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Keys to the Nats’ RisingMay 5th, 2008
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Will this team break out? We know they can and it just might be on the brink of doing so.
In less than two weeks, the Washington Nationals have climbed out of MLB’s basement by playing .727 ball. Their record through Saturday afternoon has them looking down on five teams and tied with a sixth. They are only five games below .500.
The Nats are 8-3 in their past 11 games, during which they captured series against three solid teams, and they’ll try to clinch another series Sunday afternoon.
Through Saturday afternoon, they have won two of three against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Right handed pitcher Tim Redding leads the charge Sunday in game four at Nationals Park against Ian Snell, also a righthander. Should the Nats lose, they’ll at least emerge with a series tie.
The Nats also have emerged from their sole possession of the National League basement. Through Saturday afternoon, they had leaped ahead of the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres in the West, and the Cincinnati Reds and the Pirates in the Central. League-wide, the Nats’ record was tied with the Seattle Mariners and ahead of the Texas Rangers.
Not bad for a team that had an overall winning percentage of .250 just 12 days ago. On April 22, the Nats’ had lost 15 of their 17 most recent games.
Since then, the percentage has climbed to .419, though they’re still last in the NL East. The Nats are 1.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves, against whom they’ve won four of seven games thus far this season. They won’t see the Braves again until immediately after the All-Star break in mid-July when they visit Atlanta for a three game weekend set to kick off the second half of the season.
Maybe it’s taken some time to get used to their new home, where their record is just below .500. They’ve lost nine of 17 games, converting to .421. Ironically, that percentage is roughly equivalent to the percentage of their overall record.
Their home record dwarfs their away record. At 4-10, their road record converts to a winning percentage of .286. That’s perilously close to where the Nats have managed to climb from the middle of last month, representing another strange irony.
Another culprit is team hitting. Their batting average was ranking second-to-last in the National League at .234, according to the Nationals. Only the Padres’ team batting average was lower, standing at .225. Their team hit total at 244 was third-to-last, with the New York Mets and the Padres trailing at 239 and 238, respectively.
The Nats’ run production also is suspect, sitting near the bottom in two key categories. For total runs, they were tied with the Rockies at 120, which was north of the Padres and the San Francisco Giants at 98. For RBI, the Nats were tied with the Rockies at 114, leading only the Padres and the Giants whose total was 95 apiece.
Also raising eyebrows is the production of the three Nationals who have played all 31 games thus far. They have batting averages in the low and mid .200s. Centerfielder Lastings Milledge was leading that trio at .261, third baseman Ryan Zimmerman was hitting .217, and rightfielder Austin Kearns was barely hovering above the Mendoza Line at.202.
Defensively, their on-field carelessness is not of pressing concern, despite isolated examples from earlier in the season. Having committed 18 errors as a team, the Nats were tied with the Mets and the Giants for fourth best. The Milwaukee Brewers had committed 16 errors, the Rockies 13, and the Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals and Padres led the NL at 12 apiece.
The Nats’ pitching could use a boost if their winning percentage is to continue improving. At 4.54, their team ERA was fourth-to-last in the NL, trailing only the Florida Marlins at 4.55, the Rockies at 4.68 and the Pirates at 5.28.
For now, the Nats will have to resume the positive baseball as they continue settling into Nationals Park as they wrap up the series with the Pirates. If their team and individual batting average and run production scales, if they keep up the comparatively clean fielding, and if they work on their team and individual ERA, the winning percentage also will continue climbing.
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