The Fetid Stench of Apathy

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June 21, 2008

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Texas	3	0	0	1	0	0	7	1	1		13	18	0
Washington	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	0	0		3	8	0

Manny Acta can't sleep. He is, at this very moment, lying in his bed staring out at the overnight thunderstorm moving in on the city. His insomnia is not down to the light show and thunder. Nobody who grew up on an island in the Caribbean is much impressed by DC heat and rain. He rolls to the side of the bed and massages his eye sockets.

Tonight's 13-3 in game 2 of the Rangers series was humiliating. The image of Felipe Lopez crouching with his elbows on his knees, staring down at the infield grass even as the next pitch was due, keeps shimmering to the surface of Manny's semi-conscious mind. They all stood out there, so flat-footed and wooden.

He knows that Bowden and Rizzo, and Kasten are all awake somewhere, right now, mulling their options. Careers are about to be altered. There is no choice at this point. That's not what's keeping the skipper awake either. He has no control over who gets hired and who gets fired, and Manny is annoyingly good at recognizing things over which he has no control. Out of the myriad of troubles swirling around this ball club - the injuries, the lack of hitting, the premature baby that is the bullpen, the home crowd that is now officially done with being "just glad to have baseball back in DC' and is turning uglier than a barroom in Philly on a Friday night in September, and the fast-approaching trade deadline with a roster devoid of value - Acta has a problem that trumps them all.

In less than 12 hours, he has to go out there and do it again.

John Lannan, the kid with great stuff will take the mound. That's pretty close to engraved in stone. After that, the lineup is no more solid than the film floating atop the Anacostia River. There are just so many holes in this lineup. LoDuca looked no more comfortable behind the plate tonight than he did at first base last week. Dmitri Young's poor performances at first have always been acceptable because he makes up for it with the bat ... until lately. Manny re-lives the miscues of Lopez and Peña, and Milledge. And Casto, Sanches, and Manning. Nobody seemed to even be interested. But that game is over, and Manny no longer has any control over that. The AC drones relentlessly as it tries to keep pace with the humidity in Acta's room.

And then there's the problem of Elijah Dukes. In game 1, Dukes could do no wrong. Skidding circus catches for crucial outs and phenomenal at-bats, including the game-winning single. . Game 2 was a complete washout for him, and therein lies the problem. It's bad enough to have a team that lives and dies on one man's performance. It's catastrophic when that one man has the ego of a fighter pilot coupled with the maturity level of a 9 year-old meth freak with an unlimited ATM card. Simply by being the Last Hitter Standing, Dukes has morphed into a team leadership role, except that's one tool this guy doesn't own. That's not to say Dukes doesn't care. He does, but only when he feels like it. Tonight, he didn't feel like it, and everybody else just sort of followed along in their own whimsical ways.

Maybe this bunch of guys will find a way to field like a team, string together hits, and actually care about the others' performances. Maybe Zimmerman, Kearns, Cordero, and Johnson will come back in time to salvage some kind of season and, more importantly, some kind of team identity.

Meanwhile, there's one guy who has to fill out a lineup sheet and hand it to the game officials in just a few hours. At this moment, that guy is pacing in front of the bedroom TV as SportsCenter drones on and fans, bloggers, newspaper guys, players and owners catch a few hours of rest before tomorrow's matinée game.




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