Nats Definitely Aren’t Ready For The Spotlight

It’s a good thing that the Redskins look good this year. Because the Nationals could use a little less scrutiny. And, truthfully, after last night’s come-from-behind loss at the hands of the division-leading Braves, the team would probably enjoy having their city’s spotlight cast on some other franchise. No offense, but this ball club is just not ready for a big stage.

But it all started out so promisingly. Back on May 13^th, the Nats had just given the Rockies a rain-soaked drubbing  to the tune of 14-6, improving their season record to 20-15, just one game behind the Phillies—who at that time were atop the NL East. Since then, the team’s record is 31-53, bringing their season win-loss to 51-68. Fun fact: Only 2 other teams have worse records since May 13—the Orioles and the Pirates. Yikes.

So, where did it all go wrong? Well, since this season’s hopes for contention have nearly finished circling the drain, why don’t we play a little “Monday morning quarterback”—what’s the baseball equivalent? Late summer team manger?—and take a look back to see if we can’t find out some reasons why.

• Their defense has been terrible. On May 13^th, the Nationals defense had only made 27 errors on the year. They had given up only 9 unearned runs. So the team would give up a run because of an error 33% of the time. But from May 14^th until today, the Nationals have made 68 errors and have given up 61 unearned runs. That’s staggering! Since mid-may, the team has allowed an unearned run because of an error just under 90% of the time. Hard to win games when mistakes become runs.
• Their pitching rotation has been a revolving door. The team started the year with a starting rotation of John Lannan, Jason Marquis, Craig Stammen, Garrett Mock, and Livan Hernandez. Within 3 weeks, Marquis had been lost to bone chips and Mock was sent down to the minors in favor of a different starter. Over the next few months, the Nationals have had to make use of spot-start minor-leaguers such as Luis Atilano and Matt Chico, have added Stephen Strasburg & Scott Olsen, and have also sent Lannan, Stammen, and Olsen down to the minors a few times to either work through some pitching issues (Lannan & Stammen) or to rehab a shoulder injury (Olsen). Some of those guys have shown good stuff and have had good starts, but they’ve also has some extended struggles at times. And when the 35-year old Livan Hernandez, who’s been passed around the league like a hot potato for the last few years, is the anchor of your rotation, that’s saying something about your staff. And it’s not something good.
• The team got killed in inter-league play. Interleague play didn’t start out so badly. In May, the Nats took 2 of 3 from their Beltway rivals, the Orioles. And when the mid-June interleague schedule arrived, it should have been the easiest part of the year, with the team playing series against Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, the Chicago Sox, and an encore against Baltimore. All of those teams were either struggling or were having their own respective team issues, so if there was ever a time to rack up some wins, this would be it. Unfortunately, the Nationals went 3-12 against the AL in June and were outscored 72-46 in those games. After starting the month at .500 (26-26), the team tallied only 8 wins against 19 losses in June—largely because of their interleague struggles—and dug themselves into an 11-game hole that they were never able to overcome. It’s only grown since then.

Yeah, that would pretty much do it. It’s a safe bet that if you were to look at any of the division leaders/wildcard contenders, they each would have steady pitching rotations, defenses that either don’t make errors or can at least overcome the ones that they do make, and have not played themselves into holes from which they couldn’t recover.

Of course, these aren’t the only reasons that the Nats have lost 68 games and are stumping for last place again. But they’re some of the most glaringly obvious. A better defense, a regular rotation, and not losing 9 of 12 would add, say, at least 20 wins to whatever record this ballclub ends up with in 2010. But until then, we’re probably going to see some more rough outings.