Home runs are down, stolen bases are up. Is it small ball, is it poor competition, is it OPS or good pitching? Is Freddy a god or a goat? Is BJ Upton worth 14 million or is Chris Johnson better than Martin Prado? Andrelton Simmons makes 2 errors in a game for the second time this year, and we still win. Don’t really know how or why, don’t really care.

Baseball is not about stats or about individual performance…….Baseball is about teams and chemistry and about momentum and ultimately……about winning!

Whatever has changed with BJ Upton seems to be working. I no longer care that he’s batting only .213. Finally he’s getting on base. 2 straight 2 hit games a few SBs, a couple of runs scored. I don’t care that he’s not hitting HRs. At least for now….

We have outscored opponents 68 – 41 over the last 16. We are 13 – 3 since getting kicked by Philly. We have 9 in a row. We play the Dirt bags today and then the next 7 against the Mets and Cubbies. We win 5 of those 7 and are up 3 at the break. We have a favorable schedule for much of July and Aug.

Are we a different team than what we were 3 weeks ago? Hard to say, again, i don’t really know and i know i don’t really care. . What matters is that we have the chance to turn this into a decisive advantage. We definitely have velocity.

If we’d gotten down 3 runs in the first inning 3 weeks ago, we might’ve had a different outcome. Last night even though it started off rough, after the 1st inning Aaron Harang settled down. He allowed only 1 hit in the 3rd, another in the 5th (although it was an Inciarte homer). Two singles in the 6th and another in the 8th. He doesn’t have great stuff, maybe not even very good stuff, but he did not get rattled and pitched like he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. His gamescore was an even 50, not great, but enough to get a quality start…but again who cares. What i loved was seeing the old guy out there battling his way to a victory. He pretty much controlled the Dbags the rest of the night.

All the stats guys are going to disagree but, dare i say it…. baseball is not about individual stats or number or runs allowed…it is not a science. Even with the new technology which will give us real numbers to measure power off the bat, pitch movement and ball trajectory, etc, etc,….baseball never will be a science…it’s a game. It’s frustrating and diminishing and full of surprises and let downs and moments when you want to pull your hair out and others where you can’t figure out why it worked, but you are so glad that it did.

As for offense, we got one back the bottom of the first when BJ tripled and Andrelton singled him in. We scored another in the bottom of the 3rd when Freddie doubled, JUpton singled and JHey singled scoring Freeman.

In the bottom of the 4th, we packed it on when La Stella singled, Christian Bethancourt singled, Harang sacrificed them over. BJ reached by error, Andrelton doubled, Freddie tripled, JHey sac flied, scoring Freddie. We scored 5 in the inning making it 7 -3.

In the bottom of the 6th, Justin homed with Freddie on, making it 9 – 4.
We tacked on our final run when La Stella walked, Bethancourt singled him over. BJ then singled and Simmons drove in La Stella.

Harang then closed out the 8th and Simmons came on for the 9th.

BJ had 2 hits and scored 2. Andrelton had 2 hits, scored and had 4 RBIs. Freddie had 2 hits and an RBI, JUpton had 2 hits and 3 RBIs. La Stella had 2 hits, 2 BBs and scored 2. Jason had one hit and Bethancourt had 3. CJ was 0 – 4 with a walk.

Harang won his 3rd straight start and we are now 49 – 38 a game and a half up on the Nats.

Sorry for the editorial tonite, just having a little fun.