Washington has managed to stay around the .500 mark as the first month of the MLB regular season is almost in the books, and they’ve done it with a pitching staff that has made the Nationals a tough team to score on. You would have to think, though, that the Nationals will eventually fade to the bottom of the National League East as they currently sit in third place, 4.5 games behind Philadelphia, unless the staff gets even better throughout the season.
The Nationals are sixth in the National League in ERA, and while they’re not an overpowering staff (Washington is last in the league in strikeouts), they manage to keep the opposition from scoring runs, and that’s the main goal. The biggest surprise to those who bet on baseball as they are doing all this without Stephen Strasburg, who likely won’t pitch this season because of last year’s Tommy John surgery. The rotation is a mix of Livan Hernandez, Jason Marquis, Jordan Zimmermann and John Lannan, while Drew Storen and Sean Burnett share the role of closer, and the duo of Chad Gaudin and Tyler Clippard has been brilliant in middle relief. Now, the big question is: can they sustain it?
They going to have to, because Washington is currently third from the bottom of the National League when it comes to scoring runs, second from the bottom in average, and they rank last in hits, doubles and total bases. Jayson Werth hasn’t been worth the $126 million price that Washington paid so far, hitting .218 with three homers and five RBIs over his first 20 games with the Nationals, and he may be putting too much pressure on himself. The Nationals haven’t been helped by an abdomen injury to Ryan Zimmerman, who was probably their best player in 2010.
But what the Nationals can’t afford to be is a poor fielding team, which is what they are right now. Only Houston has a worse fielding percentage and more errors in the National League, and even when they put themselves in position to win, Washington often makes a bad error in the field. The Nationals need to solve this immediately to avoid the East basement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
