The Nats once again spotted a team 10 runs, but this time they weren’t even close to coming back. The performance of Olsen in his first game, against the Phillies, may have made you think he was ready to be a back of the rotation guy. But we still have no idea, as he got demolished by the Rockies yesterday. He wasn’t fooling anyone in the 2nd inning, and was picked apart in the 3rd. And so, despite having the 4th worst run differential in all of major league baseball, the team is sitting at .500.
The offense was fine, not enough to stay competitive in a game where the opponent scored 10 runs, but still, the position players didn’t lie down, and their fought their way to a respectable offensive score. Every starter has a pretty good set of numbers. Desmond is at .256/.356/.436 which you’d take for the year from a rookie SS. Guzman’s hitting, Morgan has an OBP of .368 which is all that should matter. Everyone else looks good, too, except for Dunn. And you tend not to worry about him. It seems that the offense has been very good so far this year, and that’s part of what’s kept them around the .500 mark for the first 2 1/2 weeks.
But thanks to being completely destroyed in blowout games (5+ run differential), their Runs Scored/Runs Allowed numbers look pretty bad. Only being 1-4 in blowouts can skew that kind of thing. But those losses were invariably bad performances by the starting pitchers – whether it was Lannan or Olsen getting beat up, or Mock and Stammen having to be yanked before the end of the 4th inning. Marquis’ 3 losses don’t even count as blowouts! If you take those 5 games out, they look like a competitive team. The offense has been good, the defense is much improved on this time last year, and the bullpen has performed admirably. The problem is, you can’t take those games out. Until they get some stability in their rotation, some starting pitchers stepping up and putting in good performances every 5 days, they’ll never be able to keep their heads above water. Maybe Lannan can start something tonight.