Posted on October 17th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Ray Lewis was a year older and a step slower last month as he began his 17th NFL season. He covered less ground on pass plays and offered less resistance on running plays. The laws of nature suggest that trend will continue if Lewis mounts a comeback next year.
Sadly, the effort probably isn’t worth it. Not to the player and not to his employer, the Baltimore Ravens.
Lewis suffered a season-ending torn triceps in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s 31-29 victory against the Dallas Cowboys. The future Hall of Fame linebacker who rarely misses a snap was a spectator as the Ravens staved off a pair of last-gasp drives that could have resulted in a loss.
But if you were watching TV with the sound down, and didn’t know Lewis was injured as the cameras kept showing him, you would have thought he was sidelined for strategic reasons and the commentators were discussing the reality of a new era in Baltimore. The fact that such a transition is inevitable made the sight no less shocking.
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Posted on October 15th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Washington Redskins and their star quarterback face a dilemma that’s unlikely to fade as the season progresses. It’s not a choice between equally undesirable alternatives because clearly there’s an advantage in using Robert Griffin III to his fullest.
But utilizing him to that significant and magnificent extent leads to a perplexing problem for RG3 and his coaches alike: How much is excessive and how much is enough?
Unfortunately, that’s a question best answered in hindsight. When RG3 didn’t get out of bounds before suffering a concussion-inducing hit against Atlanta a week ago, that was a bad decision. When he took off for 13 carries — several by design — in Sunday’s 38-26 victory against Minnesota, that was brilliant strategy.
Coach Mike Shanahan actually heeded the masses and scaled back Griffin’s runs against Atlanta. The fact that he got hurt anyway merely proves that the game’s inherent perils are unavoidable — in or out of the pocket. But there’s a heightened sense of danger whenever RG3 tucks the ball and essentially becomes a halfback, a position that doesn’t enjoy the protection designed for quarterbacks.
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Posted on October 13th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Washington Nationals and their newly-minted fans grew up this week. Over the course of three days in southeast D.C., they hung out with the defending World Series champions. The Cardinals showed them the ropes of autumn baseball, gave them glimpse of life in the postseason’s pressure cooker.
St. Louis even let the Nats & Co. take a quick sip from the victors’ cup, like older cousins overseeing a youngster’s first drink. But the Cardinals didn’t allow the Washingtonians to gulp it down. The champs snatched it away in mid-swallow, before anyone could became acclimated to the taste.
Now Washington knows how Texas felt last season, when the Rangers twice were one strike away from vanquishing the Cardinals. Now everyone knows what it’s like to be so close to a raucous playoff celebration that you see it in your mind as if it were unfolding in front of your face. Which should occur any second.
But then everything goes terribly wrong. The opponents score the go-ahead runs before the third out and there’s no miraculous comeback and the season is over in stunning fashion. That’s what St. Louis did to the Nats with a 9-7 victory Friday night in Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
It’s as if the Cardinals put the Nats and this suddenly-feverish-about-baseball city through a cruel initiation process, a painful rite of passage for newbies looking to cross over. With a four-run rally in the ninth — completing the comeback from 6-0 hole — St. Louis both confrimed its standing and acknowledged the Nats’ arrival:
“Welcome to adulthood, kiddies. You made it. Go get ‘em next year.”
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Posted on October 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The biggest game in Washington Nationals history was nowhere close to that magnitude for starter Edwin Jackson, who entered Wednesday having pitched in a pair of World Series in prior years. Game 3 of the National League Division Series, by definition, isn’t comparable to what’s at stake in the postseason’s latter stages.
The Nats’ last chance to move on wasn’t in Jackson’s right hand when he started Washington’s first home MLB playoff game since 1933. The final weight ultimately would come to rest on Game 4 starter Ross Detwiler and (if necessary) Game 5 starter Gio Gonzalez.
Jackson was supposed to span the gap.
While the bridge didn’t experience a total collapse, there was significant crumbling at the beginning.
Instead of crossing over to the brink of the NLCS, Washington was left on the verge of extinction as St. Louis got to Jackson early in an 8-0 loss. All of his postseason experience went for naught as the Cards tagged him for four runs on six hits through two innings. He settled down after that, but it was too late.
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Posted on October 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Outfielder Jayson Werth was among Washington’s most carefree players after Game 3 of the National League Division Series, a deflating 8-0 defeat that left his team one loss away from winter vacation.
He wasn’t worried about the 2-games-to-1 hole. He didn’t care that the St. Louis Cardinals are battle-tested and known to thrive in such situations. He still believed in the Nats’ character and definitely liked their chances.
“All we’ve got to do,” he said Wednesday night, “is come through tomorrow and we’re in good shape.”
The Nats did as he suggested and Werth capped the effort with an exclamation point Thursday, driving his 13th pitch from reliever Lance Lynn into the visitors’ bullpen for a walk-off homer and 2-1 victory.
A sign held aloft in the stands expressed every Nats’ fan thought at the moment: “Werth It.”
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Posted on October 9th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Once again, it’s time to check off some items on my “TIDU List” — Things I Don’t Understand:
*Why the Nats’ Game 2 thrashing should cause alarm.
The Cardinals scored a dozen times Monday, but none of those runs will carry over to Game 3. The NLDS now amounts to a three-game series at home, and the Nats played above a .600 clip at home this season. They’ll advance if they keep it up.
Now isn’t the time for alarm; hair-pulling can commence if they lose Game 3.
*How RG3 will enjoy any longevity at his current rate.
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Posted on October 9th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
ST. LOUIS — Game 1 of the National League Division Series represented meatloaf for Washington. There would be no gravy Monday in Game 2.
Instead, it was more like something the dog threw up. It was ugly, repulsive and it stunk.
The St. Louis Cardinals broke out their whipping sticks and clubbed the Nationals into early submission, beginning with starter Jordan Zimmermann. Virtually every other Nats pitcher got a taste of the beat down as St. Louis evened the series with a 12-4 victory that sounds closer than it felt.
If you thought advancing to the next round would be easy as 1-2-3, the idea began evaporating as the Cards strung 1-2-3-4 consecutive hits to open the second inning. St. Louis batters also homered in four of the next six innings, removing any doubt that Monday just was one of those days for Washington’s vaunted pitching staff.
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Posted on October 8th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
ST. LOUIS — The 2012 season represented uncharted territory for the Washington Nationals, as the vast majority of players had never experienced the pressure of pennant races or the joy of first-place finishes. But venturing out this far, with baseball’s best record and the NL East division title already in tow, is nothing like navigating the postseason’s deep waters.
The previous 162 games provided no indication of how Washington would respond in the National League Division Series. No matter how much Davey Johnson and his players try to downplay their lack of seasoning — the team’s, not the 69-year-old manager’s — playoff baseball is just different.
Here, every pitch and subsequent action is magnified, with only three guaranteed games left to be played. Across the field in the home team’s dugout are the battle-tested St. Louis Cardinals, winners of two of the past six World Series titles. They don’t have to wonder what it’s like to need a big out or a clutch hit when each defeat feels like a week’s worth.
But after Sunday, the Nats don’t have to wonder, either. They treated the NLDS opener like a midsummer game in Houston or Pittsburgh, just another chance to keep proving themselves. The evidence on this occasion was a 3-2 victory, courtesy of rookie Tyler Moore’s pinch-hit single in the eighth inning.
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Posted on October 4th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Nationals played seven forgettable, regrettable seasons in Washington before establishing themselves among the majors’ best teams this year. It seems like only yesterday that they compiled back-to-back 100-loss campaigns, while finishing last in the NL East five times in their first six seasons in D.C. There were times when you wondered if the Nats ever would field a winner.
D.C. baseball fans were elated to have a team again but still scarred from the Washington Senators experience, Parts I and II. The Expos ended the District’s 33-year streak without Major League Baseball when MLB relocated them from Montreal in 2005, but the clock on playoff-free baseball kept ticking, hitting 78 years entering this season.
Now the countdown has stopped and the Nats have arrived, sending waves of relief and joy through the city. Although the pace might have felt torturous, D.C. actually reached this point quicker than most cities that received new or relocated teams in MLB’s Expansion Era (post-1960).
“I was just thrilled to get a team in 2005,” said Steve Buckhantz, a native Washingtonian and longtime sports broadcaster who has called Wizards games for 15 seasons. Buckhantz remembers being taken out of elementary school by his grandfather to go watch Senators games on Opening Day.
“When I hear people say we haven’t had a winner since 2005, that was like last year,” he said. “Not only is what we’re experiencing still new, but to have a team this successful right now it doesn’t seem like it’s taken that long, only seven years. That’s crazy.”
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Posted on October 2nd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Wizards’ path to respectability is littered with land mines, potholes and other assorted obstacles in the Eastern Conference. But at least Washington seems headed in the right direction, having jettisoned the goofballs and blockheads who steered it off course the past few seasons.
Losing the dead weight should improve the Wizards’ responsiveness in maneuvering during the journey.
But there’s no escaping the familiar sense of dread that has surrounded the franchise for the better part of 30 years now. Just when it appeared that the depression was lifting, we learned otherwise. Star point guard John Wall is out for at least eight weeks, long enough to jeopardize thoughts of a postseason berth.
The Wizards talked a good game in the immediate aftermath and at Monday’s media day. Team President Ernie Grunfeld called the left knee injury a “bump in the road.” Coach Randy Wittman said the team’s “expectations aren’t going to change.” Wall said he believes in his teammates and “they can win a lot of games without me.”
Those comments are the exact opposite of what we fear will happen, which is this: By the time Wall returns and gets in the groove, a quarter of the season could be gone. The remaining players, though game, realize they can’t overcome such a significant loss. They’ll do the best they can, but the talent differential will lead to another ugly record out the gate.
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