Joel Peralta’s pine tar story not keeping J.P. Howell from praising Washington Nationals-MLB
The pine tar incident that happened between Washington Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson and that of Tampa Bay Rays’ Joe Maddon during the 2012 Major League regular season has not discouraged reliever J.P. Howell to show interest in the former.
Johnson and Maddon had an exchange of harsh words following the former’s pointing out of pine tar used by the latter’s reliever, namely Joel Peralta.
After this event happened, Maddon claimed that the Nationals will find it extremely hard to see some of the Tampa Bay’s players wanting to join Washington from free agency during the offseason.
Certainly, the insignificance of his statement has proven after the left-handed reliever the former Tampa Bay’s player and the free agent at the moment, Howell has expressed his desire to join Washington.
The Nationals have become an ideal place to be in for many free agents, following their thumping success in the last season.
They piled up wins and made it to the playoffs before being disallowed to go deep in the postseason by the St. Louis Cardinals in the Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
According to many experts, the Nationals are ideally placed to achieve something substantial next year. Their players, staff and the management are prepared and ready to implement winning strategy for the upcoming season.
Only a few issues confront their management while by-and-large they have a reasonable supply of players for each department.
The absence of a left-handed reliever in the bullpen is one such thing that needs attention. After Sean Burnett lost to the Los Angeles Angels from free agency, the Nationals are looking for his replacement.
Howell can be an answer to the requirement of the Nationals as he boasts credentials of being a reliable reliever.
“When I was on the Tampa Bay side, of course it did,” Howell said. “If I’m on the Washington side, that’s just doing everything he can to get a win. If I’m on the Nationals’ side of that, I’m not too bitter. That’s fair game. If you want to call a guy out,
you call a guy out. It got them a win. I’m on the same side – try to do everything I can to get a win. It was a manager playing his part saying, ‘We need this win tonight.’”
It will be interesting to see how much time the Nationals take to make the deal with Howell official.
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