Nationals' run game going in reverse early in season

DENVER – Well aware of their offensive deficiencies entering the season, the Nationals insisted they were going to find other ways to assist in the production of scoring runs. They were going to need to do a better job of moving runners once they got on base. They were going to need to be able to bring them home from third base with fewer than two outs. And they were going to need to take advantage of their team speed, plus baseball’s new rules, and more aggressively run the bases.

It all sounded good, but seven games into the season, the Nats’ run game has proven not only to be rare but also ineffective.

At a time when the rest of the majors have been swiping bases at a record pace, the Nationals have successfully stolen only one. Worse, they’ve been caught stealing three times.

Each of those stats ranks last in the majors. The Nats are one of seven teams with only one stolen base to their name so far. And they join the Dodgers as the only teams in the sport to have been caught stealing three separate times.

That’s not what Davey Martinez had in mind entering the season. And it’s really not what the manager was looking for at the same time his lineup was struggling to score runs in any manner.

“They’re trying to get something going,” Martinez said. “They’ve got to focus and get better leads. It’s not that we can’t steal bases. All of a sudden, our leads are starting to get shorter and shorter. That’s the difference between the bang-bang play.”

In each of the Nationals’ three caught stealings to date, the runner was narrowly thrown out, often getting tagged on the back just before the hand reached second base. It happened to Luis García on Sunday against the Braves, Alex Call on Wednesday against the Rays and CJ Abrams on Thursday against the Rockies.

Only Lane Thomas has been successful so far, swiping second base during Wednesday’s loss. And even that one was only successful after the initial call was reversed, thanks to a Nats replay challenge.

“I think you have a lot of guys who can be aggressive on the bases,” Thomas said. “It’s just that we’ve been down early in some games. Even I struggle with that sometimes. You don’t want to go out and steal a bag down three runs, and now you’re thrown out and you’re still down three runs. But I also think we can be aggressive in those situations, just early in the game, not later on.”

Game situations certainly haven’t helped put the Nationals in a good position to try to run. It’s also hard to run when you’re not on base much to begin with.

“It’s something we have to keep harping on with these young guys,” Martinez said. “Make sure we do everything correctly.”