The Nationals Report

Bowden right now thinks he is the genius of our time. Because he's predicting that lightning will strike twice. Of course I'm referring to his genius plan of moving a second baseman out to left field.

That's right, todays starting left fielder will be Felipe Lopez!

There are a few crucial differences between this move and the one two years ago that saw Alfonso Soriano make the move to the grass and the upper echelon of outfielders. The first of which is that Soriano never had problems hitting the ball. The guy raked the day he set foot in Washington and continued to do so until the day he left. Felipe Lopez however continues to look uncomfortable at best at the plate. He credits this to a lack of AB's (It's not). The second difference is that in 2006, we really didn't have a better option out there than Sori. This year, aside from injuries, that is not the case. Both Wily Mo and Elijah Dukes can ably play left. Currently both are injured but their injuries don't appear to be serious and they should be back shortly. Thus, I really think this whole Flop left field experiment is just temporary anyways. That said Ronnie Belliard is struggling out of the box after a white-hot spring training. It wouldn't be a stretch to see Flop get a few games back at his usual 2B position when Dukes/WMP come back.

I view this move with healthy skepticism but I've been wrong before. Just don't expect another Sori to happen (not that anyone in their right mind would).