We feel for you, Ryan

In their depleted state, the Nationals have only one player they legitimately can build around--Ryan Zimmerman. He is the future of the organization and the one player we all can be sure will be here for a while. His performance last year created reasonable expectations of a great year at the plate in 2007. Unfortunately, Zimmerman is off to a very poor start. His line to date is .180/.226/.260. Those are Cristian Guzman numbers.

Now, no one thinks Zimmerman is going to underperform like this for the rest of the season, and given that he's only had 50 at bats so far, we can't look at his stats and reach any definitive conclusions. This, after all, is only a slump, and we fully expect Zim to be hammering the ball pretty soon.

We do need to realize, however, that the anemic Nationals lineup gives opposing pitchers little reason to give Zimmerman anything to hit. There just is not enough punch in the Nationals' lineup to make pitchers give Zimmerman the pitches that other Nats hitters are likely to see.

So, this year may be a difficult one for Zimmerman, one that tests his patience. We hope that the Nationals' management is preparing Zimmerman for this and counseling him on the need for plate discipline. His OBP was .348 last year, and we think there is a real chance for Zim to push that closer to .400 this year. That would be a huge step forward for him, and it would serve as a foundation for future dominance if he became that selective.

The alternative is for Zimmerman to chase pitches merely because he isn't seeing many balls he can drive. That would be a terrible development and would set him back significantly.

Let's hope patience becomes a virtue for Ryan this year.