FanPost

I'm done...

As someone who loves writing about baseball and always has, let me just say that the 2020 Washington Nationals have taken every ounce of joy out of it for me. From childhood up until the start of this season, I was in love with baseball and the numbers and stats and figures of the game. Thinking about the game and the players and what might come tomorrow always filled me with such joy. This season has that love, at least temporarily, completely crushed. Even thinking about the game nowadays just fills me with dread and sorrow as I'm reminded of the team that I, along with countless millions of other fans, have been staunchly loyal to since childhood, and is now completely throwing away a season that initially held much promise. Tonight's game epitomizes this joke of a season.

Even forgetting the 7th inning gaffes, they still should have won this game. But the bats went cold late, yet again. They're 8th in all of baseball in runners left on base. They have not scored a <single> run this year when trailing by 3 or less late in games. Read that again, because, 28 games in, that should be astounding. Tonight's "rally", in which they had first and third with one out before more playing possum, was literally the closest they have come all year to a late-game comeback. For all the staying in the fight they did last year, all the comeback wins and hard fought games, they've turned into pushovers this year. The reason Davey Martinez was so successful as the manager last year was because of the spark he instilled in this team. That spark is gone. Whatever he was doing to keep this team in the fight last season, he is no longer doing. Kevin Long should also be working on fixing this issue. Either he's doing nothing about it, or he's trying to and failing. Either way, he's objectively not doing his job.

I'm gonna be honest, I was prepared for a regression from last year's glory. I realized that they weren't gonna win 'em all, and I was so happy that baseball was back, I was prepared to accept even a losing season. What bothers me is not that they've lost so many games, but how they've lost them. They've had plenty of winnable games this year, plenty of chances to stay in the fight. They've not only missed all of those opportunities, they've flubbed them in the most spectacular ways possible. Almost every loss has been agonizing, either in the form of a blowout or a close game that they would have won if not for a few key blunders. A run-of-the-mill 5-3 loss in which they still seem in the game the entire way wouldn't bother me. It's the games where they get blown out, or have bullpen meltdowns, or throw away easy opportunities to score and get back in the game. And it seems like every day they find a new way to twist the knife. It's truly saddening. I had some blogs I was very excited about writing. I wanted to do a piece on why the strikeout is overrated. A piece on why we need a new hitting coach. Et cetera. But I'll be honest: I no longer have the motivation to do it. Thinking about the latest agonizing loss makes all of my passion for writing about the game just vanish. So until this team gets their heads out of their you-know-where and starts playing real baseball, I'm afraid I'm done writing about them. I'll probably do something for football season. Maybe weekly predictions and fantasy advice. If I start doing that, I'll leave a link to it at the home site of Armchair Analysis, armchairanalysisnats.weebly.com

But for now, peace. To those who have been reading these, thank you so much. Hopefully we see each other again on a better note next year.

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