How about a two-man rotation?

Today comes news that John Patterson won't be able to start tonight. Without even a fourth starter, the Nationals will, once again, have to take the committee approach to tonight's pitching matchup. Frank Robinson says that he'll take a "different approach" than he did in Sunday's game against Atlanta, meaning, we guess, that he won't start Jason Bergmann and won't pitch John Halama. Other than that, we're not sure what can be different about his approach.

Robinson doesn't have a lot of options, which brings us to our real point. Few, if any, teams have a quality fifth starter, but most teams, especially those in a playoff race, have a quality fourth starter. We don't mean a fourth starter who is dominant or who has a sub-4.00 ERA, but we do mean a starter who can throw a quality start more than infrequently. The Nationals don't have such a fourth starter; in fact, they don't have a fourth starter at all, which puts them at a serious competitive disadvantage in the Wild Card Race.

The Nationals argue that injuries have decimated their rotation, and it's true that Ryan Drese and Tony Armas are injured. But neither pitcher was an adequate fourth starter in the first place. Given the lack of quality arms on the staff, the Nationals should have been trading for a better option for the fourth spot in the rotation. Instead, they clung to the hope that Drese and Armas would somehow turn it around. That was a bad decision.