Lineup Comparison

The Nationals have the second best record in the National League, and they're only one game behind St. Louis, who has the league's best record. Just for fun, we compared the two teams' lineups in Saturday's game. We chose Saturday because teams often rest a star or two on Sunday. A one-day snapshot obviously has some analytical problems. The Nats have two of their front-line players (Vidro and Nick Johnson) on the DL, and both teams were playing back-up catchers, but you get the idea.

Here is a position-by-position comparison of the teams focusing on on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS (the sum of OBP and SLG). The Nationals player is first.

Catcher OBP SLG OPS
Bennett .297 .349 .646
Diaz .245 .269 .515

First Base
Cordero .170 .167 .337
Pujols .427 .604 1.031

Second Base
Spivey .317 .378 .695
Nunez .363 .404 .766

Third Base
Castilla .332 .407 .739
Rolen .358 .433 .792

Shortstop
Carroll .303 .273 .577
Eckstein .376 .367 .742

Left
Byrd .319 .320 .640
Mabry .308 .388 .696

Center
Wilkerson .377 .449 .826
Edmonds .388 .559 .948

Right
Guillen .359 .545 .904
Walker .373 .471 .844


The only positions at which the Nationals have a more productive hitter is at back-up catcher and in right field. At every other position, the Cardinal hitter has been more productive, and at first base the Cardinals have one of the best players in baseball, and the Nats have a single-A hitter at best.

One of the points of all this is that the Nationals have done a great job of dealing with injuries. Back-up players have done well enough to keep them competitive in most games, and their pitching has done the rest.

The other point is that it's a near-miracle that the Nats are only one game behind the Cardinals for the best record in the National League. We call all speculate on how they've done it, but in the end it's probably a combination of things, some of which us fans can't begin to understand. It can't last like this forever, but let's enjoy the ride while we can. In the meantime, let's hope for a couple of big trades before the trading deadline.