It's a pretty brief item, so here's the whole thing:
WASHINGTON -- Prior to Saturday's game against the Rangers, Nationals general manager Jim Bowden met with reporters to discuss different affairs regarding the state of the team.
Bowden also spoke highly of the recent offensive success of young players Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge and Jesus Flores. All three are among the team leaders in several categories, including batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
What impressed Bowden about the performance of the trio wasn't just their success, but the fact that their success has come with so many other players injured and thus less protection in the lineup.
"For Flores and Milledge and Elijah, for them at 23 [years old] to be able to sit in the lineup without protection and [succeed], I give them a lot of credit for how much they grind every day," Bowden said. "I think all of them are developing at this level, so we've been very pleased on the development of all three of them."
The only regret Bowden said he has is that he'd like to see what those three could do in a lineup with other currently-injured starters like Ryan Zimmerman and Austin Kearns.
I can see what he means. I mean, if the Nationals had stayed healthy, Flores would probably be doing even better than he is now, considering that he'd be hitting at AAA, blocked by LoDuca and Estrada.And it must be really hard for Milledge and Dukes not having Austin Kearns and his .187-.295-.267 behind them for protection.
But can he really have said that the injuries to Kearns and Zimmerman are his only regrets? I have a few more regrettable moves I could mention here.
9 comments:
We like farts. Farting is always funny. Throwing food is always funny.
Kevin Towers "And I'll name him. Jim Bowden. The guy's an idiot. I don't pick up his calls, and I don't think many others do either."
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050814/REPOSITORY/508140445/1007/SPORTS
"The FCN will go out on a limb and predict that when the the team finally gets new ownership, Bowden won't have his contract renewed."
Hit that one right out of the park, didn't they?
Thanks for passing this article along.
There's always been a rap out there that I've heard that GMs don't like dealing with Bowden, which obviously wouldn't be good for the Nationals if true, but other than the Krivsky episode I don't have many specific quotes on the record like this (I'm sure they're out there, I just haven't looked that hard yet), so keep passing along other examples if anyone has them.
@everyone--Know what's not funny? Being on pace for 106 losses.
One exec. told me in passing the other day that other GMs detest Bowden. The exec. shall remain nameless.
Was it that O's Exec troll that posts on Nationals Journal? And was he passing gas at the time?
You know, I was just browsing the stats the other day, and I was surprised that Kearns had 16 RBIs in as many games as he played.
If he were still playing, he'd probably be up to 40 or so RBIs.
I'm not saying he's good or anything, but...
It's not that Kearns has no redeeming value, he just doesn't hit enough to win with as a corner OF. I guess if you had Utley and Hanley as your MI, then you could live with what he gives you. But we don't have that.
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