With that victory the Nats completed an 8-7 record in a 15-game stretch against the American League in which they were supposed to be utterly overmatched and now boast the same 32-43 mark as last year's team at the same point. Yet they've done the job without Alfonso Soriano, Nick Johnson, Jose Vidro, Jose Guillen, Livan Hernandez, Ramon Ortiz and a half-dozen other veterans while surmounting a ludicrous number of injuries.
"Everybody laughed at our rotation on Opening Day, then we lost four of them," Manager Manny Acta said. "When I hear about other teams having injuries, I don't have a lot of sympathy for them."
In a season that began with countless questions, the resilient Nationals have continued to find unlikely and pleasant answers. With 23 wins in their last 41 games, the Nats have played miles above expectations for a quarter of a season. Yet their current altitude is as scary as it is inspiring. They're baseball's plucky but endangered high-wire act. And it never gets easier.
On Tuesday, the Nats were clubbed, 15-1, as part of a three-game sweep in which the Tigers scored 32 runs on 41 hits, including nine doubles and five homers. "They just kept hittin', hittin' and hittin'," said Jason Simontacchi, a 10-run avalanche victim in three innings on Tuesday. Then, on Saturday night, in the sport's other type of Most Demoralizing Loss, closer Chad Cordero gave up a three-run, game-losing home run in the ninth inning in a 4-3 Indians win.
As if anything could be worse, that Saturday loss ended with a bonehead play as wandering Nook Logan was trapped off third with Ryan Zimmermandue to bat with the bases loaded. As the crowd gasped, Logan was not only tagged out to end the game but also pinned to the ground by Casey Blake, still a yard from the base, like a gruesome entomology display.
Yet the Nationals' response yesterday was, as usual, ridiculously resilient. Did a building just fall on us? Can't remember. Same score, same situation: Cordero got a save against the same heart of the Cleveland order that crushed him just hours earlier. Simontacchi, following the worst game of his career, allowed only one run in six innings to get the win. And the Nats held the Indians -- the second-best hitting team in baseball -- to a .202 average as they won two of three.
How can a end Saturday night's loss with a blown save and a brain cramp, then just ignore it all?
"People don't get it," Zimmerman said. "We just don't care."
The Nats show up, count the warm bodies, check the lineup card and play as though they just don't care that perfectly sensible major league scouts predicted that -- at full health -- they might be the worst team in history this season. All things considered, their 31-37 record since April 10 is one of the most remarkable 11 weeks I've seen from any team.
In a season in flux, a year that could still fall apart, it's hard to know what really matters, what answers have lasting weight. But team president Stan Kasten thinks he already has a "yes" to two large questions.
"I know we've got a general manger who can really find 'pieces,' " Kasten said. In yesterday's game, castoff Dmitri Young, continued his all-star campaign with two hits, raising his average to .339. Utility man Ronnie Belliard had three hits and is hitting .297. Jesus Flores, a Rule 5 pickup, had two RBI. General Manager Jim Bowden found them all when few, if any, wanted them. That's one day's list.
"After all the players we subtracted, to get where we are now, especially with all the injuries, is a testament to Jim and his staff," Kasten said. "And we've found a manager that can manage. Watch how this team is playing. That's the manager.
"So we're okay at those two spots. That's a lot to know."
With a team that was supposed to be awful, in an ancient park before the fifth-worst crowds in baseball, in a season when they have had the worst injuries in baseball, the Nats have played the league to a standstill since the 10th day of the season. Yesterday, Cleveland's Paul Byrd told Austin Kearns, "You guys have a scrappy little team." How nice, in a condescending way.
What happens, someday, if they become a scrappy big team? ...Read more here...
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