Does Nats' record accurately reflect their play?

ANAHEIM, Calif. – In the most literal of senses, the Nationals are off to a bad start to the season. You can’t look at a 4-9 record and claim they’ve been anything other than bad.

Nor can you look at their just-completed, seven-game road trip to Colorado and Anaheim and suggest a 3-4 outcome was a good thing. No losing road trip is a good road trip.

Take a step back, though, and consider how the Nats played over the last week, how they looked, how they pitched, how they defended and how they at times hit. You might start to feel differently about the overall state of things.

“I think we played really well. I really do,” manager Davey Martinez said following Wednesday’s narrow loss to the Angels. “We were in every game. We swung the bats fairly well. Now we’ve just got to hone in on driving in runs from third base with less than two outs. That’s the key. We’ve got to keep working on that. But the boys are battling, and I’m proud of that.”

Any mention of boys battling is sure to draw eye rolls and groans from those who have heard that sentiment way too many times from Martinez in his five-plus years managing this ballclub. But there is some truth in what he says. The Nationals aren’t winning games. But they’re not playing bad baseball.

Three of the four losses on this trip were by one run: 1-0 and 7-6 to the Rockies, plus Wednesday afternoon’s 3-2 loss to the Angels. The other was by a score of 2-0 to the Angels on the night Shohei Ohtani pitched. No shame in that.

The rotation has done fine as a group, running off a string of 11 consecutive starts of at least five innings before MacKenzie Gore was pulled in the bottom of the fourth Wednesday with an elevated pitch count. The bullpen has been quite good, weathering a couple of notable meltdowns but otherwise getting some dominant performances from the likes of Mason Thompson, Hunter Harvey and Carl Edwards Jr. The defense has been excellent, with zero errors committed through the first six games of the trip until Keibert Ruiz and Dominic Smith each were charged with one in the finale.

The issue, of course, remains the lineup. And specifically, the inability to maximize rallies due in large part to a complete lack of power.

The Nationals as a team are batting a respectable .253, good enough for 12th in the majors. Their .324 on-base percentage ranks 16th, right in the middle of the pack and right in between the supposedly superior Mets and Yankees. Their .336 slugging percentage, however, ranks 28th in the majors and last in the National League, with only the Royals and Tigers worse. They’ve hit a major-league-low five homers, and three of those came at Coors Field.

Therein lies the problem. The Nats aren’t going to hit a lot of homers. They’ve known that all along, and they accept that flaw. But if that’s the way they’re going to go about business, they’re going to have to play some flawless baseball in other departments, especially when it comes to driving in runs that are there for the taking.

This was painfully evident in the top of the fourth Wednesday afternoon, an inning that began with four consecutive singles by Jeimer Candelario, Smith, Joey Meneses and Ruiz. Again, nothing wrong with that. This is who they are.

The problem was that they only scored two runs out of that golden opportunity, and one of those came via an RBI chopper to short by Luis García. Subsequent strikeouts by Lane Thomas and CJ Abrams were killers.

Yes, five innings of baseball still remained. But do you know how many Nationals batters reached base in those final five innings? One. This is a lineup that can go stone-cold silent for long stretches, all the more reason to take advantage of what few opportunities present themselves.

It can make for a frustrating brand of baseball at times. But it shouldn’t completely detract from everything else this team is doing. The rotation, led by Gore and Josiah Gray, is much improved. The bullpen remains a strength. The defense, especially in the infield, legitimately is better.

That hasn’t translated into more wins. Yet. But if the Nationals can keep doing those things well, and then deliver just one or two more meaningful hits in the right moments, they might actually have a chance to start winning these very winnable games and take a critical step forward in the long-term path toward contention.