David Huzzard: Examining the Nationals offense

Coming into Wednesday night's game, the Nationals sat second in the National League in runs scored per game and eighth in runs allowed. Ask most people before the season started and they'd likely have told you that those rankings would be reversed. Turn on the radio or browse social media today after the Nationals got shut out and all the talk will be about how putrid their offense is.

In past seasons, when I'd inform people the Nationals offense was better than they think, it was right around league average. But this season, they're second in the league and that is with a lot of issues in the lineup. I'm going to go ahead here and cut off some of the arguments you might have against the Nats offense and why it is actually bad despite being second in the NL in runs per game.

The first complaint people have is situational hitting. I'm not sure what people mean by this because what it sounds like they want is situational making of outs and not actual hits. According to Baseball-Reference.com the Nationals are tied for third in the NL in productive out percentage at 34 percent. I'm not sure how much weight I'd give a stat that is counting a hit as a negative, but it does show that they are doing what many complain they don't.

For a better stat on how the Nationals are doing in the advancement of runners category, with a runner on third and less than two outs that runner scores 62 percent of the time. The Nationals are the best in the NL in this category and 11 percent better than league average. But I guarantee after last night's shutout you're going to hear about how the Nationals can't advance runners and simply aren't a team that knows how to score.

The final complaint about the Nationals offense is that they can't hit with runners in scoring position. Ignoring for now the argument that hitting with runners in scoring position is not an independent skill, I'll just point out that the Nationals rank seventh in the NL with a .260 batting average with runners in scoring position. Seventh isn't the best, but it is in the middle of the league and shows that the Nationals aren't terrible.

None of this means the Nationals offense doesn't have issues. Last night, Clint Robinson was the clean-up hitter and this was more the result of injury than anything else. If Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman were healthy, the lineup would look a lot different. Denard Span was given the night off with back issues, but even without Span's back issues the Nationals lineup is five deep counting Danny Espinosa. Ian Desmond and Wilson Ramos are both capable of getting hot at any moment, but they're also just as capable of being ice cold. Desmond is in the midst of one of the worst slumps of his career. Anthony Rendon is getting on base since his return from the DL, but has yet to find his power stroke. I would add that Bryce Harper can't stay hot forever, but he hasn't cooled off any.

The reason the Nationals are scoring so many runs despite obvious holes in the batting order is because of their situational hitting. On nights like last night, it seemed that the Nationals just needed to make something happen with the few baserunners they did get, but they had so few baserunners that runs were going to be hard to come by. The Rays executed their starter-by-committee plan to perfection. The Nationals hitters were off-balance all night and never looked comfortable in the batter's box. What should have been the second time through the order for a young starter ended up being the first time through the order for a new pitcher.

Last night doesn't change the fact that the Nationals are one of the best offensive teams in the NL and are that way because when they make outs with runners on base, they advance the runner ,and when they get a runner to third with less than two outs that runner scores 62 percent of the time. If the pitching can ever come around to what it was supposed to be, the Nationals are going to be a tough team to beat down the stretch.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.