A baseball fan doesn’t need a lot of hope to inflate a hot-air balloon of optimism. But you need some.
So far — and put those two words in triple italics — the Nats have played like a team. And they have been fun. I didn’t have either of those words on my 2023 calendar.
“There’s a lot of positive energy right now,” General Manager Mike Rizzo said Thursday. “You can see some light at the end of the tunnel.”
Most impressive, especially for a team that’s been bludgeoned with bad records, bad breaks and bad news for three seasons, the Nats have started to form an identity. There is nothing new about clinging to “scrappy underdog.” But sometimes corny can be your best friend.
In baseball, because the season is so relentlessly long and because roughly half of all games are decided by one or two runs, team chemistry and cohesion may matter more than in any other pro sport. It’s the game’s most mysterious and enjoyable special power.
If youthful energy, attention to detail or the ability to bounce back from tough defeats can help change the outcome of just one game every two weeks, that’s 13 games in a season. What’s the value of that many extra wins? In payroll terms, a couple of stars.
So far — yes, there are those words again — the Nats have refused to be defined by what they do not have: home run power (next to last in MLB) and star power.
Instead, they focus on what they do have: a much-improved defense, a quick-handed middle infield of CJ Abrams and Luis García that has the Nats leading MLB in double plays, plus bright young starting pitchers in Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore, who rank 11th and 22nd in the National League in ERA at 2.96 and 3.65 at the start of games Friday.
Catcher Keibert Ruiz, now signed long term, may be a leader for a decade. In the past 30 games, Joey Meneses is hitting .315, though he’s still searching for his power. Even Victor Robles (.292) is showing plate discipline.
The Nats’ hidden secret is a six-deep off-the-scrap-heap group of relievers who few could name but who have a 3.30 ERA in 535 games in their Washington careers.
For two years, Rizzo auditioned enough relievers for an Uber fleet. Most would do better driving cars. But Hunter Harvey (2.45 ERA as a National), Carl Edwards Jr., (2.58), Erasmo Ramírez (3.29), Andrés Machado (3.50), Mason Thompson (3.53) and Kyle Finnegan (3.69) give depth, a variety of styles and some serious heat.
“That’s a tribute to our scouts,” Rizzo said of a bullpen that came at a total cost of almost nothing.
One key to staff stability is durable Patrick Corbin, who has a 4.08 ERA in his past six starts. Has he finally mastered the change-up he needs to be useful again? The retired Ryan Zimmerman thought Corbin’s five relief appearances in the 2019 postseason, after a 238-strikeout season, were unselfish and crucial to the Nats’ title but may have contributed to his troubles thereafter. Call me sentimental, but I would like to see the lefty who was the winning pitcher in both the pennant and World Series clinchers finish his time in D.C. with dignity.
Let’s not pretend we can extrapolate this brief present into the future. Instead, let the past 30 games be an unexpected pleasure, with a value in themselves. They remind us that every chunk of a long rebuild doesn’t have to be miserable. And the enjoyment of watching player development within each game has its own merit.
Gray’s new cutter has changed his ability to cope with left-handed hitters by jamming them. Will he and Gore progress to the point that they are as productive as Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez?
Whether García becomes a fine-hitting second baseman, or just an adequate one, is tied to his plate discipline. He has nine walks this season; all last year, he had 11.
This year and next, progress will be measured in such small and subtle increments.
Can Jake Irvin, with a 0.84 ERA in his first two starts, become the solid back-of-rotation starter that the Nats envision? Will Harvey, with his 100-mph smoke and nasty splitter, become an elite reliever like his father, Bryan?
Every prospect guru knows the Nats’ outfield, now an offensive weakness, should become a strength with the arrival of Robert Hassell III, 6-foot-6, 240-pound James Wood and Elijah Green in (current guess) 2024, ’25 and ’26. Third baseman Brady House may be here in ’25, too.
Rizzo has brought several standouts to the majors as teens, plus others at 20. He always has a long-term development plan — then hopes the player blows it up.
“If you have 10 players in your organization with superstar talent, you expect that one will actually be a real superstar,” Rizzo said not long ago. “But plenty of those others are going to be good or very good players.”
Do the Nats have those 10?
“I’ve never been in an organization in Arizona or here that had so many players with ceilings this high,” said Rizzo, putting the finger of high expectations on himself.
When (or if) the Nats eventually approach .500, they will do what they did in 2011 when they signed Jayson Werth as a free agent. Each year, as they see who panned out and who didn’t, they will add a piece or two.
Until the past five weeks, such prospect projections, which are akin in wishin’ and hopin’, were the sturdiest emotional support that Nats fans had. Now, however, there’s some new data. One of the best lessons of baseball is to believe your eyes, not your preconceptions.
In 1988, the Baltimore Orioles lost 107 games after an 0-21 start. The next year, they improved by 33 wins and were still in the playoff race on the final weekend. The whole season fed on itself. Ever since, I have loved to see teams surprise their fans, even if it is with seasons only half as shocking.
The daily pursuit of improvement is fascinating in its own admirable way, regardless of the final record. The long rebuild from rock bottom is a saga of its own.
Fans in Washington watched it a dozen years ago. So, they have a feeling for its rhythms. Once that long climb is underway, it’s fun, worth watching and a deep part of our linkage to the teams we follow for many years.
Is the long, slow ascent starting to happen again now?