After reeling off 21 wins in 27 games in May, the Nats have gone cold losing 14 of their past 20 games. Sure, over that 47 game span the Nats are 27-20, which is still pretty darn good. They obviously came back to life though after that 21-6 stretch in May. Even worse, the lineup is banged up and the bats are extremely inconsistent. They scored 1 run Monday, followed by a 16 run outburst on Tuesday, got shut out Wednesday, then scored 3 last night (2 were in the first inning and there were a lot of missed opportunities).
On a positive note, last night Doug Fister made his first start for the club since May 14th and Stephen Strasburg may not be too far behind him. Fister was charged with 5 runs, but he really deserved better. He pitched great through 5 innings, but just ran out of gas in the 6th. Some may say how is going 5 1/3 innings giving up 5 runs a good outing? He was sharp through 5 full innings and just got knocked around in the 6th. Once he builds up some stamina, we'll have the Doug Fister that we're used to where he goes 7 innings giving up 1 or 2 runs. Strasburg had a nice rehab outing for Harrisburg on Wednesday going 5 innings, striking out 6, walking none, and allowing 2 runs (only 1 earned). Although Tanner Roark has pitched fantastic since rejoining the rotation, the Nats miss him badly in the bullpen. Before his move to the rotation, Roark was pitching in the 7th and 8th inning and even had a save. The 7th and 8th innings for the Nationals has been a complete disaster this year. Being able to bring in Roark in the 8th inning of a 3-2 game will be a lot easier for Nationals fans to watch than seeing Aaron Barrett or Blake Treinen struggle through the inning. Nothing against Barrett or Treinen, I think both have great stuff, but Roark is flat out the better pitcher right now.
As far as the hitting and scoring runs, the Nationals are going to be streaky. That's how it is and how it always has been. This team can get hot for 2 weeks or so and score 5-6 runs per game. In those 2 weeks, they're probably going to go 8-3 or 9-2. On the flip side, they can also get ice cold and score 1-2 runs per game for 2 weeks or so. In that stretch they'll struggle to play .500 baseball. You just hope for one main thing when you're a streaky hitting ball club. You hope that when you aren't hitting, you can weather the storm (and if you're the Nats, that you get hot at the beginning of October). Not only does that put more pressure on the pitching staff to give you quality start after quality start, but it also puts pressure on the hitters to be able to play small ball. The Nationals aren't built like the Cardinals, or the Royals, or the Giants, which to be honest is a shame. It's all in the approach of some of the players though. Matt Williams has stressed since day one on the job the significance of being able to "get em on, get em over, get em in" as the saying goes. It's not because of lack of effort, it's just the type of hitters this team has. When the Nationals are fully healthy, 6 of the 8 position players have potential to hit 20+ home runs a year (the exceptions being Denard Span and Yunel Escobar). The two guys who won't hit 20 homers, are guys who can manufacture runs. The Giants, Cardinals, and Royals are all in the bottom 10 in the Majors in home runs hit, but two of the three are in first place in their division right now. The third team won the World Series last year and eliminated the Nats in the first round. These three teams can manufacture a run, they don't wait until the 7th inning when they're losing 3-1 and then come up and say well here goes nothing, I better swing for the fences. We don't know what the Nats lineup can do when they're fully healthy, but it's my hope that they can find a nice mixture between swinging for the fences and manufacturing runs. A single, followed by a bunt, followed by a single isn't flashy, but it puts a run on the board and counts the exact same as a solo home run.
It's been a rough two weeks, but the bottom line is the Nats are 34-33 and they're just 1 1/2 games out of first place. The Nats are just 1 game behind their pace last year which they won 96 games. It's hard to tell you not to panic right now, especially after seeing Bryce go down last night. They're struggling and thoughts of 2013 are running through all of our minds, but this team is too talented to not win the NL East. We saw what kind of team the Nats could be in May when they were hot. It would be nice to see some consistency though. The hot Pirates who have won 21 of their last 26 come in to town for the weekend. Without Bryce this is going to be a tough series to win, but now is as good a time as ever to see what kind of guts this team has. You have a rookie on the mound tonight, your ace tomorrow, and then Gio, who has struggled with his command all year, but when he's on, he can pitch with anyone on the Pirates, pitching on Sunday. Maybe you even switch the lineup up a bit. Call me crazy, but maybe you move Ian Desmond up to the 2nd spot and move everyone else down a spot. Ian has hit .290 this year when he's hitting second in the lineup, any other spot in the lineup he's hitting no higher than .167. He's struggling right now, but protection in the lineup can go a long way and hitting in between Denard Span and Anthony Rendon will allow him to see way better pitches than if he's hitting in between Danny Espinosa and Michael Taylor. I'm no manager, but if I had the lineup card tonight it would be 1) Span, 2) Desmond, 3) Rendon, 4) Escobar, 5) Robinson, 6) Ramos, 7) Espinosa, 8) Taylor, 9) Ross. Obviously that's assuming Bryce is out, if he's not I'd slide him in at the cleanup spot and move Escobar down to 5. We'll see what happens, just please, please don't get swept this weekend. I speak on behalf of all Nats fans when I say we won't be able to handle looking at the standings and seeing 34-36 on Monday. If that's the case there will be thoughts of 2013 haunting us every night.
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