Nats' big bats hoping to start carrying offense

When the Nationals constructed their lineup over the offseason, they were relying on two new signings and a 31-year-old second-year player to carry much of the offense.

Jeimer Candelario and Dominic Smith were brought in to help Joey Meneses supply some power to Davey Martinez’s lineup.

Candelario led the major leagues with 42 doubles in 2021. Smith had a .993 OPS in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. And Meneses caught the sport’s attention with an impressive two months to end last season, his first taste of the majors.

Not a bad plan. But through 65 games, it’s had some mixed results.

Most of the struggles have come from Smith, who has just two home runs, 16 RBIs, a .263 average and .654 OPS through his first 62 games. But a big two-run homer that traveled 444 feet (the longest of his career) in the sixth inning of Sunday’s win over the Braves hopefully will kickstart Smith’s offensive production.

“When you can hit a homer like that and give us a bigger lead, it's always awesome,” Martinez said Sunday. “So like I said before, he's been playing unbelievable defense. He was swinging the bat well. He got into a little bit of funk. Hopefully today, he broke out of it.”

There were 38 games from Smith’s first homer to his second. He’s never been one to always launch the ball out of the yard (he hit zero in 58 games last year with the Mets), but surely there’s a way he can find more consistent pop. He just missed his second homer in as many games last night, flying out 414 feet to center field at Minute Maid Park which would have been a homer in 23 of 30 major league ballparks.

“Being aggressive,” Smith said of finding consistency. “Trying to get my A swing off and trying to hit the ball hard. Everybody knows that I can hit up here. But now it's time to drive the ball, drive in runs and help produce wins for the team. So that's something that I hold myself to the highest standard and something that I felt like I wanted to contribute when I came into the year. That's why I'm probably so hard on myself. But it's definitely not far off. Like I'm right there. I've put together good ABs, but now like I said just put a little bit more aggression into my swings. I think it'll turn around.”

Candelario has been one of the Nats’ more consistently clutch hitters. He leads the team with 17 doubles and 27 extra-base hits, while ranking second in homers (eight), RBIs (30), slugging percentage (.440) and OPS (.768). He got the homer party started on Sunday with his own two-run shot three batters before Smith to give the Nats the lead.

“He's another guy that's been playing well, playing good defense, driving some big runs for us,” Martinez said. “Those guys, if they start swinging like that in the middle of the lineup, we can do some good things.”

Meneses was actually the one who tied the game before the homers that day, hitting an RBI single earlier in the inning. After a slow start in which he was only hitting .252 through his first 24 games, Meneses has been the most consistent hitter in baseball, now hitting .302 on the season. His career-high 18-game on-base streak came to end last night, but over that major league-best stretch he hit .357 with a .430 on-base percentage, four doubles, one triple, 10 RBIs and nine walks.

“It was awesome,” Martinez said of that trio leading the offense. “Like you said, they've been doing it for the most part. Dom hadn't shown the pop yet, but he's been getting on base for us, knocking in some runs for us. Meneses same when he comes up with some big hits. And Candy, what I've known about him and what I've talked about, he's a doubles guy that occasionally can run into one, like he did (Sunday). But he's playing really well on both sides of the ball.”

And the players know the offense can – and should – go through them. Look what happened when the three of them combined to go 1-for-10 with a walk last night: a 6-1 loss to the Astros.

“If we all can get clicking on the same page, that's what really carries the team and can rattle out a lot of wins in a row or in a long span,” Smith said. “So I think we just got to keep grinding. I think we have a great attitude every day. We could have came in (Sunday) and really just fell or faltered and let the Braves kind of take this win, but it just shows the pride that we have every day when we come in. We expect to compete, we expect to win and we play hard. We play hard to the last out, and that's why I love this group, I love this bunch and it's fun to compete with them on an everyday basis.”

“That's what we need,” Candelario said. “We need to be more consistent in the middle of the lineup producing. We need to help the team win, we need to produce, we need runs, and that's what we're doing. We're working really hard for that and hopefully we can be consistent the whole year and hit the ball hard, man. You gotta hit the ball hard like we did (Sunday) consistently.”

It hasn’t always been easy, but the three of them know they have Martinez’s full confidence and support. They’re hoping the big inning on Sunday is a sign of more consistent production to come.

“We got a great manager that always supports us, the players,” Candelario said. “He played baseball, he knows what it takes. He's been in the World Series, he's a World Series champ. He always gives us the confidence to come back and be unbreakable. We got to be able to keep going, man, and turn the page. Look what we did today. We just gotta keep going and keep working really hard like the guys are doing right now. And hopefully, we can be really consistent with this because we know we can do it.”