A miserable 2008 is repeating itself at Nationals Park, and just two months into this season that ominous number 100 is looming again.
One year after finishing with Major League Baseball’s worst record at 59-102, the Nationals again find themselves in the basement as the calendar flips to June.
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They have lost six games in a row, 18 of their last 21 and are now 5 1/2 games behind the 29th-best team in the sport with the job security of manager Manny Acta in question. Under that dark cloud, Washington opens a nine-game homestand tonight against the San Francisco Giants. But a day off on Monday wasn’t exactly the solution Acta was looking for.
“We just had a day off a couple of days ago,” Acta told reporters after a 4-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday. “We need to keep playing to snap out of it. We need to keep our head up and stick together to get out of it.”
As if things couldn’t get worse, tonight’s game against San Francisco ace Tim Lincecum starts a murderous June schedule for the Nats. Giants pitcher Randy Johnson will go for his 300th career victory on Wednesday. Washington then has to host the first-place New York Mets over the weekend. The following week begins a long stretch against the American League East — baseball’s toughest division. The Nats have a road trip at the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays and at the first-place Yankees in New York. They will then host the Toronto Blue Jays (29-23) and the Boston Red Sox (28-22), World Series champ twice in the last five years and a playoff team in 2008. Washington finishes the month with a series at Camden Yards against the resurgent Orioles.
Given that difficult stretch another 100-loss season seems unavoidable. In fact, at 13-36 the Nats are just a half game ahead of the pace set by the 1962 Mets — a 40-120 outfit regarded as baseball’s worst since going to a 162-game schedule — and the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who finished 43-119. Both of those teams began their disastrous seasons 12-36.
Only 18 times since 1900 has a franchise endured multiple 100-loss seasons in a row. It has actually happened three times this decade with the Kansas City Royals (2004-06), the Tigers (2002, 03) and the Rays (2001-02) accomplishing that dubious feat.
