With strong arm and strong glove, Roark beats the heat

Even when he's being praised, Tanner Roark often seems to be undersold.

Most have come to realize the right-hander is legitimately one of the best pitchers in baseball. And any who haven't need only see his 13-6 record and 2.81 ERA in 24 starts to realize it.

Few, however, give Roark credit for being a complete pitcher, right down to the part where he field his position exceptionally well.

"He's a good athlete," Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. "Guys kid him because he doesn't look like he's ... you know, he shouldn't be a good athlete because he's so stout. He's not fat at all. He's stout. And you watch him field his position, that's a great indicator. ... He's told us many times that he was a quarterback and he used to be a shortstop. And he looked like one today."

Indeed, Roark's seven innings of one-run ball against the Braves on Sunday afternoon were impressive enough. Add three strong plays he made in the field and the legend only grows.

"That's all we do all day in spring training," Roark said of monotony that is pitchers fielding practice. "You want to get that out. You don't want to have a softly hit ball perfectly placed so that a guy's on base. You've got to go after them and try to do your best and get that out."

Roark has been doing those kinds of things very well for some time now. And he only continues to improve as a pitcher, establishing the kind of run of consistent dominance we normally associate with Cy Young Award contenders and the like.

Nobody's touting Roark for such an award yet, though if he keeps this up, his numbers will be difficult to ignore. In addition to the won-loss record and ERA, he has now enjoyed 10 starts this season in which he pitched at least seven innings while allowing one or fewer earned runs. Nobody else in the majors has done it that many times this year.

And did we mention his latest such outing occurred in the middle of the afternoon on a day when the temperature at first pitch was 96 and the heat index was 107?

"Boy, that was some performance, especially in the heat out there," Baker said. "He never complains about the heat. He doesn't complain about anything. He just goes out and pitches."

Roark, in his distinctly matter-of-fact way, shrugged off any concerns about the weather.

"Yeah, it was hot," he said. "But it was hot for everybody, and you can't control Mother Nature. You've still got to pitch and still got to do your job. You've got to block it out."