There was a tiny glimmer of hope over Nats park Thursday, even before Joel Hanrahan closed the door on a come-from-behind 5-4 win over the Pirates.
Craig Stammen -- a 12th-round pick in the same draft that brought Ryan Zimmerman and John Lannan to the Nats -- made his major league debut. And what a debut it was!
Stammen threw strike after strike after strike, something the man he replaced, Daniel Cabrera, did far too infrequently. He efficiently kept the batters off balance, and didn't allow a single baserunner until the fifth inning.
Even better, he didn't allow his first walk -- and only! -- until the seventh.
He came apart a bit in the 7th, giving up four runs. And in the end, his ERA isn't all that different than Cabrera's was. But the contrast between their styles, and the net result -- the Nats are winless when Cabrera starts -- couldn't be larger.
Stammen's emergence gives the Nats an all-green starting rotation.
"Eyebrows" Lannan is the grizzled vet. At age 24 and with 46 whole career starts under his belt, he's done and seen it all ... well, at least compared to the others.
Shairon Martis has just 13 career starts. Jordan Zimmermann's next will be his sixth. And Ross Detwiler makes his second career start this weekend against the Birds.
Add 'em up, and that's 68 combined starts. Tom Glavine is the active leader. He's literally started 10 times as many games (682) as the Nats' Kiddie Korps. Even 26-year-old Jeremy Bonderman has 163.
It's a cliche to say that the youth are our future. But in the Nats' case, it's certainly true.
Who needs Stephen Strasburg anyway?
Chris Needham used to write Capitol Punishment. He thinks that was a long seven-game stretch.
