Light at the end of the tunnel

The title can suggest two things-either we're going to benefit by watching the Nats continue to lose all year (less likely), or we are all going to die by watching them (more likely). 

But jokes aside, what can we learn from this team? Baseball is an unfair game. The illogical tends to happen more often than the logical (or at least it tends to stick out more). We've lost 13 of our last 15 and 16 of 19. That's pretty bad. But only 4 of those 16 losses were by more than 3 runs (I use 3 runs because a save opportunity defines it as a "close" game). So 75% of the current slump have been lost by a "close" score. Compare that with the 68% over the full season (23 of 34 losses) and you'll see that this team isn't nearly as bad as it could be-at least they're playing close games. Close games are interesting to watch, and while they may kill the faint of heart, seeing a lot of those games now will make losing in heartbreaking fashion later on easier to take. Well, at least in theory-I'm not sure that anything makes losing a close game easy. Kinda talking out of my butt now.

Changing gears-thanks to whoever nominated me for MLB Trade Rumors' "Baseball Blogs Weigh In" series. It was my second appearance there. Check out today's post here and my shoutout from November here.