Marty Niland: Nationals end streak of futility before hitting record books

The only thing consistent about the 2018 Nationals has been their inconsistency. It was on full display in last weekend's series against the Mets, which saw them end a 32-inning scoreless skid in Sunday's 15-0 rout.

The scoring drought was miserable, but it could have been worse. Juan Soto's sixth-inning grounder to score Trea Turner stemmed the streak before it could grow long enough for the record books or the longest runs of futility by Washington teams.

The major league record for scoreless innings is 48, shared by the 1968 Chicago Cubs and the 1903 Philadelphia Athletics, so the Nats had a way to go to break that one. But just two more innings without a run would have matched the franchise-record 34-inning scoreless streak of the 2004 Montreal Expos and come dangerously close to the 37-inning collar by the 1958 original Senators and the 38-inning run of zeros racked up by the 1964 expansion Senators.

The 1958 Senators were one of Washington's most ignominious ballclubs. Despite the presence of Roy Sievers, whose 39 home runs and 108 RBIs both ranked third in the AL, they had the worst-hitting lineup in baseball at .240 and scored 553 runs, second-worst in the game. That season's streak is most notable for its circumstances.

That team reached its offensive nadir in the midst of a 13-game losing streak that closed out its third straight last-place finish, but that's not all. The scoreless run also came in the midst of a grueling 18-day, 18-game, seven-city road trip. The Senators visited every other team in the league and had just one day off, which was negated by a doubleheader. They actually won three of the first four against the eventual World Series champion Yankees and six of the first nine. But things quickly turned sour.

After going scoreless in the ninth inning of their third straight loss, 5-1 in Cleveland, the team would be shut out in three straight games by the third-place Red Sox and for a fourth game in Baltimore, all by 2-0 scores.

The streak began after a sacrifice fly by a 22-year-old September call-up named Harmon Killebrew scored Clint Courtney in the eighth against Cleveland and ended when Sievers singled to score Albie Pearson in the first inning in Baltimore. The Senators would go on finish 61-93, 31 games out.

After the expansion Senators had finished in last place for the first three years of their existence, their slogan was "Off the Floor in '64." They did achieve their goal, finishing ninth at 62-100, five games ahead of the Kansas City Athletics. Unlike the 1958 team they would pass, the 1964 Senators had no one among the league's top hitters, and their .231 team average made the 1958 team look like superstars.

The 1964 team also lost its will to score in September, putting up goose-eggs in the first four games of the month, all at home. If not for an eighth-inning run in a 2-1 loss in Minnesota on Aug. 31, the Senators would have been shut out in five straight. As it was, that was their last run until Sept. 6. In between, they lost to Cleveland, 3-0 and 9-0, and Detroit,1-0 and 4-0, to match the '58 team. They came up empty in the first inning the next game to make it 38 innings without a run and finally broke though in the second. John Kennedy, who would be one of the players traded for Frank Howard that offseason, singled to score Don Leppert. The Senators went 9-14 the rest of the way and finished 42 games out.

The 2004 Montreal Expos were also a last-place team in the NL East, finishing 67-95. Their .249 average and 635 runs scored were near the bottom of the league, and only Milwaukee and Arizona were generally statistically worse. The team was under ownership of the other 29 franchises at the time and had been stripped of most of its major talent. Frank Robinson managed the core of the ballclub that would move to Washington the next season and lead the division for much of the season.

The Expos had trouble scoring out of the gate, mustering just 12 runs in their first eight games. After beating the Mets 1-0 on April 10, they did not score for the last six innings of a 4-1 loss to New York on April 11. The Expos were then swept at home 5-0, 9-0 and 3-0 by the Marlins, who had won the World Series the previous season but cast off most of their high-priced talent. Tony Batista stopped the run of goose eggs at 34 when he hit a home run to lead off the second inning April 16 in Philadelphia.

That Expos team had just two inning months, going 15-16 in July and August and was never within 10 games of the division lead after mid-May.

It was just as frustrating to watch the Nats' recent scoring drought as it has been to watch them for most of this season. But these Nats are still better than the teams whose streaks they approached. Those teams were never competitive and gave up at the end of the season. This Nats team can further distinguish itself from the city's dark past and its own by finishing strong and influencing the postseason race, even if it's not part of that race.

Marty Niland blogs about the Nationals for D.C. Baseball History. Follow him on Twitter: @martyball98. His thoughts on the Nationals will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. 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 roster of writers.