Just another ugly night at the ballpark. Lucky for the Nats few were there to actually witness the carnage in the fifth inning. A record-low turnout of 10,999 took in Monday night’s loss to Houston. Can’t blame anyone who stayed away. The Nats have lost four in a row and 10 of 12 overall. So will this sustained stretch of poor baseball – which, to be honest, has lasted since May 14 with a 42-72 record – tarnish the progress made in 2010? Washington has won three more games than in 2008 and 2009 with just 12 games left to add to that margin.
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“I don’t think so. I think everyone will go home and look at the positives – we have a lot of young guys getting valuable experience,” said Nats first baseman Adam Dunn. “I thought we’d be better this year. The next few years to come is when you’ll start to see this change.”
The crowd was a topic afterwards. No player likes to perform before a paltry gathering, after all. But several Nats – Dunn, Willie Harris, starting pitcher Livan Hernadez – were hesitant to be critical. They know as well as anyone that a losing baseball team with no track record is going to draw flies against a featureless opponent in a weekday September series. Dunn even went a step farther.
“I feel like me watching us as a fan would be probably pretty entertaining,” Dunn said. “I don’t know how else to put that. We’ve got a lot of entertaining guys. But you look at our record and why would you come see us until you’ve actually come out and watched. So for the most part our fanbase is pretty awesome.”
For a team tied for the sixth-worst record in all of baseball Dunn actually has a point. His 35 home runs, the brilliant play of Ryan Zimmerman, the magic that accompanied Stephen Strasburg’s 12 starts in 2010, the excitement generated by young middle infielders Danny Espinosa and Ian Desmond. But none of it translated into enough wins to generate the buzz this franchise needed. Maybe in 2011. Seems like we say that every September.
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