Matt Williams on Danny Espinosa, Nats bench

PHILADELPHIA - The Nationals are just four games into the season and already there are concerns about the team's inability to score runs. They've only managed to cross the plate seven times in the first four contests after scoring just nine runs in the 45 innings played in last October's National League Division Series.

Nationals manager Matt Williams has undoubtedly been forced to experiment with unfamiliar lineups as well as shifting infielders around. The question is whether those on the bench, such as outfielders Matt den Dekker and Reed Johnson, infielder/outfielder Clint Robinson and infielder Danny Espinosa, can produce more offensively. It's a hard read because only Robinson has received a start. The rest are fighting hard for some at-bats.

"It's important because they've all come out of spring training playing just about every day or every other day and getting multiple at-bats," Williams said. "So it's important to try to do that. You want to win games, too. We're in the business of winning baseball games or losing baseball games. At this point, spring training is over and we want to put our best team out there to win that particular night.

"That being said, we want to get opportunities. We had an opportunity yesterday to get Reed a couple of at-bats, got Clint in there for a couple of at-bats. In this series, Danny will get back in there and be able to get extended at-bats. That's great, but at some time we want to win. It's a tough situation sometimes to put the lineup out there that you feel good about winning the game certainly, depending on matchups and the information that we've got. So we tried to balance it. It's not easy."

Expect Espinosa to be in the lineup and playing second base when the Nats play the Phillies in Game 2 of the series later today. He usually finds himself starting in the field when Nats righty Doug Fister is on the mound. Espinosa is the only position player on the roster to not get a single regular season at-bat this year. This is of course coming off a spring where Williams and general manager Mike Rizzo tasked him with the job of learning to bat exclusively from the right side.

"We want to get him in more than once a week, that's for sure," Williams said. "It depends on where we're at and what's going on - health and nicks and dings and things of that nature. That's an everyday dilemma, if you will, or an everyday question and we'll try to do it accordingly and appropriately and make sure that he still feels comfortable getting out there and playing. And that changes every day. It changes series to series and game to game sometimes."