Stop acting like we don't know why this is happening

The Nationals lost to the Marlins last night, 4-3. The team has now lost 17 out of its last 22 games and is 8-17 in July. After winning 24 of its first 32 one-run games, the Nationals has lost their last 8 one-run games.

While lamenting the team's losing ways last night, Mel Proctor feigned ignorance about the causes and essentially blamed it on bad luck. Jim Bowden and Frank Robinson have done the same, as have some of our friends (we don't tell them we think they're crazy, by the way). All of these people act like there is some mystery why the Nationals are losing in July.

We think some simple statistics explain the teams' current position. First, the Nationals have scored 400 runs, but have allowed 424, meaning that their expected won-loss record is 49-54. In other words, it's their actual record of 55-48 that is a product of luck, not their recent losing.

Second, in July the Nationals haven't been able to hit the ball. Here are their stats: .296 OBP, .330 SLG, .626 OPS. You can't win consistently when you're hiiting this badly.

Third, in their July losses the Nationals are hitting .164 with runners in scoring position. In other words, the Nationals haven't been able to capitalize on their scoring opportunities. We saw a good example of this in the 7th inning last night, when the Nationals scored two runs, which qualifies as an offensive explosion for this team right now. But after scoring these runs they had men on first and second with only one out. Would you let Cristian Guzman bat in this situation? Neither would Frank Robinson, so he brought in Carlos Baerga. But Baegra grounded meekly to first, which moved up the runners but left the Nationals with only one out. Next, Robinson had Ryan Church bat for Tony Armas. What did Church do? He watched strikes two and three land in the catcher's mitt.

You're not going to win many one-run games playing like this. In fact, you're not going to win many games, period, playing like this. We all know why the Nationals haven't been very good lately--they've been terrible at the plate. Let's stop acting like there's some mystery to this and start focusing on how we can get out of it.