Monday Quickie - Playoff week!

Wooo! The Nats had kind of a slow finish and while some will offer excuses (more on that in a minute) it doesn't particularly matter. There are 4 days off between now and the first playoff game and that's the longest break you'll have for your entire team during the season. There's time for injuries to heal, for loose joints to stiffen, for hot streaks to cool, and for cold streaks to be forgotten about. It's a new season.

How did our watches finish up?

Werth : 3 for 12 with a double and a homer, 1 walks, 3 Ks.  More than good enough for him to start.

Bryce : 2 for 12 with 1 walk and a strikeout.  He does not look "back" but are you sitting Bryce? Because I'm not sitting Bryce.

Robles :  0 for 1 with a K.  Seems doubtful that a guy pegged for off-season duty would just get one at bat over the last weekend, but we'll see.


The big news of the weekend was Scherzer walking off the mound again. Based on the neck injury thing, I assumed it was an "over abundance of caution" action, which is completely the right way to go for your last start of the season. However, then he had to go and get an MRI which is scary because this team does not do unnecessary MRIs. It arguably doesn't do necessary MRIs. Whatever the reason it happened though the results sounded positive. It was a tweak and Max should be ready for the playoffs. However, they wouldn't commit that he'd start in Game 1.

It could be a fake-out. Max could be completely ready and they might be trying to psych out the opponent for a couple days. It may be a reverse fake-out and maybe he's really injured and they are trying to get the Cubs thinking he will start. Most likely though it's just Max being 100% realistic. It's one-day out. He's pretty sure he'll be ready to go on Friday but let's cross all the Ts and dot all the Is. Let's see how the throw days go. Then he'll tell you for sure.

Now about that excuses comment earlier. A few people will note that the Nats offense didn't exactly end the season on a high note. They had been comfortably leading the league but ended up getting edged by the Rockies and the Cubs (!) and almost caught by the Diamondbacks too. The "Lineup Truthers" will tell you it was just because Dusty was putting in some AAA line-ups into the games cutting into the Nats scoring. But the numbers don't back that up.

First the Nats "slump"* is a half a season long. They were first in the NL by a lot with a .811 OPS in the first half. They were 8th in the NL with a .744 in the 2nd half. It was 5th in July (.802), 10th in August (.724), and 11th in September (.712).  Sorry but Dusty hasn't been rolling out AAA lineups for 2 and a half months.

Second  Dusty has mostly been trotting out "1-guy out" lineups when he can. By that I mean he's giving one starter the day off for rest. True AAA line-ups where more than 2 starters**, beyond injury replacements, are few and far between. Since 9/13, when Werth came back from his minor setback after his original comeback, there have been 18 games and only in 6 of them did Dusty sit more than one guy.

Ok you say but that still could have made a difference! If they were dragging in those AAA line-up days that could have brought the team down! OK

Average RS in "AAA lineup" games : 4.3
Average RS in non AAA lineup games : 3.75

Now you say It's the injuries then! And YES! THAT'S THE POINT!

The Nats were crushing on offense until the injuries happened. Even losing Trea and Werth, they were able to keep chugging along. Maybe they weren't at the same level as before that - where they were running away with the scoring lead, but they were a solid offensive squad. Look at the July OPS. I can tell you the scoring in August through the 12th was 4.5 runs per game, still an average value for this crazy year. But they Bryce went down and things changed and they've never gotten back. The bats have come back in body but only one has come back in performance.

Werth 2nd half : .213 / .296 / .348
Bryce since coming back : has 3 singles and 7 Ks since coming back.
Trea 2nd half : .297 / .371 / .525

If Werth and Bryce can't hit then the Nats have a problem. As well as the other 5 guys may hit (and they've all had Septembers ranging from excellent to good) there is a 4 player gap in that line-up that is going to keep the Nats from putting runs on the board and that's exactly what we've seen in this past month. If you're counting on "regular at bats" to get the guys going after injury stop. It's the playoffs. There are no more regular at bats.

This is where the Nats are going into the NLDS. Are they good enough to win? Yes. Are they at top form? It doesn't look like it. If they do lose what is going to be the most likely culprit? The injuries hampering the offense to the point where they can't score enough.

This is all just a guess. Turner, Murphy and Zimm all catch fire and it may not matter. Or maybe Max can't go and that's the issue. Or maybe luck goes the Nats way with the bats but the late pen blows the games since, as we've seen recently, they are not dominant. But the way I look at it the issue is going to be scoring runs if injuries mean the Werth and Bryce the Nats need don't show up in the NLDS.


*Slumping is really just "hitting like an average team" here. 

**I'm not counting C replacements here because Wieters has been so bad that there's little functional difference between him and a replacement bat.