The Nats Have 1 Month To Make Up 6.5 Games To The Mets In Order To Make The Playoffs

The nightmare August is finally over. A month that saw the Nats win just 12 games (and lose 17) for a rough .414 winning percentage has placed an immense amount of pressure on Harper, Scherzer, and the rest of the Nationals to overcome a 6.5 game NY Mets lead. The Nationals’ August was somewhat like True Detective Season 2 – A collection of very talented individuals that utterly flopped. While there were some bright points like the shootout or Ryan Zimmerman’s 28 RBI, if you look back on it now, you can’t help but wonder “Why did I waste all those hours watching such an unappealing product?” Fortunately, there is no way that Season 3 of True Detective will be as bad as this recent season just as there is no chance that the Nationals play .400 ball in September.

I wholeheartedly believe that the Nationals still WILL make the playoffs. (Nate note: I don’t.) Now, this is probably due to my irrational confidence that history will repeat itself and the Mets will #Mets into yet another September collapse but I also think that Bryce Harper could get crazy hot again and lead this team on a couple solid win-streaks. The Nats have so many games left against the Mets (6) that they really are still in this race.

The Nationals need to make quite a run before they earn a playoff spot but if they want to have a chance once they get there, they’ve got to finish this Cards series out better than the last few innings of last night’s game. The next 2 games are extremely winnable with Joe Ross facing off against Marco Gonzales in his first MLB outing of the season and Scherzer (despite his recent struggles) is pitching in the finale.

This is crunch time and the Nats gotta start playing better. At the break, this team controlled its own destiny, now they are in a position where they must play near-flawless baseball AND the Mets have to regress in order for Washington to secure a playoff berth.

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