The Washington Nationals have lost eight of their last nine games.  That's a tough thing to read for Nats fans, and a tough thing for manager Davey Johnson and the team to go through.  In fact, it's the third time this season the Nats have lost eight times over a nine game period, joining July 19-29 and May 21-30 as periods of almost absolute futility this season.

It's now an established, common refrain around Nats Park, limping home in the latter stages of the season.  Last season, the Nats went 12-17 in September and October, a .413 winning percentage (67-win pace).  That managed to qualify as the Nats third worst month of the season, a year they won 69 games. 

In 2009 over the same period, the record was 11-17, and that was boosted by a season-ending seven-game win streak.  In 2008, the Nats finished 7-17, a .292 win percentage (47-win pace).  We'd have to go all the way back to the final season in R.F.K. to find a winning last month of the season.

Even taking into consideration the Nats latest slide, they're still on a 75-win pace.  That's would be another dramatic leap forward from last season's 69 win team.  They have the benefit of playing 16 of their final 27 games at home, including the 10 game homestand that begins tonight against the New York Mets (66-69), Los Angeles Dodgers (66-70) and the Houston Astros (47-90).  You couldn't script a much better triumvirate of losers to have a late-season homestand with, unless you could get the hapless Orioles back in for a series. 

Yet against three of the worst teams in the N.L., the Nats are a combined 7-10 this season.

The Nats are fortunate to have Stephen Strasburg return next Tuesday (and who hasn't had chills seeing his dominating performances in his last two rehab starts?), and several other players make their Major League debuts as the season winds down, which should bring good energy to the team and the grandstands.  Tom Milone is scheduled to make his debut Saturday.  Brad Peacock will soon follow.  And we should get a look at Steve Lombardozzi before too long as well.

All along, this season was about making progress.  No one expected the Nats to contend. No one seriously thought they'd compete for the .500 mark.  But they have a chance, if they can shake the trend and finish strong, to gain another 6-10 games in the standings over last season, and perhaps finish third in the division.  They're three games behind the Mets heading into tonight's game and a series win will go a long way in that effort.

In the grand scheme of things, finishing third place in the division doesn't really mean anything.  But getting Strasburg healthy and finishing strong would be good for the psyche of everyone in NatsTown.

The Washington Nationals started the season off at 20-15, giving Nats fans hope that this season was going to be the year things "turned around". 

Since? Not so much. 

Since winning the first game of a four-game series in Colorado May 13, this team has gone 13-28, a .317 winning percentage over 41 games, lower than either of the back-to-back 100 loss seasons of 2008 and 2009.

They've been bad longer this season than they were good.

Still, we've seen a lot of quotes like this one from Tyler Clippard after Sunday's game, "We're battling our butts off. We're playing good, but we're coming up short."

And this, from Manager Jim Riggleman yesterday, "We played hard, we played good, we played good [Saturday], the Orioles beat us.  But it's just not happening for us.  But it's going to.  If we play with that effort, cleanness, we played yesterday and today we're gonna win our share of games."

He's of course referring to Saturday and Sunday's games, where the Nats allowed runs to score on wild pitches and balls thrown into the dugout from second base.

Playing hard and playing well are not the same things.  Yet after every agonizing loss that's the refrain we hear over and over again from the manager and players.

The Nationals are first in the big leagues in one category:  making errors.  Their 68 errors committed are seven more than the second place teams, Pittsburgh and Florida.  They have the lowest fielding percentage in the majors as well.

Errors and fielding percentage are crude tools to measure defensive efficiency, but it's a starting point, and illustrative relative to the competition.

The Nationals, especially the executives, are trying to explain the defensive problems away.  GM Mike Rizzo told The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell, "We're underachieving. We're playing bad baseball. Defensively, we're giving away far too many outs."

And here's the kicker: 

"This is not and should not be a 10-games-under-.500 team."

But that's exactly what it is.

Rizzo goes on to detail the number of players on this team with World Series and playoff experience, like that's the be-all and end-all of player development.  Brian Bruney had World Series experience, too.

Riggleman talking about 'playing hard' and Rizzo saying 'we should be better' is just rationalizing.

This team is last in the majors in fielding, 23rd in runs scored per game and 22nd in runs allowed per game.  Their Pythagorean W-L is 34-42, one game better than their actual 33-43 record.  They are exactly who their numbers say they are.

The Nationals have four players in the regular lineup OBPing less than .330 and slugging less than .400.  In the words of the immortal Charles Barkley, that's terrible.

Want some more information to further depress you?  In both 2008 and 2009, the Nats had stretches similar to the 20-15 start that got Nats fans so excited this year in the first place.

From July 21 to August 27, 2009, the Nats went 20-16, beating the Mets, Marlins, D-Backs, Reds, Cubs and others.

From April 22 to May 30, 2008, they went 19-17, not quite as good (but close), taking down Atlanta, Philly, Baltimore, and Milwaukee among others.

Even the worst teams are capable of playing decent ball for a stretch.  It's just unfortunate for the Nats that stretch for them this season came at the beginning of the season, when folks were paying attention and the win/loss numbers stand out in the standings column in the sports page.

Worse of all, the Nationals are 5-12 (.294) since June 9, the day after the debut of Stephen Strasburg, hitting .233/.291/.365 as a team and scoring just 3.4 runs per game. You have to wonder if the recent spate of terrible play is washing away all of the goodwill that Strasburg has brought to the team.

A guy decked out in Orioles gear walked up to me on the concourse at Orioles Park Saturday afternoon while I was getting out of the sun.  He said to me, "Strasburg is pretty good, but the rest of your team stinks."

How was I supposed to argue that?