bowden and Mike Rizzo is stark.  The leather pants wearing, segway driving Bowden was a man of words, oftentimes over-exaggerated and inflated.  For a baseball general manager he was flamboyant.  Who could forget him calling Ian Desmond "the next Derek Jeter" or his proclimation upon accquiring Emilio Bonifacio that the Nationals had "accquired their secondbaseman of the future."

He was the baseball equilivent of Jeffery Skilling, taking on toolsy outfielders that were high risk, high reward players at the expense of the Nationals future.  Pitching and defense meant little to him and the team's rosters during his reign reflected this.  He was a guy that was better at marketing the team than building it.

And then you have Mike Rizzo.  Rizzo is soft-spoken and much more grounded in the views of the team that is being fielded.  He does not wear flashy suits and has not made unrealistic player comparisons.  Toolsy outfielders that were accumulated under Bowden, like Milledge and Dukes, were shown the door and, as a former scout, he understands that pitching and defense are a key component of most successful teams.  It should come as no surprise that he is attempting to build the Nationals on this premise.

The past two seasons, the Nationals have been in the bottom third of the league in runs allowed.  Last seasons, the only team that finished with more runs allowed was the team with the second worst record, the Orioles.  How important is defense in the National League?  Each of the four teams that made the NL playoffs in 2009 were in the top half of the league in runs allowed.  In those two years,

Yesterday, Washington Nationals' manager Jim Riggleman announced that Willy Taveras would serve as the right-handed portion of the team's right field platoon, citing Taveras' defensive prowess as the deciding factor in earning the role opposite left-handed hitter Willie Harris. Mike Morse will likely fill the role of a versatile utility player and see time on the corners in both the outfield and infield.

The real surprise in all of this came during Thursday's game against the Mets. As the ninth inning began, Cristian Guzman was playing right field. Guzman, who has never played in the outfield, was compared to Willie Harris, who formerly played infield to exclusion. According to Riggleman, Guzman will first play the position in late game situations when one team has a secure lead, thus allowing him to become acclimated without risking wins and losses in the process.

In other news, the Nationals optioned right-handed pitcher Luis Atilano to Syracuse. Atilano, 24, posted a 6.14 ERA in 7.1 innings pitched this spring. The former first round pick of the Atlanta Braves went 9-8 with a 4.01 ERA in 22 starts last year between Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Syracuse.

Analysis:

Believe it or not, this is no April Fools' prank. I actually think this is a savvy move by the Nationals. With the extremely tenuous situation in right field and the limited ceiling of this year's squad, it cannot hurt to try Guzman in right. Moreover, Guzman's bat is too good for this team to waste. While the team has a relative wealth of middle infielders including Ian Desmond, Adam Kennedy, Alberto Gonzalez, and Guzman, its right field prospects are comparatively sparse and limited. Harris can be a functional everyday player; however, he would be better served as a utility player and spot starter. In addition, though Taveras posted a UZR of 8.3 in 102 games for Cincinnati last year, he hit only .240/.275/.285 in 437 plate appearances. Although the Guzman experiment will certainly take its lumps, it projects to be a low risk, high reward situation. If Guzman can play a serviceable right field, the benefits of his bat outweigh the limitations of his outfield defense.

When we last left Bryce Harper, he was batting an astonishing .420/.514/.864 with eight homers and 32 runs scored on the season. To be honest, I thought for sure this would be the high point, that the league would finally catch up to the 17-year-old slugger playing junior college ball. Instead, Harper went out and had the best weekend of his young college career.

In back-to-back double-headers on Saturday and Sunday, both against the College of Eastern Utah, Harper went 7/14, hit four homers and scored seven runs. This brought his season totals to .431/.528/.931 with 12 home runs, 35 RBI, and 39 runs. His slash's combine for an outrageous 1.459 OPS.

Harper again showed his defensive versatility, and with it perhaps taunting scouts with his unique talent and draftability. Harper played two games at catcher and two in centerfield this weekend, and is quickly showing he's not the best catcher in the draft, but arguably the best position player.

HARPER VIDEO VS. COLLEGE OF EASTERN UTAH