48-47 after 95 games. The Washington Nationals head into the All-Star Break 6.0 games out of first in the NL East having dropped two of three in Miami and three of four on the road in Philadelphia. The Nats salvaged a win on Sunday afternoon, taking a 5-2 decision from the Marlins to end the "first half" on a positive note. The offense has underachieved, the pitchers have dealt with more injuries in the first half of this season than they did in the entire 2012 campaign. The bats have taken a lot longer to get going than they did last season. The defense started slow, but has improved.
Can the Nationals turn things around when they start up again with an 11-game homestand against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets? The Nats are 27-18 in the nation's capital this season. After Sunday's win over the Fish, the Nationals are just 21-29 on the road.
Washington heads into the break with the a .241/.301/.385 line as a team, good for 12th of 15 NL teams in AVG, 14th in OBP and 12th in SLG. The Nationals are 14th in the National League in wRC+, 14th in fWAR as a team (+6.5) ahead of only the Marlins... 12th in BABIP (.285)...
They do, however, as a starting rotation, have the 5th lowest ERA amongst teams in the NL, the 4th lowest FIP (3.71) behind only the Reds (3.66), Mets (3.60) and Cardinals (3.21).
After Sunday's win over the Marlins in Miami's Marlins Park, the District Sports Page's Dave Nichols and I welcomed Craig Heist (@cheistsports) on to Nats Nightly, our (mostly) daily podcast to talk about the first-half of the 2013 season. Anthony Rendon's impressive start to his major league career. The starting rotation. The reconfigured bullpen. Davey Johnson's new lineup. Denard Span's start in the nation's capital. What's missing from last season...? We talked about it all.
You can listen to the conversation below. The first-half wrap starts after a conversation about the Nationals' first-half-ending win over the Fish:
#Nats Nightly: First-half wrap w/ @cheistsports @NationalsDSP @federalbaseball - http://t.co/1NtJHMBa8a
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) July 15, 2013