CLEVELAND – There are any number of stats you can point to when trying to show how much the Nationals have struggled offensively so far this season.
The Nats rank 25th out of 30 major league clubs in runs scored, 27th in hits, 27th in homers.
They’ve been shut out six times, most in the National League. They’ve been held to two or fewer runs 22 times, tied for most in the NL.
Here’s a new one, though, one that might just illustrate the problem more than any other: The Nationals have been held to four or fewer hits in 13 of their 56 games to date. That’s 23 percent of their games, nearly one-quarter of their total, in which they’ve finished with no more than four hits.
How bad is that? Well, consider this: The Nats were held to four or fewer hits 12 times last season. That’s over the entire season. They’ve already surpassed that total with 106 games still to be played.
The club record for games with four or fewer hits is 20, surprisingly set in 2017 by a lineup that featured four players who batted at least .300 with at least 23 homers: Ryan Zimmerman, Daniel Murphy, Anthony Rendon and Bryce Harper. The current lineup needs only do it seven more times in 106 remaining games to match that dubious record.
Friday night’s 7-1 loss to the Guardians was the latest example. Three of the Nats’ four hits came from Luis García Jr., a good fastball hitter who took advantage of Tanner Bibee’s penchant for throwing high fastballs. The other was Eddie Rosario’s seventh-inning double, which scored Garcia from first with the team’s lone run of the night.
It would be one thing if the Nationals were getting a good number of runners on base even without recording hits, most likely through walks. But they aren’t doing that, either.
The Nats have drawn only 12 walks over their last nine games. They managed only one Friday night, from Nick Senzel in the top of the first. Otherwise, that was it throughout the game.
* Though Friday’s game finished with a lopsided outcome, it was a low-scoring, tight ballgame most of the way. Cleveland led just 2-1 in the seventh before the wheels fell off, turning that one-run lead into a five-run lead by inning’s end.
It seemed like a perfect opportunity for Davey Martinez to use seldom-used reliever Tanner Rainey, who has been restricted to low-leverage situations as he tries to rediscover his old form following his return from Tommy John surgery. But when the bottom of the eighth arrived, it was Jordan Weems jogging in from the bullpen for mop-up duties.
Rainey now hasn’t pitched in 10 days, his second excessively long stretch without an appearance this month alone. All told, the right-hander has pitched in only three games in May despite taking up a spot on the active roster the entire season.
Weems, who would go on to allow a run during his one inning of work, has seen plenty of action this month. This was his 10th appearance in 31 days, which is actually on the lower end for this particular bullpen.
Seven of the Nationals’ eight relievers pitched in at least nine games in May, with closer Kyle Finnegan the only one from that group not to reach double-digits in appearances. Rainey’s paltry total of three appearances, meanwhile, looms large over the rest of the relief corps, which has had to pick up innings at his expense because he’s hardly ever used.
The Nats are reluctant to give up on Rainey, who is out of options and thus would have to be placed on waivers before he could be outrighted to Triple-A Rochester and taken off the 40-man roster. But given the strain on the rest of the bullpen, it’s fair to wonder how much longer they can afford to carry a seldom-used reliever on their active roster.