last year he had the seventh lowest run support. so the record to me doesn't mean anything. >> rob: you put that kid on the red sox, that kid is 15-9. >> jim p.: kind of what francona said about managing. he said, well, i'm still a dummy but now i've got better players now that i'm with the red sox. it's a great line. i think a managers -- a lot of managers will tell you that. >> jim h.: low ball four. there's that battling eye of nolan reimold. lannan a lead-off walk. >> jim p.: i think it's very comfortable when you're a nolan reimold, even if you've only been in the big leagues for less than a month, that your swing is so sound you can wait and wait and wait and you can hit the ball to all fields that you don't feel that you have to expand the strike zone, and you don't see that with a lot of young hitters. it's just against what i've seen over 40 years.

>> rob: it doesn't hurt that there's a guy with 14 home runs behind with you a lot of pop. you're going to see a lot of good pitches. >> jim h.: the other thing the orioles have done, terry has worked very hard with this group on their overall approach, is they don't strikeout a lot. the orioles have struck out fewer than any team in the american league. so the moral of the story is, if you put the ball in play, good things will happen. so you work the count, you look for a good pitch and you go for it. that's one of the things that he works on every day. scott rips it down right-field line, that's base hit. reimold heading for third as dukes digs it out. dukes will get it back in. the orioles have something going here, second and third and nobody down. >> jim p.: what did we talk about, the fact maybe he gets righties out better than lefties. he hangs a curveball here. numbers are high, over 300, but they're better than they were a month ago. >> rob: they were almost .400 off of him left-handed about a

month ago. he's got to get that curveball down and away from luke scott. that's up and in the zone. that's right where a lefty wants that curveball. danger time for that guy. >> jim p.: so you talked about the nationals last night, the four double plays. two ground balls to the right side will get you two runs in here, at least one. unless manny plays the infield in. but again, everybody back on the right side. they'll give you one, but they won't give you two runs. so hit the ground ball to the right side. you'll advance the runner from third to home and the runner from second. so the situational hitter. you can see salazar, he was flat out airing it out down in norfolk at .372. >> rob: if you're lannan and the nationals, you have to minimize the damage. so even if you've got to give up two runs, you'll take a few outs. >> jim h.: salazar does hit

very well the opposite way. he has seven hits since joining the orioles. all seven are singles. >> jim p.: you stand behind the cage when you watch the teams hit, they go, okay, runner at third, less than two outs. hate ball to the right side. can you do it in the game? the reason it's more difficult, you've got john lannan saying, hey, i'm going to throw you maybe a cutter inside, maybe slow curveball, get you to roll over. but the good teams, they move the runners. >> jim h.: ground ball towards the hole, base hit for salazar. and the orioles get on the board, reimold scores, and a 1- 0 orioles lead. so salazar did pull it, the one infielder who was in was zimmerman but he hit it past him for an rbi single. >> rob: give salazar a lot of credit, they were trying to pitch him in, so he just turned it around and said, i'll just

pull it. he pulled it through the hole. he got lucky. if you're going to hit this hard, may as well. here's the pitch. supposed to be a little farther away, threw that a little bit too inside. but salazar did a good job of recognizing the rotation on it and smacked it for a hit. >> jim p.: you don't give up any offense when he plays. >> rob: as you were saying, situational hitting, i was thinking your next opponent are the red sox and they're going to do exactly what the orioles are doing to the nationals, which is when they have a chance to score, second and third, no outs, they're going to start just punching the ball. >> jim h.: right to first, johnson steps on the bag, they have luke scott hung up. zimmerman running him towards the plate and nieves will tag him out. ending up at third base is oscar salazar, but a base running mistake on there, unless he was going on contact. he ran and then he stopped. >> jim p.: this is a terrific

play by nick johnson. >> rob: but don't run him towards home. run him the other way. >> jim p.: you usually don't want to have any more than two throws in a run down. >> rob: that is great job by nick. comes right up firing, get rid of the ball, throws it over to zimmerman. one throw, tags him out. salazar moves up to third. that's good base running on his part. >> jim h.: here's robert andino, the number nine batter. lannan has a chance to get out of this very inexpensively after second and third and nobody out. here's a tapper out in front of the plate. nieves pounces on it and fires to fires. lannan gets out of it. ú we've got a ton of stuff we've gotta pay for. and a few things we want to pay for. on top of it all,

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 nats hitting coach rick eckstein admits this team is struggling with their situational hitting. the nats are hitting only .236 with runners in scoring position. >> to get that crucial hit with runners in scoring position and deliver that knockout punch, a lot of times guys, their heart's in the right place where you're wanting to do it so bad, but emotionally you have to stay under control. you have to work and get a good pitch to do it on and take control of the moment. >> adam dunn told me, too, that

when hitters try too hard, sometimes they swing at pitches they shouldn't, so it's key they keep that same approach. >> jim h.: thank you very much. good to have debbi taylor with us here at camden yards. >> jim p.: there it is, the invisible fastball. looks like it's moving today. he's got a couple of fastballs at the middle of the plate to zimmerman. >> rob: the one thing that i see, he's got very slow and delivered mechanics, then the ball explodes out of his hands. when you're throwing 95, you just kind of slowly, bang. >> jim h.: through the middle, the breaking ball hung, hernandez hits it through. first base hit for the nats. >> jim p.: there you go. >> rob: that was a good approach by anderson. >> jim p.: like christmas coming early when you get that kind of breaking ball when you're down in the count. it's an interesting thing about hitting with situational

hitting, hitting with runners in scoring position. at least this year the orioles have done it better than the nationals. if you look at nick johnson, he's got the highest average and what's his approach. he's going to make you throw strikes. >> rob: absolutely. >> jim p.: certain guys will go to certain areas to try to get you out when there's runners on versus when there aren't. >> rob: and nick is like aubrey huff, even better. he's lifetime over .300 hitting off of lefties. it's crazy. to be able to stick in there like that against lefties and you've got to give him a lot of credit for that. but it's the approach. it's going up there. i played with hal morris lifetime .300 hitter and played with mattingly. he said if there's an rbi out there with less than two outs, all i have to do is hit the ball up the middle and that's an rbi. got to think about -- about it a little bit.

>> jim h.: anderson hernandez has five steals on the year, he's been caught twice. there have been only two stolen base attempts on david hernandez in his brief time with the orioles. both have been successful. >> jim p.: in a couple of starts. the orioles struggled in that west coast trip. only the 1-0 by rich hill was the victory they had on the west coast. they play the angels the end of the week, fourth of july weekend. four out there, then off to seattle for three. >> jim h.: it's going to be a tough road trip, because you have the angels red-hot. seattle, that's the ballpark the orioles can't seem to hit home runs in. high fly ball to left. back on it is reimold. just in front of the warning track has it for the out. chugging back to first, anderson hernandez, one away.

tomorrow the red sox will be here at orioles park beginning a three game series with the birds, tickets still available. they start as low as $15. always a lot of atmosphere here. jon lester is on the mound tomorrow for boston. >> rob: come out and beat back that red sox nation. >> jim p.: second best record in baseball. only the dodgers with a better winning percentage. >> rob: their fans travel well. they show up and bring their orange and black. >> jim p.: which is terrific. >> rob: i thanked them on twitter. i said, thanks for coming up, they set attendance records in d.c. three straight days. very nice. >> jim p.: the red sox set the benchmark i think to me for all major league teams, because they set the standard.

it's a good way to judge, good yard stoic judge your own ball club. now, to do that of course, this 0-4 has got to stop. >> rob: you've got to beat the club. >> jim h.: they have that dreaded series. the 11 am game on monday morning. willie harris grounded out his first at-bat. >> jim h.: after that game which was the fourth loss in a row, they would have rather run the marathon which is what they'd run that morning, than play at 11:00. it's kind of weird. i don't know, you being a reliever, but when i was a starter, a lot of times i'd pitch some of the b games and you'd play those games at # 1:00 in the morning. throw to second by wieters, the tag, out at second base. so there you go, wieters

catches his first of the day, as anderson hernandez goes. and it appeared to me he had a pretty good jump. what did matt wieters do, pretty big lead and he takes a look. that's a little surprising. just a strong, accurate throw, good footwork, nice tag right there. >> rob: right down on the base which is what you're supposed to do. nice throw. >> jim p.: i played with mark, he would just drop the glove. that's what you try to do. get it down there as quickly as you can. >> jim h.: yesterday he did not play. so he was out working on the mechanics, the footwork, the throws. today in his first game back he catches the first potential base stealer of the day as anderson hernandez is gunned down. >> jim p.: you see how smoother he was today than he was down against florida? >> rob: that's not an easy throw. he's got to step outside to the left side of the hitter, with a

lefty up there to throw to his throwing side. if there's a right-handed hitter, he just steps out and throws to second base. that was a much better throw. you could see he has to step out here, to throw up there. he does a great job. give the kid some credit. >> jim h.: that looked like a little two-seam fastball. >> jim p.: maybe when he closed for georgia tech he went with the two-seamer. >> rob: the kid could throw 96. >> jim p.: it's not arm strength, that's certainly not a problem. >> jim h.: base hit that, heads for the corner. markakis will have to hurry. markakis plays the carom and there's a two out double, so that caught stealing very big for the nationals. well, the orioles scouting director who still is isn't done, he still has to sign more draft picks, but yesterday got the top draft pick signed. there's joe's cousin kim, her husband and their children. they're visiting joe from oklahoma. there they are, there's the

family. the youngster has on an o's hat as he should. >> jim p.: i asked the andy macphail, i said 15 out of 50? he said that's a pretty good pace. of course the nationals. >> rob: last week we'd signed 16 out of 51. >> jim p.: how's the strasburg lottery going? >> rob: i'll have to ask. >> jim h.: hernandez gets out of it. two hits, and no runs. 

 >> bob: john lannan in and out of trouble, first couple of innings, 33 pitches, 20 strikes. for the orldz, top of the order, adam jones, bottom three in a 1-0 game. ripped to left. adam jones, against the nationals in his career, is now 22 for 47. he's approaching the .460 mark against washington pitching. >> jim p.: he doesn't miss a whole lot of belt high fastballs, especially in the middle of the plate. watch this one right there. that's where it is. you know that john lannan wanted to maybe get it away a little bit.

sink it away. the thing about adam, he's a much better hitter against right-handed pitching. only three of his 12 home runs. well over .300 against righties, but .275 against lefties. >> bob: ty wigginton next, popped out to right first time. orioles have had a couple of runners walk. this ball slapped out of play to the right side. >> jim p.: it seems to me a lot of times when you get young pitchers, you don't want to discourage them from throwing strikes. they don't have to be perfect strikes. >> rob: i know exactly what you're saying. that was time where jordan was throwing everything so well, and he was throwing almost 80% of his pitches for strikes, including his last start i think he threw 77 pitches for strikes. they were too fine. >> bob: that ball bouncing right to the bag, easy double play for cristian guzman. the nationals have now turned two after the orioles turned four last night. >> rob: there you go. here's a ground ball by ty

wigginton here. if you're the shortstop and you're by the bag, cristian guzman steps on it, throws off the left foot, perfect strike to nick johnson. so jordan zimmermann is starting to change eye level. he's not getting effect irvly wild, but change the eye level occasionally. not waste a pitch, but locate it better. >> jim p.: in and out and up and down. >> rob: that's why this guy, he's in the hall of fame. we say the same stuff all the time. don't throw so many strikes. but you've got to make them dance, too. the first night just standing there smoking the ball. >> bob: you know how many hitters rob dibble hit in his career? not many. >> jim p.: i didn't hit too many either. if i did, there's a big difference between hitting guys. it's a little different nowadays because they wear the armor and they kind of lean

into pitches. i hit 12. i didn't like to do it, but i did like to pitch off the plate. joe rudy one night, he hit a ball about four inches outside the outside corner for a double, i go, okay, let's see if you can hit one six inches inside. if you can hit the ball away off the plate, then see if you can dodge the one inside. >> bob: anderson hernandez with his good range out there to grab it. pp hi, my meeting got moved up. i need to change my southwest flight. woman over phone: no problem. you know, maybe other people are content to sit around and wait. wait for something to happen. for business to pick up. but for you, it's time to kick it in gear. time to get going. time to get tough. take control. you're not gonna run and hide. because backing down's not your style.

grab your bag. it's on. ( ding )

 >> bob: nationals home next weekend against the braves. get your family fun pack tickets, that will be for sunday afternoon. kids run the bases on sunday, pregame autographs. nick johnson hitting number three today, he takes one on the outside corner. >> rob: to get back to what you were talking about. the velocity i was throwing at, i never wanted to locate it near his neck area, but if i'm going get underneath your arms, i'm going to go for your armpit. i think a lot of kids today are afraid of, a, hitting somebody, which isn't what pitching is, and, b, making a guy move off

the plate. you make him uncomfortable. that's pitching. you don't even need to really hit anybody. >> jim p.: it really changes the perspective of the outside corner. >> jim p.: i think the one thing for david hernandez, he's going have to use that change- up. it's not that he hasn't thrown the curveball. he hung one. the change-up slows down the fastball. so i have to imagine, and recollect eckstein has told all these guys, he's going to come at you with the fastball. he's in the middle of the plate. probably more than he'd like to be. so look for it. that change-up will slow the bat down. otherwise, you can see right there, that's about five fastballs that ryan zimmerman has had right in the middle of the plate. >> rob: he's really taking some cuts. he's not as, i guess, sometimes

especially has a swing area. and today he's just taking some hacks. >> bob: a good take there on a good breaking ball. zimmerman 2 for 7 with a walk in this series. still hitting between .295 and .300. he's been one of the best hitters in the national league at .329. only four hitters in the league have higher averages. >> rob: i wanted to say discipline. he's very disciplined at the plate. sometimes be undisciplined. go up there and hack. >> jim p.: that sounds like a true pitcher. >> rob: i would love to have a guy do that. >> bob: he rips that one hooking away from reimold, it will hit at the wall. ryan zimmerman digging for a one out double. that will be his 21st double of the year. >> jim p.: there's your perfect example of the different between the minor leagues.

look where it is, middle of the plate. it does not fool quality hitters like ryan zimmerman. >> rob: here's the x-mo swing. i'm not a big proponent for change-ups to right-handed guys. >> jim p.: did i throw some long home runs, jim rice, i thought it was a good pitch until it was about halfway to home plate and i realized it was going to go a long way. it was so much better against lefties, but they just kind of put the front down and then hit it into the upper deck. >> bob: nationals have been retired 10 of 12 times a. lot of that last night. washington had five at-bats last night with the bases loaded, nobody out. they walked twice and hit three ground balls, two of them for double plays. you'd love to see a can of corn fly ball to an outfielder, wouldn't you? >> rob: yep, i tried to throw change-up but it was a dry

splitter where i didn't hold the seams. i threw one in spring training in a simulated game. they hit it so far, that was the last change-up i ever tried to throw. >> bob: see you later! how about that. >> jim p.: that may have been the longest ball i've ever seen hit here. >> bob: bouncing around out there and the nationals lead 2- 1. >> jim p.: you're seeing a team do some pretty good situational hitting where they have a young rookie, they're taking advantage of the fact that he's just getting a fastball over. >> rob: he's going to throw a pitch that's supposed to be down and away. too much of the plate. he's done that almost 300 times in his career at the major league level. >> jim p.: i hope that boog powell didn't get hurt because the barbecue's throughout. >> bob: that might have taken a couple of ribs off the rack. that's number 297 for adam

dunn. >> jim p.: he does it all on sundays. mr. sunday. >> rob: one of these days he's going to develop a little more of a power swing. >> jim p.: oh, yeah. i don't know if adam is lying boog powell, but boog never got all of one. he did it about 440 feet. >> bob: almost got it. >> jim p.: i think he got all that. i called him the paul bunyan of left-handed hitters. i'm talking about add a he's big and strong. >> rob: the scruffy beard, the gum hanging out of his mouth. >> jim p.: he's a big kid. i like the fact you said he was going to be a starting quarterback at texas. >> rob: oh, yeah. he's a much better athlete than people think. he can run, too. >> jim p.: after one ball goes

about 450 or 60, that one goes about 75 feet for a base hit. the nationals have three consecutive hits here in the fourth. elijah dukes was slumping. four for his last 29 is next. we usually get a reading of how far the home runs go. >> rob: there's a lot of frustration pent up in that swing. >> bob: he hit one at citi field they're still talking about. went by the end of the third deck. >> rob: he's a little lazy with some of his off speed pitches. >> jim p.: i think what happens is he's more comfortable throwing his fastball. again, it's not that you don't throw your breaking balls, but if you spot your fastball, you can use your breaking ball out of the strike zone and you can finish it a little more. to me it was always a lot easier to throw my breaking ball down. >> rob: we're seeing the same trend with your staff, is the second and third time through

the line-up their batting averages are going up. they're giving up more extra- base hits. it's really concentration thing. now the second time they've already seen me once. i have to focus a little bit more. the third time, fourth time. i have to focus a little bit more now because this guy's seen me twice. >> jim p.: another fastball situation. and you're asking david hernandez to try to throw a breaking ball over. you figure how many has he thrown over tonight. so the percentage is very low. all of a sudden he gets deeper into the hole. >> bob: that's the first home run he's given up. elijah dukes has been trying to pull everything lately. >> rob: he's got to go to right center with that pitch. >> bob: there is no reason to throw him anything on the inner half. washington hitting its 69th of the year.