The Nationals have yet to be above .500 this season, but let the record show that it's gotten close. With James Wood, MacKenzie Gore and C.J. Abrams all having great seasons, the Nats have been very close to being a good team, and have actually stayed relatively close to the pack during the prior months of the season. At the end of May, the Nats won four straight against tough teams, the Mariners and the Diamondbacks, and were 28-30, very close to .500, and close to flipping the script on their 'not quite ready' reputation.
We're more than halfway into June, and the Nats have won three games this month. They just got over an 11-game losing streak. And they are now so far out of the race that the Marlins are in danger of lapping them. So much for that.
I think the main issue with this Nats team is that, while the stars have formed, thankfully, there still isn't a strong enough foundation to back them up. Keibert Ruiz, Luis Garcia, Jacob Young and Dylan Crews have all been brought in here to bridge this team towards a championship, and none of them are playing like they're leading anybody anywhere. Young is stealing bases, Crews is hitting for power, but they're not fully formed players right now. Ruiz was supposed to be THE guy for this team, and he's hitting .224 with 2 homers. Granted, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner aren't exactly Dodgers heroes right now, so it's not like they were cheated out of anything. You've also spent money on people like Josh Bell and Nate Lowe and they're not doing much at all. Bell has the weirdest priorities as a hitter, because he'll only do well for you at the oddest moments, and it's mostly like August.
The rotation is, at least, still promising. Jake Irvin is having another nice season, he's 5-3 with 59 Ks and a 4.23 ERA. Gore leads the league in strikeouts and has a 2.89 ERA to boot. Parker and Lord are less impressive this year but doing their best. And somehow Kyle Finnegan is still a great closer. The pen otherwise is kind of scary, and nearly ruined it during the Rockies game a few days ago.
This team has just gotten unlucky with injuries to crucial pieces, and promising young guys going cold at the wrong times. There isn't a sense of unity yet, because we're still in the replacement zone and not a lot of these guys are on the same page. The idea is that a huge season from Wood cements him as the centerpiece, and they start really building a team around him and going for it, and Wood is on his way there with 20 homers and 56 RBIs. But at this stage, it's not very realistic to expect everything to click. The supplementary pieces aren't there yet, and they might not be there for another few years.
Coming Tonight: He throws hard, notches saves and keeps his team a threat in the AL Central.
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