Every Picture Tells a Story

When the history of this miserable seventh season of Washington Nationals is written, the fall from the grace of plus-.500 baseball will probably be dated from last week’s end of a nine-game road trip on which they should have gone 6-3, but went 3-6 instead.

What bothers me most, as a season-ticket holder and baseball maven, is that the way they lose is inexcusable at any level, including Little League. I can’t tell whether it is the players or “new” manager Davey Johnson who is at fault, but I suspect it is management’s fault for not shipping substandard performers back to the minors or to jobs in heavy construction.

While today’s game was still theoretically winnable at a 4-2 deficit, the pitching yutz known as Henry Rodriguez came in and gave up a leadoff walk, allowed 38-year-old Mike Cameron to steal second, wild pitched him to third, and gave up a groundout, scoring Father Time, without benefit of a hit.

What else happened today?

With Marlins on first and second and on out, their pitcher tries a sacrifice bunt that takes a high hop right back to Nats pitcher John Lannan. Never looking the lead runner back to third or throwing him, he casually throws the bunter out, costing an unnecessary run.

Earlier, Danny Espinosa, who is second on the team in HR and RBI, inexplicable pops up a bunt attempt. He hits home runs! Why is he bunting in the first inning?

It gets worse:

Jayson Werth, (pictured above), a $126 million blight on baseball, gets lucky enough to work the count to 3-0, and then swings at the next pitch – which is almost never done. He pops it up to right field. Luck took over and three Marlins failed to catch an easy out. So Werth gets credit for a base hit and a RBI, when he should have been yanked from the game

With two outs and Nats on first and second, and the aforementioned Espinosa ready to crush a three-run homer, Ian Desmond – whose scouting report reads “no hit, no field” – is thrown out stealing third to end the inning. Later, Johnson said the third base coach misinterpreted the manager’s sign. I say, fire them all.