Already reaching one 2012 mark

CHICAGO - I failed to mention this here on the blog last night, but if you're able to stomach a depressing stat, I've got one for you. Last night's loss marked the 64th defeat for the Nationals this season. That evens their number of losses from all of 2012. In other words, in order for the Nats to match their record from last season, they'll need to go 38-0 the rest of the regular season. I'm no Major League Baseball scout. I'm no mathematician. Neither of those roles would suit me very well. But I have a feeling it's unlikely that the Nats go 38-0 the rest of the year. Just a hunch. When you think about it, it's pretty remarkable. Here we sit in the middle of August, with the Nationals well out of the playoff picture at this point, and we could have more of a discussion about the prospects coming up in a couple of weeks than we could about postseason possibilities. This from a team that was picked by many as the World Series favorite entering this season. That's the way it goes when you're in this spot, I guess. The Nats' 64th loss of the season was a brutal one. Davey Johnson's bunch lost 11-1, which is now the seventh time this season that the Nats have lost by nine or more runs. In contrast, the Nats have won by nine or more runs just twice this season. In 26.6 percent of the Nats' games this season, they've scored one or zero runs. The offense just hasn't been there. "It's frustrating," Ryan Zimmerman said last night, after the Nats were held to one run in an 11-1 win by Jeff Samardzija and the Cubs. "But there's really no one way to look at it to figure out why it's happened or what's happened. Because if we knew, it wouldn't be happening. "Baseball is a funny sport and you just gotta keep going out there and trying to get better and finish the season strong. "Obviously we're going to have to make quite a run to get back into it, but this team is capable of doing something like that. Just go out there each day and try to win that game. If it turns out like it did tonight, you forget about it. If you win 10-1, you forget about it. It doesn't do you anything for tomorrow. Go out there tomorrow and try to win." The wins have been hard to come by. So, too, have the runs. But that's nothing new for this Nationals team, as Zimmerman, Davey Johnson or anyone watching at home can attest to.