The Washington Nationals 2018 season ended last night, once again at the hands of the Chicago Cubs. I don't care what the standings say, they've said the same thing for the past 2 months - the Nationals are close enough to make a move, and close enough to not be written off, but I'm officially writing them off. On June 30th, the Nationals were 3 games over .500 and 5 games out of first place. Today, the Nationals are 2 games over .500 and 5.5 games out of first place. They've gone 18-19 in that stretch and lost a half game in the standings.
There is nothing to this point insinuating that this team is anything more than a .500 team. They played 8 2/3 of nearly flawless baseball last night and lost on a walk-off grand slam. They find new ways to lose winnable games on a nightly basis. They're 11-20 in 1-run games. That's the 5th worst record in 1-run games in the Major Leagues. The teams with worse records in 1-run games are the Orioles, Twins, Mets and Reds. Those 4 teams have a combined winning percentage of .405 this season. The Nationals have played 22 games since they all-star break. They're 12-10 in those 22 games. In 5 of those 10 losses, they've either been tied or leading in the 6th inning or later. This is not a good baseball team. They would have to go 30-14 to get to 90 wins now. It's not going to happen. The Braves have to go 26-21 to reach 90 wins and the Phillies have to go 25-20 to reach 90 wins. That will not be difficult for either of those teams.
There are many delicate flowers nursing themselves back to health right now. Stephen Strasburg, Kelvin Herrera and now Ryan Madson all have had poor outings since the all-star break that have cost the Nationals 3 wins. All 3 have claimed they are not healthy after the game. They did not tell the bullpen coach, the pitching coach or the manager of the injury prior to entering the game in any of those three scenarios. They instead told the media after the game. It's easy to claim you're injured after a poor outing. It's way easier than saying "yeah, I didn't have it tonight, I let the team down". So, these three will now hang out on the disabled list together, knowing that they've blown multiple opportunities for this team to make a move in the division race due to their "injuries".
There's no accountability, no cohesiveness and most of all no urgency from this team. Davey Martinez's post game interviews are turning more and more Matt Williams like by the day. I don't know if he realizes this, but the season will end. There will be a day where you won't be able to say "I believe in these guys, they're going to get hot and when they do, watch out." Matt Williams is still somewhere talking about the game "tomorrow." Pretty soon, Davey Martinez might be right next to him. Mike Rizzo is lucky he got his extension prior to the season, because right or wrong, he wouldn't be getting one after this season.
There isn't a whole lot to look forward to for the rest of the season, but there are a couple of things to watch out for. If and when Mike Rizzo decides this team is out of it - possibly around August 30th which would be right after 6 games in 9 days against the Phillies, he will probably try to trade Daniel Murphy, Matt Adams, Kelvin Herrera and Gio Gonzalez. Assuming all can clear waivers, or assuming a trade can be worked out with a claiming team for each of those players, Rizzo will have officially called it a year. Once that happens, the only thing left will be to see if the Lerners make the decision to move on from Davey Martinez. He will still have 2 years left on his deal, but only at $750,000 per year. I don't imagine they will have a problem with that if they want to bring somebody else on board. At this point though, there aren't going to be many candidates lining up to take this job. Many free agents will be departing and you'll be managing a team where the owners have shown no loyalness to its manager. It has not been a good year for baseball in the nation's capital and it only looks to get worse from here.
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