While President Obama’s approval rating is increasing, the Washington Nationals have yet to impress the baseball constituents. Nineteen games into the season and the preseason favorite to make it to the World Series is sharing the cellar with the hapless Phillies in the National League East. Unfortunately for the Nationals, there are not any valid excuses for their underachievement so far. There have not been any shattering injuries and you cannot blame bad luck; they just have not played well.
Granted, in an 162 game season, making any verdicts on a team through 19 games is not advised and it may even be considered foolish. But the early returns for the Nationals do not lend themselves to promoting optimism. While most prognosticators will assure you that the Nats will right the ship, there are legitimate reasons for concern in the capital city.
Offense
On paper, the Nationals appear to have plenty of offensive fire power to complement their solid starting pitching. Jayson Werth, Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond, and Bryce Harper are big names and seem like a solid nucleus to build your lineup around. However, only one team (Phillies) in the National League has a worse team batting average than the Nationals’ .213 mark.
Werth has not been a total bust since his first year in Washington in 2011, but he hasn’t been a legend either. In his first four seasons he averaged 16 homers and 63 RBI, which might be okay for a shortstop who makes $3 million a year, but not for a $20 million right fielder. Werth just has not lived up to the numbers he put in Philadelphia and this year he’s off to a horrific start. Werth did miss the first 8 games of the year due to injury but in his 11 games since he returned, he’s batting .171 with zero homers and 2 RBI. Maybe as the weather warms up so will Werth and he does historically play really well as the summer months occur. Following the loss of Adam LaRoche to free agency this past offseason, there just is not a lot of power on this team with the exception of Harper so Werth hitting 25 homers by the end of the year would provide a huge boost to the Nat’s October aspirations.
Harper has been a bright spot and seems to be getting the hang of being the go-to bat in a lineup. He has 5 homers already this season and while he strikes out a lot, the entire team does. In fact, the Nationals are second in the league in striking out behind only the Marlins.
In the Nationals defense, third baseman, Anthony Rendon is scheduled to start some rehab games and could be back before the weekend. His bat would be a huge help to this sputtering offense. In 2014, the 24-year old contributed 21 homers and knocked in 83 runs. This would only be his second full season and he appears like he will fill in the role that Zimmerman has since given up at third base.
The offense, while concerning for Nats fans, should warm up as the season goes on and the standings should reflect that improvement.
Pitching
When the Nationals finalized the free agent deal with starter Max Scherzer on January 21st, the speculation immediately arose if this starting rotation would rival and surpass that of the 2011 Phillies, the 1971 Orioles, or the Braves rotations of the 1990s. With Stephen Strasburg, Doug Fister, Gio Gonzalez, and Jordan Zimmermann to complement Scherzer, there seemed to be no doubt that the Nats would hold teams to minimal runs.
So far, the rotation has not quite lived up to the hype, but then again that was likely never going to happen. Scherzer has been as advertised: 1.26 ERA in 28.2 innings of work with a WHIP of .837, unfortunately lack of run support has resulted in a 1-2 record. Fister also has pitched well: 2.37 ERA in 19 innings.
However the other three starters have not impressed. They hold a collective 5.02 ERA and that paired with the poor offense, the team has felt it in the standings. Strasburg has especially seemed inconsistent and easily rattled. He is one of those guys where when things do not go his way, he sulks and pouts which does not help his performance at all. Both Gonzalez and Zimmermann have the track record that suggests they will get back on track and Strasburg has too much talent not to follow suit eventually.
The bullpen has given up some late leads recently and the departure of Tyler Clippard to the A’s and an early injury to set-up man Craig Stamman haven’t helped things. Both players should be back before too long which might help manager Matt Williams sleep at night. Obviously it doesn’t matter how well the rotation pitches if the bullpen can’t protect leads in the eighth and ninth inning of games.
Defense
This might be the most glaring shortcoming of this team so far in 2015. The Nationals are tied with the league-lead in errors with 18 (Brewers) and Ian Desmond has eight all by himself. This is one of those things that is hard to fix. You can do all the drills you want and just focus on the fundamentals, but it’s not one of those things that just stops being an issue. The Nats have allowed 15 unearned runs already which reflects ultimately in the win-loss record. Averagine nearly one error and allowing one unearned run a game is inexcusable in today’s game. Furthermore, with the generosity of the official scorers nowadays, having that many errors is more alarming than normal.
The Nationals and their fans should not be panicking yet and even though the Mets have made a statement in the first 20 games, they are still the Mets. The Nationals still have to be the favorite in the division and April is way too early to wave the white flag, but there is still plenty of work to do in the nation’s capital.
