Another year, another analyst

Today marked the debut of the new Washington Nationals broadcast team on MASN, as Don Sutton made his debut alongside Bob Carpenter.

This makes three color analysts (Ron Darling and Tom Paciorek came before Sutton) and two play-by-play men (Mel Proctor handled the duties in 2005) in three seasons for the Nationals.

Don't get me wrong: I think Sutton is strong and he'll form a solid team with Carpenter. But at some point a little continuity might be in order for the fans' sake...

Now on to some observations from today's telecasts...

* Washington starter (likely the only Nats' starting pitcher you can name) looked good in his first two innings of work this spring. He allowed three hits in the first inning, but he kept the Orioles' hitters off balance; those three hits weren't exactly hit hard. In the second inning, Patterson looked especially strong...and that's a good sign considering his injury troubles in 2006.

* New Orioles' outfielder Jay Payton went the opposite way for an RBI single in the first and then grounded up the middle for another RBI single in the third. In his next at-bat, Payton flew out to left -- proving that he could, in fact, hit the ball in three different directions in three straight at-bats.

* Joel Hanrahan took over for Patterson in the third, but he'd have been better off had he not shown up at the ballpark. Hanrahan looked terrible, allowing three hits, three walks and five earned runs while retiring just one batter.

* Baltimore right fielder Nick Markakis looks like he wants to put any talk of a sophomore jinx to bed immediately -- he went 3-for-4 with two singles and a double; he still looks like a star in the making to me.

* Nats' third base prospect Kory Casto had a single up the middle off of lefthander John Parrish in the eighth. I've seen Casto play in the minors a few times and he still has that good-looking swing I remember. Only problem is...there's a fellow named Zimmerman blocking his path in Washington.

* Directv screwed up again today, causing out-of-market fans to miss the first three innings of the Phillies-Red Sox game. So I got to see none of Tim Wakefield's outing. Directv does this every spring; they incorrectly make spring games unavailable...then they realize their mistake an hour or so into the broadcast. It's incredibly frustrating, and their customer service department provides absolutely zero assistance.

* From what I did see, however, Jonathan Papelbon was very impressive. His fastball looked strong, and he used it to strike out Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Aaron Rowand and the immortal Greg Dobbs in his two perfect innings.

* Joel Pineiro isn't having the kind of spring that will help him win the Red Sox closer's job. Pineiro came on in the fifth for Boston and -- with a runner on first -- left an 0-2 pitch to the aforementioned Dobbs right in the middle of the plate. Dobbs smacked it over the right field wall for a two-run homer.

* Pineiro was lifted after allowing four hits, four earned runs and two walks in just 1 1/3 innings. Not good.

* Even though it's only spring training, Mike Lowell still murders the Phillies. Lowell went 2-for-3 with a three-run homer in the fifth.

* It looks like tomorrow will bring us telecasts of the Red Sox-Twins game from Fort Myers as well as the Cubs and White Sox from Arizona. I'll see you after tomorrow's games...