The Nats get a much needed day off today and return home to start a series with the Marlins. They have 15 more home games and 13 more away games, and their remaining opponents aint bad. 6 against Philly, 6 against Florida, 6 against the Mets, 7 against the Braves, and 3 against the Dodgers. The only team there with a losing record is the Mets, not that they are necessarily an easy win. Not that there are any easy wins for this team.
But it will still be nice to get home. This team is much better at home, a .409 winning percentage as opposed to a .279 winning percentage away. We’ll get a chance to see if this offense is truly dead or if it just went to sleep for a bit. The anemic end of August, in the last 4 games or so, didn’t just leave them at 14-15 for the month, just shy of a winning record. It also left them 3 runs shy of the most runs scored for this team by month. They scored a bit more in May. Of course, in May they didn’t go 14-15, they went 9-20. The biggest difference wasn’t runs (147 vs. 144), it was runs allowed. In May they let up 184 runs, but in August they only let up 152. Still more than they scored, but quite a bit closer.
So even if you’re depressed about the latest losing streak, the team is actually better. That’s at least the way it appears to me. Hopefully the luck that comes to play will come to play for them. So far, they have 20 wins in the 47 games since the All Star break. They had 26 wins in the 87 games before it. So a second half surge, even if it’s not the most powerful one, still seems to be happening. But really, go beat up the Marlins and knock em out of the playoff hunt this weekend.