Washington Nationals 10 seasons later: John Lannan
By Ricky Keeler
Our look back at the 2008 Washington Nationals continues with a look at John Lannan, who is still in the organization today
Today we continue our look back at the 2008 Washington Nationals, which was the first Nats team to play home games at Nationals Park. We’ve already looked at the Opening Day starter from that season, Odalis Perez. Today, we take a look at a left-hander from that rotation, John Lannan.
Lannan is still in the Washington Nationals organization today. At age 32, he is trying to become a submarine reliever. He has yet to play a game with one of the affiliates in the Nats system, but it will be interesting to see if he can make it back to the big leagues.
Back in 2008, Lannan was in his second season at the big league level. Over the course of 31 starts, he went 9-15 with a 3.91 ERA. He tied Tim Redding for the team lead in innings pitched (182) and he was third on the team in strikeouts (117).
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Throughout his career, Lannan was never known as a strikeout pitcher. The 117 K’s in 2008 were the most that he ever had in a single season. Without a high strikeout total, you have to have good command of your pitches. That wasn’t the case with Lannan, who had 72 walks in ’08.
If you look at some of his 2008 starts more closely, Lannan won a game in which he didn’t strike out a single batter. On July 9 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, he gave up three hits and walked three over six innings in a 5-0 Nats win.
While Lannan had a zero strikeout game, he also had a double-digit strikeout game that year. On April 17 against the New York Mets, he gave up one run on three hits and struck out 11 over six innings. But, the Nats lost the game 3-2.
When Lannan was pitching, he wasn’t exactly helped out by run support. Of course, when you are pitching for a team that ended up winning 59 games in a season, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Nevertheless, the Nats only averaged 3.71 runs per game in Lannan’s starts and the team went 9-22 (Baseball Reference).
At the plate that season, Lannan went 1-for-45. It took him until 2011 to get his first big league home run, which occurred out in Los Angeles.
In the years that Lannan pitched for the Washington Nationals, he only won ten games once (2011) and lost double-games in three seasons. His time in D.C. would end after the 2012 season and he ended up pitching for the Phillies in 2013 and the Mets in 2014. He hasn’t been in the Majors since.
Lannan never really had the success that the Washington Nationals hoped he would have as a starter. But, he’s had a second chance to succeed as a reliever. Hopefully, he will make the most of that opportunity.