By Barry Svrluga Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 8, 2008 JUPITER, Fla., March 7 -- For six innings and nearly two hours Friday afternoon, Ian Desmond sat up against the rail of the Washington Nationals' dugout at Roger Dean Stadium. He wore the highest jersey number available -- 99 -- and watched the team's presumed starting shortstop, Cristian Guzmán, drive in a pair of runs on groundouts, but not without letting another ground ball through his legs for an error. Guzmán's performance here -- whether it turns heads or stomachs -- has no impact on Desmond's immediate future. Three springs ago, that might not have been the case. Back then, Desmond was 19. The Nationals brought him into major league camp midway through the spring -- just as they did this year -- and he caused a stir. He hit .306 in 36 at-bats and made three defensive plays in a three-game stretch that had seasoned baseball executives gushing to ill-advised levels. "He reminds me of Derek Jeter," Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden said at the time, "except those were Ian Desmond plays, not Derek Jeter plays." The time for such discussion has long since passed, and Desmond knows it. "I think at the time I was so young, I didn't even have time to comprehend what was going on," he said. "Now, I understand a little better." The three seasons between that spring and this one have brought with them a promotion that came too quickly, subsequent frustration, a career minor league batting average of .245 and a fight to reestablish himself. As he said Friday morning, "It's been real weird." "I know I can play," Desmond said. "There's no doubt. But over the last few years, my confidence has been up and down." As the Nationals try to rebuild their organization, they will do so by acquiring pitching -- at all levels. But after that, there is no area of greater concern than the middle infield. Two major league regulars, Guzmán and Felipe López, are due to be free agents at the end of the season, and it's doubtful Washington will try to keep either. Veteran second baseman Ronnie Belliard is signed through 2009, but he will be 34 by the time his deal runs out. That situation leaves a gaping hole for next season and beyond, one the Nationals will most likely have to solve through trades or free agency. But Desmond was invited up from minor league camp earlier this week for a reason. He is 22 now, and, as Manager Manny Acta said: "We always keep making him feel that he's going to be part of this team here. It's up to him now to grab it." That's precisely what Desmond wants to do. In 2005, he advanced from low-Class A Savannah to high-Class A Potomac, though he committed 49 errors in 137 games at the two levels. The next spring, the Nationals -- bereft of promising shortstops in their system, still enamored of that dazzling performance from the previous year -- sent Desmond to Class AA Harrisburg of the Eastern League, which is filled with many of the top prospects in the game. "We put him over his head," said Bob Boone, the Nationals' vice president of player development. "We knew we were putting him over his head, but with what we saw defensively -- especially that spring before -- we said, 'Ah, let's give it a try.' " Though Boone isn't convinced the hasty promotion had any long-term implications for Desmond, he clearly struggled. He lasted 38 games with Harrisburg, hitting .184 with a .221 on-base percentage, and was sent back to Potomac. Desmond said the whole experience rattled him. "They told me from the beginning that I was going to go there, and I was going to stay there the whole year," he said. "I was playing like I always do -- I get off to slow starts -- and they said, 'Hey, we're sending you down.' It was for my own good, I'm sure. But I felt like I could dig myself out of any situation." The reality, Boone said, is that Desmond "didn't hit till the middle of last year." Scouts, too, started to take shots at him. At the end of the 2005 season, Desmond was ranked as the Nationals' fourth-best prospect by the trade magazine Baseball America. By the end of 2006, he had fallen off the chart. The adjustment to new levels took time, he said. "I'm kind of a guy that if you put me in a room with 50 80-year-olds, I'm not going to understand what's going on there," Desmond said. "But give me a little bit of time, and I'll adjust. I feel like I can adjust to any situation, and I feel like I can fit in." That is what he plans on doing this year. He is making no predictions about where he'll end up this season, though it'll likely be at Harrisburg again, this time for a tour that might last longer. He is coming off a strong second half to 2007 at Potomac, where he ended up with career highs in average (.264), on-base percentage (.357) and slugging percentage (.432). He is quick to assess the knocks against him, saying in the same breath, "I just want to prove to people that I can hit," and following with, "I don't think any pitcher would complain about having me on defense." After working with then-Potomac hitting coach Troy Gingrich last year, Boone said Desmond "really learned how to stay inside the ball." Though his defensive footwork still needs work, pitchers agree with Desmond's self-assessment. "You're comfortable when a ball's hit there," said left-hander John Lannan, who pitched for Potomac a year ago. On Friday, when Guzmán advanced runners with a grounder to the right side, Desmond got up to pat him on the back. And then he quietly turned around, walked back to the dugout railing, and watched the next at-bat -- so much to take in, so much more to learn. --

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