In their 51st game last year, the Nationals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-4, Ramon Ortiz over Jae Seo. The Nats hit four home runs in the game, two by Nick Johnson, and their record was 21-30. They finished 71-91, about a game better than most of the preseason prognostications.
Those same preseason predictors labeled the Florida Marlins as hopelessly inept after another salary dump, and new manager Joe Girardi would be lucky to avoid losing 110 games. Instead, the Marlins won 78 games, and were actually in the playoff race for a while, and Girardi won NL Manager-of-the-Year honors before he was sent packing.
This year, the Nationals slashed payroll by not-quite-half, and on Sunday played their 51st game of the season, beating the defending World Champion Cardinals 7-2. Their record at this point is the same as last year, 21-30. They were nine under.500 on May 1, and they’re nine under .500 today, a far different picture than the national baseball media painted of this club in March, when they told us the club would be “historically bad,” and might lose as many as 130 games. Why, there was really no compelling reason to watch this club at all, unless you really enjoyed bad baseball.
The one-third pole is not the most reliable indicator of how the season will go, but it’s a better benchmark than April alone, when some less-than-pleasant game conditions can have a large impact on performance. This may not be a .500 ballclub for the long run, but it’s clearly not the 1962 Mets either.
Yet, those same writers who called this team historically inept before the season began are now writing pieces knocking the fans for non-support. Out-of-market fans are using those articles to support their argument that Washington should have never been brought back into major league baseball, that D.C, is a “bad baseball town.” File it under the textbook definition of hypocrisy: Tell the world how bad a product is, and then condemn them for not buying it.
The perception that this market was “starving” for baseball after a 33-season absence, and therefore should be playing to a packed stadium every night at home is utter nonsense. The starvation ended years, even generations ago. We found other things to do. We weren’t thrilled with it, but if we wanted to see a big league game, we went to Baltimore. Most of us had completely given up on a club ever coming back. Oh sure, there was that occasional tiny burst of hope, but it was usually stomped flat by MLB.
Cities that lose teams and get one even a few years later have not historically made the turnstiles spin. The 1962 Mets’ fan support was mediocre, in the bottom half of the NL. The 1970-72 Milwaukee Brewers were losers, and their fan support was frequently rock bottom. The ’77 Mariners didn’t draw. Once bitten, twice shy; it’s just the way things are.
The Nationals won’t contend this year or likely next either, but so far they’re better than we were told. That Manny Acta has pulled it off with so few bullets in his gun is a great endorsement of whoever made the decision to hire him in the first place. The last two-thirds of the season should be no less than interesting.
Hear Phil Wood Saturdays at 10 a.m. on SportsTalk 980 AM and weekly on Comcast SportsNet’s WPL through the World Series.
