They’re about to
do it again. They’re about to make it four straight divisional round exits. It
seems like it’s about that time to just say “hey, this team isn’t built to win”.
You can point to the 95, 96, 97, and 98 win seasons that say otherwise. But you
can’t ignore the facts and the facts are that this team as constructed can win
in the regular season, but can’t win in the playoffs.
Year in and year
out, the bats are to blame. They have a bunch of .300 hitters during the
regular season, and then when they playoffs roll around they become .100
hitters. Go ahead, let me hear it, “it’s a small sample size”, “it’s under a
microscope”, “these guys hit .100 during stretches of the regular season too,
but as a whole they are .300 hitters.” Quite frankly, I don’t care. I don’t
care if you hit .235 during the regular season if you can hit .300 in the
playoffs. This is where stars are made, and quite frankly, the Nationals don’t
have any stars. The Nationals lineup, which I’m 100% certain will not change
for Game 4 is hitting .000, .167, .100, .091, .250, .100, .000, and .250. That’s
right, two players (Trea Turner and Matt Wieters) don’t even have a hit, while
three others have one hit each. Absolutely pathetic. Some will point to the
Cubs and say “well they aren’t hitting either”, but they are. They’re hitting
when it matters. Kris Bryant is hitting. 273 and Anthony Rizzo is hitting .333
for the series driving in six of the Cubs eight runs this series. You can’t win
a ballgame unless you hit and score some runs. Since 2012, the Washington
Nationals are averaging 3.3 runs per game in 17 games (3.1 runs per game if you
take into account that Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS went 18 innings and the
Nationals scored 1 run). This includes last year’s series against the Dodgers
where the bats did come alive somewhat and we scored 4.8 runs per game. Take
that series out and the number goes down to 2.66 runs per game in 12 games. The
Nationals aren’t the only ones facing playoff pitching at this point in the
year, but they are sure as hell the only ones who are scared of hitting playoff
pitching at this point in the year.
Not scoring is the
number one reason the Washington Nationals will not advance past the Divisional
Round for the fourth straight try. Dusty Baker is the other reason why they
will not advance. I’m going to hear it for this one too, “managers are just a
scapegoat, the players need to perform.” Hey, guess what, like I said above, I
DON’T CARE. If this team were losing 8-0, it wouldn’t be Dusty’s fault and Dusty
would be a scapegoat. But in tie games and games decided by one run, the
manager’s decisions are pivotal to the outcome of a game. A good manager goes
unnoticed, a lot like a good umpire. The Nationals have never had what I would
consider a good manager. Dusty Baker will never be able to explain to me or to
any Nationals fan for that matter why not once, not twice, but three times he
decided to pitch to Anthony Rizzo with the game on the line. Rizzo burned him
all three times. It’s inexcusable. Dusty’s reasoning was that Willson
Contreras, who was on deck, could also burn the Nationals. Sure, Dusty. I guess
technically that’s true. Just like Joe Maddon could have sent Kyle Hendricks up as a pinch hitter for Willson
Contreras and he could have driven a run in! It could technically happen! But if you look at Willson’s career
numbers against the Nationals bullpen, he is 0 for 5 with a strikeout, collectively, against
Matt Albers, Brandon Kintzler, Ryan Madson, Enny Romero, and Sammy Solis.
Literally take your choice of any of those guys, and you give yourself a better
shot at winning than if you face Anthony Rizzo. Instead, Dusty continues to
manage like it’s 1985 and go to his lefty lefty matchup instead of looking at
the statistics and the splits. Unfortunately, Dusty Baker never has and never
will win a World Series.
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