At Last, Glimmers of Hope For a Resourceful Team

The encouraging sights on display at RFK Stadium on Thursday afternoon as the Nationals won for the fifth time in six games were almost too much to digest in one afternoon. Is this some kind of trick? Or were three straight wins over the National League champion Astros, the last two in games started by Roy Oswalt and Andy Pettitte, the start of a turnaround, a step toward restored dignity?

For the last three weeks, the Nats have moved, by awkward fits and aborted starts, toward the kind of determined and unselfish play that brought them respect through so much of last season, even when they did not win. At times this month, there have been spectacular relapses into slapstick. One game this week made their general manager say he wanted to "vomit." Twice their hearts were left on the field by walk-off homers on the road when 4-1 and 5-3 leads were blown in the last inning. Yet piece by piece, the shattered Nats, who have endured so many undeserved indignities and self-inflicted embarrassments since last July's heights, have tried to reassemble themselves as a credible cohesive club.

For the last three days, they have finally played exactly as they imagine they should. Trend or tease? Rookie Ryan Zimmerman, who drove in three runs to help knock out Pettitte in just three innings, made two astonishing defensive plays to force more embarrassing comparisons to a certain Hall of Famer.

"It's not fair to Brooks Robinson," protested the 21-year-old after starting a double play, then robbing Morgan Ensberg and Preston Wilson of doubles in the same inning -- once with a back-handed stop and whirling throw to first, then with a leaping catch of a liner that already seemed to be rattling in the left field corner.

However, it's unfair to Zimmerman to ignore that he now makes several truly elite plays a week.

Veteran Jose Vidro, already leading the league in hitting at .347, drove in four runs, three of them with a drop-bat no-need-to-peek homer off the back wall above the Astros' bullpen against Pettitte.

"This is the best we've played," said Vidro, after the 8-5 win.

Tony Armas Jr., the only pitcher in the Washington organization with the talent to join Livan Hernandez and John Patterson at the top of the rotation, won his fifth game. With help from rookie southpaw Mike O'Connor (2.65 ERA in six starts) and Ramon Ortiz, who has back-to back wins, is some semblance of a rotation coming into view in June?

Closer Chad Cordero also pronounced himself back to his '05 form after a sharp save. "Everything is working again," said Cordero.

Finally, Alfonso Soriano not only had what seems like his usual three hits and a stolen base, but also made what Vidro called "the defensive play of the game." Soriano made a leaping catch in left field to start a rally-killing double play in the eighth inning. Okay, he misjudged first. But in April, he'd never have touched it. By July, who knows?

"Maybe I will make it look easier by then," Soriano said.

All this is part of the Nationals accumulating good news. So was a continuing pattern of unselfish play.

"It's a lot more fun to play when people are playing together. It's contagious when everyone gives things up for other people," said Zimmerman, who beat out a leadoff bunt, then stole second despite twisting his right knee. "The whole team has to do it or it doesn't work."

Perhaps the surest sign that the team is playing better -- and harder -- was Manager Frank Robinson's behavior after this game. All spring he has been candidly critical of his team, at times to the point of beat-a-horse harshness. It's just his way. But it can be a weight to a team that both craves his Hall of Fame approval and sometimes resents his demanding words.

At his postgame news conference, the 70-year-old looked overcome by a combination of emotions. Robinson thanked his team for its effort and singled out players for praise, something he has rarely done since last season.

"They kept battling. The bullpen was fantastic. Jon Rauch shouldn't have been out there today. He threw up in the bullpen. But he insisted he could go," said Robinson after watching Rauch pitch out of a bases-loaded none-out jam in the seventh inning without allowing a run. "Armas wanted to go back out for the sixth inning [even though his pitch count was high]. I appreciate the effort they put out."

Then, Robinson revealed the depths of his emotion. Throughout the game, the Astros had run wild on emergency catcher Matt LeCroy, whom Robinson had run the risk of starting, because of two Nats injuries, rather than the defensively competent Robert Fick. Finally, however, with the physically sick Rauch gutting it out on the mound and the game at stake, Robinson had to act after LeCroy's second wild throw into center field of the game on the Astros' seventh stolen base of the day.

In a move perhaps no one here had ever seen, Robinson replaced an uninjured catcher in mid-inning. As the manager recalled the sight of LeCroy and Fick passing each other near home plate -- the rough equivalent of a Little League catcher being ignominiously pulled in mid-inning because every pitch has rolled to the screen -- Robinson began to cry openly and fight to keep his composure as he spoke. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

"It's not LeCroy's fault. . . . That's on my shoulders," said Robinson, aware that the widely respected LeCroy hit 17 homers for the Twins last season but was only asked to catch one inning. "I feel for him, having to go through something like that -- especially when you like someone. I hope the fans understand. I appreciate him sticking in there as long as he did."

On Wednesday, Robinson may have turned the tide of the Nats' victory when he persuaded umpires to call a run-scoring balk against Oswalt that tied the score at 1. That understanding of the game's rules and umpiring procedures showed one of Robinson's strongest suits as a manger. Though he may not know it, his balk protest, followed by his willingness to shoulder blame for embarrassing LeCroy, may serve him well in his own clubhouse. Especially because LeCroy was such a classy pro.

"My daddy treated me the same way," LeCroy said. "I'd like to be better. But if I was, I'd be a lot richer."

Since some undefined juncture last season, Robinson has neither been at odds with his team nor at one with them either. He probably hasn't "lost them." But they certainly haven't been "with him" in the sense that they were in the first half of '05. The mixture of a demanding Hall of Famer and an often-floundering team has sometimes been tense. Now, with Robinson sharing blame and offering praise, perhaps that relationship can improve.

"We'll miss Frank someday," said one Nat, not always a Robinson fan.

Another good sign? Or just a false spring?