It was shocking, seeing the Nats actually finish off a series, but they did it and swept the Red Sox right out of their own building. This can be both undersold and oversold searching for a narrative.
If you want to oversell it as a "defining series" : We all have our biases and for some beating the Red Sox in Fenway still holds a lot of cache, but the fact is this isn't your Irish twin older brother's Red Sox. They have repellant starting pitching and the Nats missed the only guy on the team holding it together somewhat (Josh Beckett). They got Felix Doubront, a talent who's yet to prove he can start in the majors, Dice-K who was only GOOD in 2008 (Really. Look it up) but still gets trotted out there as if this year he'll get it, and a maddening Jon Lester who has seems all season to be just on the cusp of getting back to what he has been, but he never gets over that hump.
If you want to undersell it as a "Red Sox stink" thing: A sweep is still impressive. The Red Sox still hit, and that dichotomoy (great hitting, terrible starting pitching) is enough overall to be around .500. You can't expect to go into a .500 teams place and sweep them. If you like your team you expect 2 wins, if you don't maybe 1. You can take a look at the 50+ games the Nats played before coming to Fenway for a dozen examples. But this time the Nats got three. Best of all it didn't feel like fluke wins, like bad error by the Red Sox, a closer just blowing up for them, an odd terrible pitching day from their best starter. Watching those games you felt like the Nats were the better team on the field - no question and to look that way versus a decent team in their place is worthy of all the praise and good vibes you want to have.
But in the end, the narrative, as boring and repetitive as it may be, hasn't changed. The Nats have great pitching, especially their Top 2. They held the Red Sox to 9 runs in 3 games. That's what won them the series.
Now it's off to Toronto to face some decent pitching. Sweep the Red Sox and the Nats are cementing their place as a legit playoff/division threat. Sweep the Blue Jays and you can legit start talking best team in the majors.
Not so Quick Notes (answering some comments):
Am I too biased for the AL East? Possibly. I even admitted as such. But the AL East teams outside of Boston do have good starting pitching. The Yanks, Jays, and Rays all have 3+ guys with better ERAs (it works for WHIPs too, if you prefer) than the Red Sox 2nd best guy and their staffs are all better than league average in R/G. The Yanks and Jays are not even close to the Nats but that's not the point I'm making. The Orioles are below average in R/G but if you catch the wrong 2 starters, they plus their dominant pen can win the series. But the sweep of the Sox makes my 6-9 much harder to get to - they Nats basically have to be swept by someone, and I didn't have that in my head as a possibility as they play the cream of the AL East in DC.
Desmond had a good enough weekend for his supporters to possibly pop back out and say something (I'm looking in the direction of your twitter feed Rocket Bill). I have nothing against the guy. He's fine. But to be a winning team - the type that wins 93+ games and division titles season after season - you need to have several dominant offensive players. You can't sit around with Bryce Harper and a team full of average guys*. Therefore you have to cut bait occasionally with actually ok guys, hoping to land someone better. The key is having someone in place that has that potential and is not significantly worse. I can accept that you don't think Lombo has enough potential, or that we've also seen enough of Danny, for them to be that guy. I personally don't give them big chances to be stars, but at least I give them chances, which is more than I give Ian. (*You know I like Zimm to be better than average - the point is you need several and the Nats are relying on a lot of "if" here. If Morse/Werth is healthy and can play good and don't age quickly. If Ramos/Flores/Espy can take it to the next level. If LaRoche or CF X can be another great bat. Great teams don't have a lineup with 6 ifs.)
The Nats are 12 games over true but remember a LOT of that 12 games over came from that 14-4 start when they did have Zimm, Ramos, and Werth, they've been about a .500 team since. (WHICH IS GOOD - being .500 with important pieces of your offense out for long stretches -stop reading this as an insult). It's too early to say what Morse has brought back to the team but if the Nats go 8-8 over this set of games that would be great and on target with getting the team to the playoffs. .500 against the good teams, better versus the rest. Rinse. Repeat. Playoffs.
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It's weird that the only sweeps this year have happened on the road. I'll take it, but it would be fun to lay down some domination like that in DC.
Side note, I haven't been able to make it to the park during the last few homestands, but from the broadcasts it seems like Nats attendance is doing pretty well.
In the department of good news about the Jays series, we miss Romero, their best (or second-best) pitcher. The Nats will have to face Morrow, but Alvarez and Drabek aren't particularly scary. More than likely we lose Game 1 (but could win if EJax is on and matches Morrow until it gets settled by the 'pens, or if Morrow has one of his occasional implosions), win Game 3 (seriously, we have no excuses if Stras drops one to Drabek), and Game 2 is a coin flip (I give the Jays the edge due to home field, better season-long offense, and Alvarez having a better season than Wang, but if we had anybody NOT Wang pitching I'd reverse that).
Bah. the Key to the fast start wasn't who was 1-8, it was the #9 spot. The starters were simply absurd the first month. Remember 4/5 starters having stats that were simply unsustainable. I believe Stras, Gio and Det would have been the top 3 pitchers of all time based on their April stats. Det was leading the team in ERA for a few weeks!).
You're also eliding the fact that the .500 record is against a much tougher teams. You're a playoff team by beating the crud out of the fodder like the Cubbies or Astros, Phillies and splitting with the Braves/Marlins.
My only issue is with the continued narrative that most of the Nats success is due to those first 18 games. It's completely wrong and arbitrary. Chopping out any given segment of games a team plays in any season can yield and reveal all sorts of different conclusions - none of which would be worth...a thing. A team is what it is all wrapped together - good periods, bad ones, medium ones. Those first 18 games are no more important or less important than the next 18, the most recent 18 (12-6 in that stretch, btw) or any other 18 we want to pull out and analyze - and offer no more conclusions.
Nothing happened in game 19 that stopped the Earth's rotation and declared that the Nats' abilities or true nature would start then and one could place the first 18 on the shelf as fortunate but fluky.
The Nats are what they are right now: 12 games over .500 in mid-June, the second best record in MLB. You are what you are...nothing needs an asterisk or an exemption. That they have compiled such a record while missing some outstanding players for a lot of those games makes it even more impressive.
To be a winning team, they type that wins 93+ games, they need to be...exactly what they are right now. Nothing more or less.
So you're not buying Boswell's "Nats Arrival" narrative. Very cheerful stuff, that.
I agree with this for sure. The Nats need an impact bat. But I look around and don't see anyone I want to get rid of to make room. We already have one extra with Lombo after Werth returns. But great teams make the tough call and upgrade.
Kenny B - up 7K a game. Still not where they want to be or should be, but like everyone always said - winning, not marketing or new parks or a fun area around the stadium, will bring in the fans. They are winning, fans are coming.
Dezo Penguin - That's what I have too LLW. Nats tend to make ok pitchers look good, so don't dismiss Alvarez. Still Jax or Wang might be capable of winning a 2-1, 3-2 game.
Hoo - eliding? the 14-4 thing was in response to Froggy who was saying the Nats were 12 over without these guys, It was meant to show that that's not exactly the right way to look at it because more wins came with than without. Obviously that they were here was almost immaterial but let's not say that they are a 12 game over team with out all those.
Wired - "You are what you are...nothing needs an asterisk or an exemption." well yes and no. As I've said you don't have to give these games back. The Nats are 35-23. The end as of June 11th. If you can get to that place at season's end, no should've and could'ves matter at all.
But we want to try to predict how they do the rest of the season and basing it on if they were a 35-23 team is wrong. The Pythag says no, BP's adjusted standings say no, the last 40 games of 2 games over baseball say no. Yes that 18 game stretch matters. I've said I don't buy them as a .500 team because those 18 games counts too. But the are closer to that team, say than a 35-23 team (say 32-25) and expectations should be tempered as such.
(that still gets them to 92-93 wins)
ND - I think Boz's article is fine - he wasn't focused on the sox series as much as this past week encapsulating the season as a whole - whoever wrote the headline made it misleading.
Anon - I think they won't get it this year, which is fine. They can make the playoffs without it and then it's anyones game.
I confess, I'm not an inside baseball guy, so things such as Pythag and BP's adjusted standings don't mean much to me. Convince me of their historical dead-on accuracy in predicting future events and I'll give it some more credence. Bending stats and using certain numbers to say one thing or another is as old as baseball itself, though.
If we want to be arbitrary, why not break the season into 20 game segments? As such, the Nats record would go: 14-6, 9-11 and 12-6 with two more to play on the third segment. If the Nats win the first two at Tor, you'd have two 14-6 segments and one segment a shade below .500. And even if they lose 'em both or split 'em, two segments were either decently or well beyond .500 and one was just below it.
Does that feel like a team that one would predict would go .500 the rest of the way, or barely above it?
For whatever it's worth, I have no expectations either way with this team because so much is new. But after 58 games, I do see a lot to be excited about...
One of the reasons to temper our reactions to the sweep is that we had our top 3 pitchers lined up. I want to see how we do in Toronto before getting too giddy. But it was still impressive.
I agree that winning at a .600 clip for the rest of the year would be hard (98 wins). But I think Boz made the point earlier that good teams tend to play .500 for long stretches and throw in a couple of hot streaks here and there to end up with the 98 wins. They also minimize the cold spells. They don't win 2 out of every 3 games all the time. That's probably about right. It means we don't have to discount the 14-4 stretch or assume they'll be .500 for the rest of the year because that's what they've been for the last 40 games. We just need the occassional hot streak or unexpected sweep to put us a few more games over .500 each month.
Donald - I think that's pretty much the size of it. This team seems vastly more likely to go on lengthy winning runs vs lengthy losing runs. The pitching alone constitutes that assertion.
So one may see this team play .500 ball for 20 game stretches, but then one may see them play .600-.700 ball for a 20 game stretch. But seeing them play .350 ball for such a stretch seems very unlikely. The SPs (top 4) are too solid (when healthy) to let it happen, in my view.
Wired/Donald - I want to be clear - I don't see them as a .500 team. With Morse back I see them as a high-80s win team. So I'd have them go something like 56-48 or 55-49 for the rest of the year putting them around 90 wins. I don't see that as just over .500, maybe you do. What I don't see is 62-42 or 63-41, which is what they'd do if they kept up their current pace.
As for the streaks... I do know that last years Giants team had great pitching and managed to have a .350 streak. Of course it had the league's WORST offense. Nats aren't that bad.
One untimely left oblique strain, and the math changes sharply--instead of seven or eight innings of the Jays' best pitcher, we get nine of a cluster of end-of-the-bench relievers. Combine that with Jackson having one of his best games and...the Nationals are now very likely to get a series win and have a shot at a sweep. As a fan, I will happily take good luck when it decides to show up.
I think we're in agreement, Harper. At the start of the season, I was guessing they'd win about 86 games, but I thought it more likely they finished with 80 than with 92. Now, I think they'll finish with around 93 wins, but I almost think it's more likely they finish with 98 than 88. They've surprised to the upside all year so far.
I doubt anything between 88-93 wins for the season would surprise anyone at this stage, so that feels like the right range. I'd simply say they feel a lot more likely to end up at the plus end of that range vs the minus end, judging purely on what we've seen through almost 60 games. If the team turns for the worse and things happen in the future (injuries) that give cause to change this notion, so be it...
Nice to see the Harpertron out in full force. ;)
As somebody who makes the same analysis, I think you're overvaluing the offense or undervaluing the pitching in terms of looking at how they do from here. I'd love to see another impact bat, but they're fundamentally getting enough offense now during this last run. The games where the offense has looked bad in the last few weeks have been against legit starters - Hamels, Hanson, Dickey (yes, Dickey), Sanchez (who owns the Nats).
You don't see too many losses now that are of the 2-1 variety, where there's no real reason for the Nats bats to be terrible.
More generally, I think you're also undervaluing the change in NL ball over the last three years - you don't need the big offense, necessarily. The 2010 Giants are instructive - three-four dominant starters, a good bullpen, solid defense, and a mediocre but not terrible offense. Sounds like a familiar recipe, yeah? 92 wins. The Padres followed the same blueprint that year - slightly better pitching, slightly worse hitting. 90 wins.
I think waiting for a skid because the offense is terrible may be overly pessimistic this far in. They're getting enough offense to get the job done now while the starters have gone back to something like a sustainable level of performance.
And as for "pythag says no," you're right, but pythag says they're a 34-25 team, which is a 93-win pace. I don't think they are a 98-win team, which is what they track as at 36-23, but I also think they're a lot better than the 85 wins I thought they'd be in April. They're a legit playoff contender, even with the offense they have.
Nice to see the Harpertron out in full force. ;)
As somebody who makes the same analysis, I think you're overvaluing the offense or undervaluing the pitching in terms of looking at how they do from here. I'd love to see another impact bat, but they're fundamentally getting enough offense now during this last run. The games where the offense has looked bad in the last few weeks have been against legit starters - Hamels, Hanson, Dickey (yes, Dickey), Sanchez (who owns the Nats).
You don't see too many losses now that are of the 2-1 variety, where there's no real reason for the Nats bats to be terrible.
More generally, I think you're also undervaluing the change in NL ball over the last three years - you don't need the big offense, necessarily. The 2010 Giants are instructive - three-four dominant starters, a good bullpen, solid defense, and a mediocre but not terrible offense. Sounds like a familiar recipe, yeah? 92 wins. The Padres followed the same blueprint that year - slightly better pitching, slightly worse hitting. 90 wins.
I think waiting for a skid because the offense is terrible may be overly pessimistic this far in. They're getting enough offense to get the job done now while the starters have gone back to something like a sustainable level of performance.
And as for "pythag says no," you're right, but pythag says they're a 34-25 team, which is a 93-win pace. I don't think they are a 98-win team, which is what they track as at 36-23, but I also think they're a lot better than the 85 wins I thought they'd be in April. They're a legit playoff contender, even with the offense they have.
Its gonna be a great Yankee series with both the Nats and Yanks coming in on hot streaks. You know Harper is going to come out firing!
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