Could this be a turning point?

So far this season, watching the Washington Nationals play baseball has been an adventure. Whether it's through horrible pitching or lousy defense the Nats have usually found a way to shoot themselves in the foot; snatching defeat from the mouth of victory in dumb-founding ways. The positive spin on this is that at least the games are never dull! Well maybe, just maybe, yesterday's game against the St. Louis Cardinals might prove to be the catalyst for something good to happen.

The game's star by far was a little known rookie pitcher, Shairon Martis, who, in only his ninth start as a major leaguer, shut down the high-powered (albiet Albert Pujol-less) Cardinal line-up, giving up one run on six hits over nine innings. Martis also became, amazingly enough, the first pitcher since the Nats moved to Washington five years ago, to pitch a complete game. To back Martis up, the Nats played error free, often inspired defense; robbing the Cards of base hits with spectacular play. Christian Guzman and Adam Dunn both broke out of distressing slumps at the plate (a combined 0-17 prior to this game) with Dunn crushing a two out fastball into the second-tier seats for three of the Nats five runs.

I'm not surprised that Manny Acta left Martis in the game. Martis had thrown only 85 pitches by the end of the seventh, and given the spectacular bullpen collapses over the past ten games or so, why in God's name would you take the chance of another late inning disaster. The kid was in command, let him pitch!

Hopefully, Martis' performance will inspire the other starters (who, with the exception of Cabrera, actually haven't been too bad) to really bring their A game, last into the later innings, and reduce the chances of the bullpen blowing things up.

In other Nats news, Ryan Zimmerman continues to impress with his stellar defense at third base as well as a league leading 21 game hitting streak, and making it look easy to boot. At age 24, and signed to a new contract, Zimm's going to be a great asset to the team for many years to come.

All I ask for is baby steps. Let's get the first back-to-back wins of the season tomorrow and build from there!

GO NATS!!!