Buy or Sell…and Training Camp Opens

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(Posted 7-28-26)

Greetings from The Booth!

Well, it’s been a minute since we got together. I got back last week from a nice week off, and a relaxing vacation at Deep Creek Lake, where I played a round of golf, ate very well, and as I always do, watched a fair amount of The Open Championship, as well as the MLB All-Star Game and Home Run Derby. A lot of folks in the lake house were glued to the FIFA World Cup. I must admit, once the USA was eliminated, I checked out. As the late NFL great Sonny Randle would say, if a soccer game broke out in my backyard, the shade wouldn’t go up.

We’re kind of in a down time in sports, with baseball’s “dog days” approaching, and football season not quite here, but I did want to weigh in on those two sports, specifically your Washington Nationals and Washington Commanders. We’ll start with the Nats. As of this post, the Nationals are a hair above .500 at 54-53 after last night’s loss to Toronto.

(Sidebar: it was really strange seeing former Nats’ great Max Scherzer in a Blue Jays uniform last night. In an emotional return to DC on his 42nd birthday, “Mad Max” got the start and threw 2 and 2/3 gutsy innings, and received 2 well-deserved standing ovations from the Washington fans, who appreciated his contributions to a great Nationals’ run over 6-plus seasons. At 42, and on a one-year contract, last night was probably his last appearance in the Nation’s Capital.)

With the trade deadline a week away, should the Nats buy or sell? It’s a tough question. The team is very much in contention for a Wild Card berth, but also very much in need of pitching for the long haul. The name being brought up most often in trade rumors is Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams, who was last week’s NL Player of the Week and has been red hot recently. As a fan, I want Abrams in Washington, and I want to see the team go all in on a playoff run. This is why GM’s get paid the big money. Do you throw all your cards on the table for 2026, or do you stay the course and get some young arms for the future? We’ll find out soon.

And, we head to Ashburn, where the Commanders open training camp this week. NFL training camps have become less important in the modern age of football, because of OTAs and year-round conditioning advances, and the strides that have been made in nutrition. Back in the day, players would arrive at camp vastly out of shape, having sold insurance or used cars in the offseason. There is no offseason now in the NFL, so camps are refresher courses for the veterans, and for developing chemistry for rookies and new acquisitions.

That’s why I think this is a very important camp for the Commanders, as the team tries to cleanse its palate from a 5-12 campaign. With an almost complete overhaul of the defense, this will be a camp where everyone on that side of the ball must get on the same page. Offensively, we need to see a hungry Jayden Daniels, who wants to show his critics that his injury-plagued 2025 was a fluke, and that he is not a one-year flash in the pan.

Interesting times are ahead for the Nats and Commanders. Until the next visit from The Booth…GO NATS…and HTTC!

RW

 

 

 

 

 

Views From The Booth: “Stopper”

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(Posted 6-29-26)

Greetings from The Booth!

Despite 2 wins to close out the weekend, it was not a great week for the Washington Nationals’ bullpen. Three of the losses in the 4-game losing streak were due to blown saves by the Nats’ “Gas Can Gang,” including a ridiculous 14-9 loss to the Phillies in which the Nationals pen gave up 8 runs in the ninth, all after two were out! Folks, that is Randy Woodward vs Jefferson stuff from 1977. The Nats’ starters deserved a better fate in the Philadelphia series, and you could easily make the case that Washington should have swept that 4-game set, arguably the biggest series for the Nationals since the Championship season of 2019.

To be a contending team in Major League Baseball in this day and age, you’ve got to have a quality bullpen, and it doesn’t seem that the Nationals put a high priority on that going into the 2026 season. The pleasant surprise, though, has been the starting rotation, who have been solid recently. Cade Cavalli has had nasty stuff, Zack Littell has been reliable, and even Miles Mikolas, who was acquired to eat up innings, has given the Nats some quality starts in recent weeks.

That brings me to Foster Griffin, who should (but probably won’t) be an All-Star. Griffin is 8-2 with a 3.15 ERA. The 30 year-old Griffin is a throwback, and what was known back in the day as a “stopper.” That term refers to a starting pitcher who can take the mound and put a stop to a losing streak, and that’s exactly what Griffin did this past week against the Orioles. Griffin threw 112 pitches in 7 innings, limiting the Birds to just 3 hits, a truly “old-school” performance. Alas, he did not get the “W” because the bullpen (you guessed it) gave up the tying runs late in an eventual 4-3 Washington win that ended a 4-game skid.

His performance this weekend was reminiscent of two of my favorite pitchers: Max Scherzer and Bob Gibson. “Mad Max” was another old school throwback, who dared a manager to come get the ball. Win or lose, Scherzer wanted to go 9 innings in an age where 6 innings is a “quality start.”

Scherzer would have fit nicely in 1968, the “Year of the Pitcher.” Pitchers were so dominant in ’68 that the following year the mound was lowered and the strike zone was changed to benefit hitters. It was the year Detroit’s Denny McLain won 30 games, a feat that surely will never be duplicated. And 1968 was the year that Bob Gibson dominated like no pitcher has since. Gibson gave up just 38 earned runs the entire season, and pitched to an ERA of 1.12 on his way to that year’s NL MVP honor.  I remember coming home from school that October (yes kids, World Series games were played in the afternoon) to see Gibby mow down 17 Tiger hitters via strikeout in Game 1 of the Fall Classic. I think that’s when I realized I wanted to be a pitcher.

Foster Griffin is a pitcher who has surely come to the Nats in 2026 from a 1968 time machine. Note to Griffin: next time Manager Blake Butera comes to take the ball, wave him back to the dugout. Somewhere, Bob Gibson will nod his approval.

Until the next visit from The Booth…GO NATS!

RW

 

 

Leftovers

Greetings from The Booth!

If you’re working on that umpteenth turkey sandwich, you probably should stop, as the FDC said that Monday was the last day you should be eating leftovers from the Thanksgiving meal. After that, your green bean casserole becomes a science project. Speaking of leftovers, that is the title of this week’s VFB, as we look back at the long holiday weekend. Grab the Duke’s mayo, pepper, and white bread, and here we go…

I wonder if Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were excited about broadcasting the Thanksgiving NFL contest between the winless Lions and a mediocre Bears team? I think they put their best face on the game, but at times Troy sounded like he’d been into the Thanksgiving punch. If so, who could blame him? I know the Turkey Day game from Detroit is an NFL tradition, but maybe it’s time for the league to “flex” some games and have some better matchups on Thanksgiving Day. It was nice seeing Dallas lose, though, and imagining all those Cowboys fans hurling their pumpkin pie against the wall as the game-winning Raiders field goal went through the uprights.

My college football team (WVU) is going “bowling,” but I’m less than thrilled. The Mountaineers struggled to beat a bad Kansas team Saturday night just to get to 6-6. So now it’s on to the iconic Cheez-It Bowl or some “XYZ.com” Bowl. I remember a day when 6-6 wouldn’t get you a sniff. There were a few bowl games like the Bluebonnet and Peach Bowls leading up to New Year’s Day, when you had the Cotton, Rose, Sugar, and Orange Bowls. Now, we start bowl season in early December and don’t end until after New Year’s Day. I know I sound like a curmudgeon, and the extra practices and games are beneficial to the teams involved, but there are too many bowls. Now, get off my field turf!

Wedged in among all the football this past weekend was the made-for-TV 12-hole golf match between rivals Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, who supposedly don’t like each other much. If you were expecting trash talk, unruly behavior, and foreign objects, you were disappointed. The two were actually civil, which kind of defeated the purpose of the event. In addition, commentator Phil Mickelson talked too much, blathering on about wind, distance, and sea level. The comedy stylings of Charles Barkley saved the broadcast. As for the match, it was no contest, with Brooksie winning 4&3.

Finally, former Washington National Max Scherzer is now a New York Met, having signed a 3-year, $130 million deal. I could root somewhat for Mad Max last year when he became a Dodger, but say it ain’t so, a Met? A division rival? By the way, if you do the math, based on an estimate of 35 starts per season, Scherzer will earn $1,238,095.24 per game. It’ll be a nice Christmas in the Scherzer household this year.

Well, that’s it for the leftovers, folks. Anyone for a pizza?

Until the next visit from the Booth, happy “Salmonella Tuesday,” and GO HORNETS!

RW

Cellars Make Sellers

SU field oversight
SU field oversight
Winchester Printers
https://winchesterprinters.com

Greetings from The Booth!

It’s great to be back in The Booth after a week of vacation at beautiful Deep Creek Lake in nearby Maryland. Morning temps in the 50s there reminded me that SU Football is not far off, and my 22nd season of Hornet play-by-play will take me once again to destinations throughout the ODAC. More to come soon as we start previewing the 2021 Shenandoah University football fortunes…

There is certainly lots to talk about this week. The Summer Olympic Games are underway in Tokyo as the pandemic rages on in Japan. there have been some surprises already, as USA Basketball suffered a stunning loss to France, and the most recognizable athlete of the Games, gymnast Simone Biles, suddenly withdrew from the Olympics. I’m sure more surprises are coming.

But I wanted to concentrate this week on the fate of the Washington Nationals, who are now sellers leading up to this week’s trade deadline. If they weren’t in this mindset before, they certainly are now, after an embarrassing weekend sweep at the hands of the lowly Baltimore Orioles, one of the worst teams in the majors. Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo had been on the fence, last week saying that the team would be in both buy and sell mode. Since those comments, the team went 1-5, and closer to the basement of the NL East than the top.

Truth be known, the Nats, with the exception of a June run that saw the team get to 40-38, have stumbled through the 2021 campaign, due in no small measure to injuries. The starting rotation has especially been hard hit, with every Nationals starting pitcher being placed on IR at one time or another. That being said, one man’s injury is another man’s opportunity, and it’s “next man up” when someone goes down. The late NFL great Sonny Randle once said “you know who feels sorry for you when you have injuries? No one.”

There are many fingers of blame to be pointed at the Nationals that got them in this “sellers” situation. Suffice it to say that everyone is on the table, including my favorite Nat, Max Scherzer. By the time you read this, “Mad Max” may be in a different uniform. Trea Turner has also been mentioned as trade bait, but with Turner testing positive this week for COVID-19, he will probably remain in Washington. Nonetheless, for the Nationals, as the movie line goes, this is a big (expletive) sandwich, and we’ll all have to take a big bite.

My only question is, what am I gonna do with my Max Scherzer jersey?

Until the next visit from The Booth, stay cool and GO HORNETS!

RW