When you are a good team the narratives are fairly simple. You want to win. You need everyone playing well. So the narratives take a decidedly negative tone. Here's who is failing. Here's who to try to replace.
When you are a bad team the tone of stories seem to flip. There is so much negativity you seek out the positive. What players are doing unexpectedly well? Are there baseball lifers getting a chance they might not have with a more talented roster? Are there any young guys who we can look to as the next wave and are they getting mentored?
It's all very trite but understandably so. Those ARE the stories. That is what people want to hear. You can't just write "They Stink" 162 times.
But what happens when you have an undeniably bad story in a bad season? Does that come through at all?
Nope.
Alicides Escobar is terrible. He's one of the worst hitters in baseball with little hope of getting even to slightly below average. His fielding is declining with his age and last night he helped cost the Nats a game. Meanwhile in AAA the Nats have a player of the future who's bat tells you he should be in the majors. He is not. Obstensibly to learn how to field better to not hurt the team with his glove. Which is exactly what the guy who's holding that spot did last night.
How is this covered? With kids gloves parroting the company line. Trying to be overly fair in a circumstance that does not call for it. Garcia wasn't even mentioned in the story for last night's game. There is an obvious right move. To say otherwise is not being fair, but being biased toward the team.
Patrick Corbin has been terrible. Ever since Davey proved unable to handle a pen and Rizzo forced him into a box where he could only use two guys and his starters for everything in order to win a series Corbin has been extremely bad allowing the most runs of any starter in the majors. The turnaround for Corbin has to be complete and near immediate for the Nats not just to have a good starter that allows the pen to rest, but for the Nats to figure out what they are going to do over the next couple of years. Last night Corbin lost. After nearly breaking through, an aggressive Rockies team scored 5 runs in the 4th, 3 earned. They then just kept swinging early. Corbin would face 14 more batters and 8 would put the ball in play on the first or second pitch. Only 5 would get to two-strike counts. He'd end up with 70 strikes on 94 pitches which is fantastic but 46 of them came from contact. He only struck out 3. The Rockies didn't challenge Corbin to throw strikes. (Unsurprising from a team 2nd to last in the NL in walks). They made this happen as much as he did. At best it was a mixed outing - one where Corbin threw it in there and the Rockies swung and things worked out. Most innings. Where he put up a mixed bag until the later innings when the Rockies were content to watch first pitch strikes go buy then swing because they were up against a hapless team.
How is this covered? With strange optimism that a game where Corbin couldn't miss bats (SIX SWINGING STRIKES!) was seen as a straight positive. A game that was lost in the 4th.
This is a bad team and it's natural to cling to hope and see the sunny side because you'll have plenty of bad baseball to write about. But that doesn't mean turning negatives into positives. There are some things about the team that are simply bad and can't be turned around or at least demand long sets of proof before buying in. If it's not the beats doing it, and I've said before that's a tough job where you can't really be too negative bc you depend on the team for access, then the opinion guys have to get in there and do it. If the team loses 100 games I don't want the non-game stories in the places like the Post to break even positive and negative. That makes no sense. Cover the bad team as the bad team they are.
