July 20, 2008
Cornering the Jesus Market
It was appropriate that on a Sunday both Jesus Flores and Jesus Colome played for the Washington Nationals. Flores delivered a 5 for 6 day (all singles as he scored two and drove in two runs. Colome was not as miraculous, allowing a run in his one inning of work. That made the final score 15-6 in favor of the Nationals.
I don't know why they don't play Flores more. Is his defense so bad they can't afford the bat?
Posted by David Pinto at
11:16 PM
|
Games
|
TrackBack (0)
Flores is now allegedly the starter with Nieves as his main back-up. At the beginning of the year, they were planning for him to spend the year in Columbus and have him start next year but Estrada and LoDuca got hurt. Flores had to stay in the majors last year becasue he was a rule 5 pick up and they didn't want to give him back. Now there are 4 catchers on the major league roster with LoDuca playing LF and 1B. Nieves is the only decent catcher defensively but Flores is absolutely the catcher of the future/present.
Flores is not a bad defensive catcher at all. Not a plus arm, but he calls a good game and rarely lets balls get by him. He was the starter for a very long stretch of time earlier this season - after Lo Duca and Estrada went down he basically started four out of every five games for May and June - but he began to slump at the plate and Acta worried that he was getting exhausted from the workload. He has perked up noticeably after the AS break, which suggests that perhaps exhaustion was the cause.
Generally, the Nationals are being as careful as possible with Flores, since he is the catcher of the future for the franchise. Prior to the beginning of the season the plan was actually to have him playing in AAA to get regular starts.