Weekend Games

The Nationals won yesterday to avoid being swept by the Mets in a series they badly needed to win. The Nats scored six runs in the first inning, led by Ryan Church's double and single, and the game was over almost before it started. Well, that's not exactly true, given that some of the Nationals' starting pitchers, Loaiza included, have been giving up runs in bunches lately.

Speaking of giving up runs in bunches, Livan Hernandez was simply awful on Saturday. The Nationals really needed to win on Saturday, and for the second time recently Hernandez was not able to come through. He gave up eight runs in two innings and looked horrible. Amazingly, the Nationals came back to tie the game with two runs in the ninth, only to lose the game in the tenth when Gary Majewski gave up two walks and a single.

The Nationals lost two of three to the Mets, and are now treading water in the wild card race. The good news is that they have started to score runs in some games, the bad news is that they can't seem to score runs when they're pitching is great and find it hard to get adequate pitching when they score a lot of runs. Going .500 is a good way out of the playoff picture, and the Nationals are 9-10 in August so far.

As of now, this is what the playoff picture looks like:

Team	Record	Pct.	GB
Phillies	67-58	.536	--
Astros	66-58	.532	.5
Marlins	65-58	.528	1
Nationals	65-59	.524	1.5

That the Nationals are in the race at all is a minor miracle and a reminder that had they a bit more offense they would be running away with this thing. Instead, they're playing like there isn't a lot of urgency to the race. There is one bright spot for the future though: if Ryan Church starts hitting again, the Nationals' chances are markedly better. Instead of having two weak hitting outfielders (Brad Wilkerson and Preston Wilson), the Nationals would have only one. Let's hope that Church's great game yesterday is a sign of things to come.