Wang I Want

Does the title to this post reference a song on Van Halen 3? Of course. But you already knew that, DIDN’T YOU?!

Today I ended up watching the series finale between the Nationals and Phillies, which included a start by former Yankee Chien-Ming Wang, who has recently returned to the Majors with Washington after spending two years recovering from a major shoulder injury. I was always a big fan of Wang during his tenure with the Yanks, because he won the vast majority of the time when he was healthy, and because he was so wonderfully boring. Also, his dignified disposition (for reals).

When Wang was pitching, you knew you were going to be seeing basically nothing but sinkers, and if they were behaving and staying in the lower half of the zone, he was likely going to get a ton of ground balls and win the game. If the sinker was up, like it was during most of his disastrous final season with the Yanks, he was going to get shelled. And that was it. Rarely was he going to strike out too many, although he did once strike out 10 in a game against the Mets … and this was in 2007, before the dark times began for that franchise. But generally it was sinkers and ground balls, with the occasional slider thrown in just to give the batter another look.

Because of this predictable nature, I couldn’t even get annoyed when Wang was pitching poorly. It’s not like he’d start throwing 3-2 breaking balls to No. 9 hitters (I’m looking at YOU Joba. I’m not going to check if Joba actually has ever done this, I’m just going to assume he has … multiple times. This blog doesn’t do fact checking), or being completely inept despite having two impressive pitches like A.J. Burnett; if Wang wasn’t pitching well in a game, it was basically, “Well, that damned sinker isn’t behaving today!” Misbehaving sinkers ruin everything.

And today, it was the same as it ever was. Wang still has that ridiculously deliberate windup, still throws basically nothing but sinkers and actually struck out four while throwing some pretty impressive sliders. He ended about allowing two homers, although one followed a play when Washington second baseman Danny Espinosa fielded a ground ball and, well, fell down for reasons unknown. Raul Ibanez actually was credited for a hit on that play, which makes no sense.  Wang was trailing, 3-2, after 5 2/3 innings before a rain delay ended his outing, but the Nationals ended up rallying for the win after a two-out, two-strike homer by Ian Desmond in the ninth tied it and Brad Lidge hit Jonny Gomes with the bases loaded in the 10^th to give Washington the victory.

But it was good seeing Wang back. Despite his horrible performance in the 2007 postseason, he had an impressive career with the Yanks, winning 19 games in back-to-back seasons before the injuries started to derail his career in 2008. Derek Jeter also always referred to him as Mr. Wang, which I found amusing. And now he gets to continue his career with Washington, where he gets to pitch with the soothing sounds of that jazz beat MLB.com reporter Bill Ladson has been hearing recently outside Nationals Park. Who needs Yankee Stadium when you have that?