Wang dominates as Nats beat Cubs - 棒球

Wang dominates as Nats beat Cubs
Tuesday, Aug 9, 2011 11:35 p.m.
Updated at 1:12 a.m.

By Mark Zuckerman
Nationals Insider
CSNwashington.com

CHICAGO -- It's only one start. That's what Chien-Ming Wang and the
Nationals had to remind themselves late Tuesday night after the right-hander
carved his way through the Cubs' lineup like a hunk of tender meat during
a 3-1 victory at Wrigley Field.

There's no guarantee he'll do this again Sunday in Philadelphia or any
other time he takes the mound over the next seven weeks. There's no
guarantee, after a major shoulder injury that took away two years of his
life, he'll ever be able to do this again on the big-league stage.

But there's nothing wrong with fantasizing a little bit right now,
wondering whether Wang's six innings of one-hit ball might just be a
precursor of things to come. Maybe, just maybe, he can join Stephen
Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and John Lannan in a 2012 rotation that
might actually catapult the Nationals to heights previously unreached.

"That's the reason why we took a chance on him," third baseman Ryan
Zimmerman said. "Because he was so good. If he comes all the way back ...
he'd be a good person to have in your organization."

If there were any uniformed patrons among the crowd of 37,109 at Wrigley
Field Tuesday night -- those who remembered Wang from his dominant days
with the Yankees but unaware of what has transpired since -- it would have
been near-impossible to realize he hadn't won a big-league game since June
28, 2009.

With pinpoint control of the power sinker that made him a two-time 19-game
winner for New York in 2006-07, Wang dominated the Cubs over six sparkling
innings. The only base hit he allowed? An infield single to pinch-hitter
Tony Campana to begin the sixth inning, with second baseman Danny Espinosa
nearly making a brilliant play to nail the speedster.

Wang walked two batters and hit another, but otherwise never let Chicago
sniff a hint of a potential rally. He wound up recording 12 of his 18 outs
on groundballs, evidence of the consistent manner in which he kept his
sinker down in the strike zone.

He hadn't been able to throw that pitch this well since ... well, since the
last time his body was 100 percent healthy, during the 2008 season with the
Yankees.

"It almost feels the same," Wang said through translator John Hsu. "The
sinkerball was sinking, and it makes a lot of ground balls tonight. I can
pitch more innings, and it feels easy now."

Though he flashed glimpses of that form in his two previous starts with the
Nationals, Wang was wildly inconsistent. He had all kinds of trouble
navigating through the first inning in each of those starts, and he faded
quickly once he reached the fourth or fifth inning.

Not this time. He was in control from the very start, needing only 11
pitches during a 1-2-3 first inning and carrying his unlikely no-hit bid
into the sixth thanks to a reliance on his bread-and-butter pitch. Of the
81 total pitches he threw Tuesday night, 66 were sinkers.

"This is what he is," pitching coach Steve McCatty said. "I knew he threw
a lot of sinkers, but I wasn't sure how many. We talked about it and I
said: 'Go on and throw it. ... You go 95 [mph] sinker. That's what he did."

Wang didn't actually reach 95 mph, but he was consistently in the 91-92 mph
range and topped out Tuesday night at 94 mph. Manager Davey Johnson pulled
him after six innings, but that was merely an overly cautious approach with
a guy still building up his stamina after two years off.

Asked by a Taiwanese reporter if he would have removed Wang from the game
even had the no-hitter been intact, Johnson admitted he would.

"He got to 80 pitches and threw six innings. That was more than I was
expecting," the manager said. "I was hoping I could get six out of him.
Six shutout innings, one hit. I wasn't going to run him out there in the
seventh."

By that point, the Nationals had taken a 3-0 lead, thanks to a pair of
sixth-inning homers. Michael Morse tattooed a slider from Cubs right-hander
Matt Garza to straightaway center field, nearly reaching the second deck of
bleachers behind the batters' eye at Wrigley Field. Longtime local baseball
observers couldn't recall many other players hitting a ball that far here.
Perhaps Sammy Sosa in his heyday, but that's it.

Two batters after Morse's blast, Jonny Gomes just barely found the front
row of the left-field bleachers for a two-run homer, giving the Nationals
a little more cushion and paving the way for relievers Sean Burnett,
Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen to close the game out and preserve the win
for Wang.

"His performance tonight, it's unbelievable," Storen said of Wang. "What
he's gone through, and as hard as he's worked to get back, that's really
nice to lock it down for him. That's a big performance for him. Hopefully
he can build off that."

Outside the visitors clubhouse at Wrigley Field, a crowd of about 75 fans
lingered, clogging up the already cramped concourse. They wore Nationals
caps and held Tawainese flags, chanting: "Chien-Ming Wang! Chien-Ming Wang!"

Back in Washington, there surely are those beginning to call for the
Nationals to re-sign Wang and make him an integral part of their 2012
rotation.

General manager Mike Rizzo won't make that decision quite yet, not wanting
to commit to a player based on one outing, no matter how dominant it was.

But the Nationals do know their window of opportunity is limited. They have
the exclusive right to negotiate a contract with Wang until five days after
completion of the World Series. After that, he becomes a free agent.

Having already invested two years and several million dollars in this
rehabilitation project, there might be growing reason to believe it's worth
it to invest some more time and money in a pitcher who could pay huge
dividends for them down the road.

"The big thing is that he's a National, and we want him to get back close
to where he was," Johnson said. "Rizzo signed him for that reason. If he
gets back and keeps progressing like he's doing ... that's a good thing
for us. It'd be a valuable commodity."

Mark Zuckerman also blogs about the Nationals at natsinsider.com. Contact
him at [email protected] and on Twitter @MarkZuckerman.

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