The Washington Nationals stink, and that’s a good thing, if you are a Philadelphia Phillies fan. Which I am.
Can you say SHWEEEP! As in what the Phils did to the Nats last week.
How bad is the home team playing at the new Nationals Park? On Tuesday night, the first in a three-game series, the Phils threw caution to the wind and put Brett Myers on the mound. In previous starts, Myers had barely lasted a few innings. He had a 3-9 record and 5.84 earned-run average.
The hapless Nats make Myers look like an ace. He threw only 88 pitches and lasted into the eighth inning. The Nationals mustered one run.
“Yo, Brett,” I yelled from the third-base line. “Throw strikes — they can’t hit.”
“Uh-oh,” a Nats fan said. “They’re onto us.”
The Nationals troubles go beyond lousy hitting — the .241 team average is lowest in the National League. Pitching is mediocre. After putting up just two runs Tuesday night, the Phils pounded Nats pitchers for eight runs each of the next two nights.
The Nationals lack fundamental skills. On Tuesday Ryan Zimmerman ran a long loop past second base, allowing Phils second baseman Chase Utley to tag him out.
On Thursday pitcher Garrett Mock got under a routine pop fly to the right of the mound; shortstop Kory Casto sidled over.
Apparently neither called the ball, and Casto nearly knocked it out of Mock’s glove.
Nats Manager Manny Acta looks like a beaten man, as his team heads for 10 losses in a row; its .352 record is worst of the 30 major league teams.
Which leads me to wonder: Is it worth going to the ballpark; and can the Lerner family build a winning team?
Answer to the first is an emphatic yes. The opportunity to experience a baseball game in D.C. is a gift.
Nationals President Stan Kasten has created a fun place. The $50 million for the scoreboard was worth it. Views are fine from every seat. Food’s good, though lines can be long.
Average attendance is nearly 30,000 per game, according to baseball-reference.com, and most folks leave happy.
But do Kasten and the Lerners have the right plan to build a winning squad with the fan base to support a team for 115 years, as the Phils have done.
As developers, the Lerners have made a fortune buying property for low prices and waiting for the market to catch up.
That formula can take decades to bear fruit.
In baseball, the Lerners want to build from within by growing their farm teams and drafting well.
That plan has worked for last-to-first teams like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But the Nats have very little upon which to build.
No one wants the Lerners to be as impatient as Dan Snyder in paying top dollar for fading stars for the Redskins, but acquiring a decent player or two might make game nights easier for Nats fans.
And harder for the Phils.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
