VIERA, Fla. — The day after Bryce Harper talked about hoisting a “trophy over the monuments,” another quote topped the schedule hanging at the entrance of the Nationals’ clubhouse.
“The road to the World Series begins today.”
Manager Matt Williams puts a phrase on every daily schedule, a trend that dates back to his first spring as a manager last season. Quotes so far this year include “aim small — miss small” and “there is a difference between control and command.” The fact that Williams pointed to Thursday, the first day of full-squad workouts, as the beginning of the road to October is nothing unusual.
It is such a small thing — eight words on a piece of paper in the clubhouse — but I also think it’s representative of something that is important to note: All week, the Nationals have embraced the expectations surrounding them. Nobody in the clubhouse thinks the title is already won, but they all know the expectations are there. They get it. They’re fine with it. And they get that attitude from their manager. This isn’t the “World Series or bust” bravado of Davey Johnson. It’s a more nuanced, but equally confident, mentality.
Williams explained the quote in his own words Thursday.
“Just because that’s what we want to do,” he said. “We’re here to get to that ultimate goal. We’re not alone. There’s 29 other teams that have the same thought. So that being said, I want to make sure that we understand that that’s our goal. That is our goal: to be the last one standing at the end of it.
SEE ALSO: Jayson Werth changed perception, culture of Nationals long before 2015
“During the course of that process, we have to do a lot of things right. We’ve got to understand that, that on an everyday basis we’ve got to go out there and we’ve got to play, we’ve got to play well, we’ve got to pitch well, we’ve got to catch the ball, all of those things that are blatantly obvious. But it’s important for us to understand that that’s where we want to get to, and we need to put the work in to try to get there.”
Williams and his staff met with all 60 of their players in a team meeting Thursday morning. The second-year manager said his message to the group was simple: stay with the process.
“We have a process here that has garnered us some success,” he said. “And what that is, is diligence with which we go about our work, and an attitude that it’s important to us. Everything we do on the field is important. It will show up during the course of a game, during the course of a season. And it’s important for us to get through it and understand it and make it a part of our game to help us win a game. So that was one message today. Just making sure we understand that everything we do here has a purpose and will benefit us at some point along the way.”
Jayson Werth was later asked about that team meeting, as well as his opinion on managers and whether they have the ability to set the tone for the season.
“I would say it depends on the guy, it depends on the manager,” Werth said. “I’ve played for some guys that could set the tone, I’ve played for some guys that couldn’t set the tone. It just depends on the guy.
“I would say our guy can set the tone.”
SEE ALSO: Yunel Escobar is committed to succeeding at second base with the Nationals
Breakfast links
— From today’s paper: How Jayson Werth changed the perception and culture of the Nationals, helping pave the path to where they are now.
— Yunel Escobar is fully committed to playing second base, and putting in extra work there every day to ease the transition.
— Mike Carp could fill a needed role for the Nationals off the bench.
Workout observations
— We got our first glimpse of Escobar in a Nationals uniform on Thursday, and he was pretty impressive. He’s extremely athletic and still moves like a shortstop. When the infielders practiced turning 5-4-3 double plays, I liked the fact that Escobar jumped to simulate avoiding the sliding base-runner. That’s the attention to detail that’s cool to see in a routine drill.
— Also in that drill, Kevin Frandsen made a ridiculous backhanded grab at third base. Players hooted and hollered. Not sure how much time Frandsen will spend at third this season, but it was a great play.
— I didn’t watch much of batting practice because there are very few observations you can really take away from that, but I will relay one sequence when Escobar was in the cage. He watched four of five pitches sail past him, not hacking at wild ones, then deposited the next over the fence on his last pitch of the round. “Walk it off,” one player said.
Flaming dessert
How’s that for a teaser?
Last night, a few of us D.C. media folk went to a place called Matt’s Casbah in downtown Melbourne. The food was great, and the entire experience, though a bit on the pricy side, was fantastic. I got chicken rubbed in Latin spices and topped with spicy banana chutney. CSN cameraman extraordinaire Mitch Tischler ordered an entire fish; they flash-fried it and just put a cup of rice over its eye so it wasn’t staring at you from the plate. Another excellent dinner recommendation by Mark Zuckerman, who also came through with Bonefish Willy’s.
After the main course, our encyclopedic waiter came over with a list of desserts. At one point he said “flaming coffee.” My mind was made up. WTOP’s George Wallace ordered one as well, and the two of us just sat back and enjoyed the show. A bald man rolled a cart over to the side of our table and started preparing the drinks right next to us. “I have to be careful,” the man said. “When I started working tonight, I had hair like ZZ Top.” The coffee was pretty good but the presentation was everything. Here’s video evidence. All in all, another great dinner experience.
Quote of the day
Spring training is still young, but Williams has already had some tremendous one-liners. On Thursday, it was a word rather than a line, stemming from a general question about the first full-squad workout.
“[The players] were, as I said, eupeptic about getting out there. It was good,” Williams said.
First of all, congrats to Williams for stumping a room full of writers with “eupeptic.” I don’t think any of us had ever heard that word used in a sentence before. The definition? Well there are two: 1) Of, relating to, or having good digestion and 2) cheerful, optimistic. So there you go.
Farewell for now
This will be the last installation of Viera Journal, for now anyways. I’m flying back to D.C. (and snow?) late tonight. Columnist Thom Loverro will be in town relatively soon, followed by Todd Dybas, so we’ll still have a steady stream of good stories as the season nears. I’ll be back for the final week, when roster decisions are finalized. Until then, thanks as always for reading.
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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