A 3-4 home stand against the Diamondbacks and last place Rockies really left the Nationals in a bad spot. On Friday, July 31st, the Nationals were 3 games ahead of the New York Mets. Fast forward to today and the Nationals are trailing by 3.5 games. For those counting, that's 13 days and a 6.5 game swing. The Nationals seem to be doing a whole lot of talking, but not much winning. There's no excuse as to why the Nationals are trailing by that much in the standings after a four game home series with the 56-57 Diamondbacks and a three game home series with the 47-65 Rockies.
The Mets are red hot and unless they shut down any of their pitchers, they aren't going to cool off. Their schedule is a cake walk with the exception of two, maybe three series for the rest of the year. Their road record speaks for itself, but that doesn't matter in the slightest. Four of their remaining eight road series are against teams that are 20+ games under .500 and don't even have a winning record at home. You have a bad home team and a bad road team, but the road team is going to trot out Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, and Jacob deGrom? I'll take the road team, please.
As for the "oh the other team has an ace pitching tonight, why are we even showing up" Nationals, they have their work cut out for them. A four game set in San Francisco is staring them in the face starting tonight. The Giants are in a similar position to the Nationals, they are 3.5 games behind the Dodgers for first place and they are trailing the Cubs by 4.5 games for the second wild card spot. That doesn't bode well for the Nationals. This is a desperate team as well. The difference is, this desperate team can hit and close out games. I'd like to see the Nationals take three of four from the Giants, but a split would work as long as they go into Colorado and sweep the Rockies after this series in San Francisco.
Now for some venting. There are two things that need to change if this team is to get hot and actually succeed in the postseason.
Record Against Aces
The Nationals as a team are 3-10 against the following pitchers: Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Michael Wacha, Lance Lynn, and Johnny Cueto. The rest of Major League Baseball is 44-89 against those eight pitchers. I get it, they aren't easy to beat. With that being said, the rest of Major League Baseball is beating those guys at a higher clip than the Nationals. I don't know if the Nationals realize it or not, but that's the type of quality pitching they would be facing should they make the playoffs. Those eight pitchers not only have a 10-3 record against the Nationals, but they also hold a 1.22 ERA over 111 innings against the Nationals. At that point it doesn't matter who is pitching for the Nationals, you're most likely not going to win the game if that's the run support you're receiving. You're basically telling your starter "Hey, the opposing pitcher is tough tonight, we may be able to get you one run, but that's about it." They may as well have not showed up last night and Tuesday night against the Dodgers. They would have scored the exact same amount of runs. The bottom line is good teams find a way to push runs across on these guys. I'm not asking the Nationals to score four or five runs against any of them, but if you can score two or three, it gives your pitching staff a shot to win the game. It's frustrating to look at the schedule and see who's pitching for the other team and in your head mark it up as an automatic loss. The hitting has to get better.
Lineup Change
Speaking of hitting, you have to give your team the best chance to win. Part of that is putting together a lineup that is going to put your team in the best position to score runs. The Nationals don't have that right now. The catalyst for their offense remains out and may be out for the rest of the year. So without Span at the top of the order, that means they have to find alternate ways to push runs across. Once again, the statistics are right in front of the Nationals coaching staff, but they've chosen to look the other way. Unlike many Nationals fans, I have no problem with Jayson Werth being in the lineup. He's making a ton of money, he has a proven track record, and let's be honest, who would you put in there instead of him? What I don't agree with is his spot in the lineup. Werth is hitting .188 on the year. OK, he missed all of Spring Training and he's missed another 71 games due to injury. He's not 100%, which is why he can't be hitting 5th in the lineup. I don't care who's feelings get hurt, who's mad, who's this, and who's that. It's go time, if you don't start winning, you'll be golfing on October 5th, not playing baseball. I'm tired of the excuses, we are 113 games into the season and so far all fans have heard is excuse after excuse.
Not only is Jayson Werth hitting .188 on the season, but with runners on base he's hitting .175. He's hitting .182 with runners in scoring position and .143 with runners in scoring position and two outs. These are critical points in the game, you can not have your fifth hitter in the lineup hitting .182 with runners in scoring position and .143 with runners in scoring position with two outs. There are other capable hitters in this lineup that can be hitting fifth that will produce more runs. Say what you will, but the Nationals best option to hit fifth in the lineup is Michael Taylor. He's only hitting .244 on the season, but the majority of that is while hitting in the eighth spot in the lineup. That's a tough spot to hit from because the pitcher is hitting behind you so you're going to see junk all day long. The opposing pitcher has no reason to throw Taylor anything good to hit, if he walks him, so be it, he will face the pitcher instead. Taylor is hitting .292 on the year with runners on base, that number skyrockets to .371 with runners in scoring position. That's not a fluke either, he has 70 at bats with runners in scoring position and he is 26 for 70 with 37 RBIs. He also hits .333 with runners in scoring position and two outs. Isn't that the kind of production you want out of the middle of your lineup? Wilson Ramos surprisingly is another option to move up in the order. Again, only hitting .235 on the year, but with runners on base he's hitting .291. With runners in scoring position he's hitting .309 with 38 RBIs and with runners in scoring position with two outs, he's hitting .283.
It's all about putting your players in a position to win the game and I don't feel that Matt Williams is doing that. I'm not going to go on a fire Matt Williams rant because it's just not going to happen at this point in the season. That situation will work itself out in the offseason when Mike Rizzo has to decide whether or not to pick up Williams's option. If the Nationals don't make the playoffs and Rizzo picks up the option, then he's lost his mind and he's committed to losing for another year. At the end of the day, the Nationals have a lot of problems to work through right now. There are only 49 games left to work through these kinks, but as I said in the last post, the Nationals have the talent to do it. They need to be in the right mindset and the right position to do it though. The lineup has to change and the mindset on nights when they are facing top pitchers has to change. The bullpen management over the past 6 games or so has actually been pretty solid (the questionable lineups and decision to start Clint Robinson in right when Bryce needed the night off, were not solid decisions). Drew Storen's ballooning ERA is only slightly concerning. He's had some bad outings, so what, so does every reliever. I'd rather have him go through a rough patch now than have him go through a rough patch in mid-late September when we really need him. The Nationals have to right the ship starting tonight in San Francisco. They're losing valuable games in the standings and if they don't get it right soon, it's going to be too little, too late.
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