Boswell: Davey Johnson adds immediate confidence to Nationals

Baseball is a confidence game. The sport reeks with body language and animal territoriality. You can tell if a hitter is hot by the way he walks to the plate. Down to the tap of the spikes or the threatening practice swing, perhaps even pointing the bat toward the pitcher, there’s an assertion of authority or a lack of it. The hitter in a slump, like Jayson Werth, fidgets between pitches, cricks his neck and his back like his spine feels slightly misaligned. He might as well be the next patient to see the dentist. You can see insecurity in a reliever who enters and immediately makes pickoff throws at a runner who never steals; he’s praying for an easier out than dealing with that evil batter.

Confidence, or lack of it, is packed in every act of the game, from Livan Hernandez’s audacious slow curves to Ryan Zimmerman’s timid throwing motion to Michael Morse smashing himself on the helmet as he fast-trots a home run to Danny Espinosa’s gonna-get-you rips. And confidence can drain so low that once-star players become paralyzed by it. In Chicago, Adam Dunn is hitting .019 against lefties. That’s 1 for 53. The White Sox had him play golf with the team shrink this week. How’d that work out? “He’s actually real good, so that added more stress to my life, golfing with him,” Dunn said.

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Davey Johnson handles game strategy, roster architecture and a pitching staff with the best. But his contagious confidence, and his ability to get his players to believe in what he sees in them, is the key to his remarkable success. He’s finished first or second in 11 of 13 seasons when he managed a team from opening day, including eight seasons over .555. How good’s that? Buck Showalter, a fine manager, has one full .550 season in 11.

Because Johnson is honest to a fault, almost incapable of avoiding a direct question to the point of getting himself pushed out of four jobs, his players know he’s giving it to them straight. His faith in players isn’t fake. So when he says, “Roger Bernadina deserves a chance to play every day and I’m going to give it to him,” that view won’t change soon.

In his first week, Johnson began showing the many facets of confidence as strategy, not just backing Bernadina but giving rookie Ryan Mattheus first shot at what he calls his “sixth starter” or long reliever role. Eventually, he’ll work his way to the team’s one vast elephant-in-the-room confidence catastrophe, Werth’s sub-.230 start and June mega-slump. Will this be seven years of Vernon Wells or Barry Zito, those other $126-million men?

Johnson loves Werth’s attitude, talent and pedigree. So, we, who know nothing, can fuss. Johnson’s in no rush; like he told his team, “You win games, I lose them.” He ticks off the names of his slumpers, says, “After I fix him, then I’ll fix him, then . . .” What? But think about it. With Davey, few words are an accident. If he doesn’t fix it after he said he could, then it’s his fault, too, not just the player. They’re both in the bull’s-eye.

But Johnson really can fix bats, boost egos. In a week, he’s proved it. At times the method is obvious; he gave (.148) Matt Stairs 11 at-bats in L.A. so his timing could get sharp enough, and his shattered faith at the plate fortified enough, to deliver a walk-off blast to the right-field wall on Friday night. Under Jim Riggleman, Stairs, 43, started three games — all season. He was treated like Werth’s bobo and semi-batting coach. Every at-bat, his posture said, “Is my career over?” In the first three Johnson games, Stairs started every one. Even hit cleanup. “Matt Stairs can hit rolling out of bed,” Johnson said. Stairs said, “I think I can still hit anybody’s fastball.” Well, now he thinks it again. Who knows, fixing Stairs may even do a tiny bit to help mend Werth, who’s felt for his old buddy.