Curves Are Coming Fast

How did Walter Johnson and Cy Young ever get along without "nerve decompression surgery" so they wouldn't have stiffness or pain, so that their arms wouldn't have periods of deadness or seasons when their velocity diminished? Who knows? But these days, even if your career record is only 6-10, like Hill, or 18-25, like Patterson, you're not supposed to have too much discomfort. That's why scalpels and anesthetics were invented, don't you know. Start cutting, move some "cords and ropes" around -- as pitchers call their ligaments, tendons and nerves -- then show up the next year expecting a miracle. Few in modern baseball ever say: Beware the surgeon. To a man with a hammer, it's said, everything looks like a nail.

"It's not terrible. It's just there," Hill said of his discomfort. "If this were the end of September, I'd pitch through it."

Still, Hill knows that what bothers him now is similar to the feeling that caused him to have surgery in the first place. "Was it done properly? That's what we did the surgery to take care of. That's not something you think about," Hill said, obviously thinking about exactly that.

If Hill's glass is suddenly half empty, Patterson's is still half full. "I'm pain free. I haven't had a smile on my face when I went to the mound in a long time," he said. "I'm not trying to do too much too soon. I'm going to try to get there slowly so that when we leave here, I'll be ready.

"For us to win consistently this season, I think Shawn and I both have to not necessarily carry the team but that the guys need to know that we'll be healthy and out on the field."

Nevertheless, when you have one of those bright red scars on your pitching arm -- three or four inches long across the forearm in the case of both Nationals -- it's a constant reminder of how precariously a pitcher's career hangs on those endangered cords and ropes or, perhaps, in the case of Hill and Patterson, just a temperamental compacted nerve.

In recent years, Patterson's haircuts have mirrored his feelings about the health of his arm and, thus, his sense of the state of his career. When he's healthy and confident he goes with a clean-cut look, like his father's old favorite Jim Palmer. When he's struggling or scared, the Texan's hair gets shaggy, like a mangy cowboy ready to fight his way out of a tight corner.

"I think I do have happy haircuts and sad haircuts," Patterson said, laughing at himself and his current neat and confident coif. "People show their state of mind in the way they look. Britney [Spears] shaved her head."

Few know the constant strain of wondering whether your career will have another life or whether it's already on life support. Once the surgeries start, when do they end? "When I came off the mound, I looked up at my wife in the stands. It's been tough waiting to come back," Patterson said. "I got to put the uniform on for another day and pitch."

If, by March 30, Patterson has regained even half of his '05 form and if Hill is fit to pitch, rather than back on the disabled list, then the Nationals can start the season with the happiest haircuts they can get.

But if Tim Redding, Jason Bergmann, Matt Chico, Pérez and John Lannan -- Acta's "we have enough" guys -- are the rotation, then a gritty, grind-it-out cult of grunge may be the vogue by Opening Day.