Is Dukes finally going to be delivering the power that we all thought he could?
I certainly hope so. With Zimmerman and Johnson on the DL we have had absolutely no offensive threat in the lineup. If Dukes can keep this up and become a player that pitchers will not want to face, and Zimmerman comes back healthy and ready to go, we could still possibly make a run at finishing at 500. Guzman will need to continue batting .310 and Millegde will need to raise his average.
I have always liked the acquisitions of Dukes and Millegde and maybe I will finally be justified for liking them.
Dukes will be a good player..............Next year. Right now I would be happy if he could just hit .240 since the entire team doe'snt seem to be able to do that. I would think that Dukes and my man Milledge would be keepers along with Zimmerman and Flores.
Frankly they can start trading everyone else. Including Lopez, Loduca and Willy Mo.
BAD CARMA: Injuries Inuries injuries. Look at Cordero and Young. This was the to trade them and now they become worthless.
No one and I mean no one who knows anything about this team would expect the offense to be so pathetic and the Pen to be so overwelmed.
If you knew at the start of this season that the starting pitching was going to do so well you would have thought that this team would have been a couple of games over .500.
I thought for sure that this team would compete NEXT YEAR. Well we are looking at two years or beyond.
The good news is that when all that minor league pitching kicks in they will likely go from last to first. IE Tampa
Butt there are 13-14 guys on this team today that have no business on this team.
I like Dukes, he's been out of baseball for a while, and it seems he is finally getting his swing back. I loved the acquisitions of Milledge and Dukes, these guys can potentially develop into great players for Washington, the future looks bright. However, this year I can't see the nats finishing .500, they need more pitching. Get that and you're looking at a .500 or better team.
He has tremendous upside. He could be a 30/30/100 guy if he can be more disciplined at the plate. Once he starts making more contact, his power should develop nicely.
I would love to think Dukes is waking up. His average has taken a turn for the better. I'll admit I'm still a little worried about the chance of an attitude problem. I have not heard what the Acta situation the other day was all about. I really hope it was not an indication of attitude issues.
At the start of the year I was happy with the Milledge and Dukes pick ups (as well as LoDuca). So far, none have panned out as well as I hoped. Guzman on the other hand has been a nice surprise, as has the starting pitching.