O speed, where art thou?

Coming into the season, the Nationals believed speed would be one of the strongest assets to their young lineup.

Now officially past the halfway point of the season, it hasn’t been as effective as they might have hoped.

Did you know up until last week Victor Robles was still the team’s leader in stolen bases? The speedy outfielder has only played 36 games this season, missed 34 in May and June with a back injury and is currently on his second stint on the injured list. CJ Abrams swiped one in San Diego and one in Seattle to overtake him 79 games into the season.

Entering Sunday’s finale against the Phillies, the Nationals ranked as one of the worst teams in terms of stealing bases in the major leagues. They had only stolen 43 bases in 56 attempts, which were 25th in the majors and 13th in the National League. That equated to a 76.8 percent success rate, which ranked 22nd in the majors and 12th in the National League.

They were only stealing 0.68 bags per game, 26th in the big leagues and 13th in the NL.

The Nats’ small success in stealing bases came from the presumed suspects. Abrams is 9-for-11, Robles is 8-for-9, Lane Thomas is 7-for-9 and Alex Call (now with Triple-A Rochester) is 6-for-8.

Jeimer Candelario is 4-for-5 and Luis García has stolen four bases even though he’s been caught four times. Jake Alu and Derek Hill each have one apiece without being caught.

“There's a couple of reasons,” manager Davey Martinez explained. “One is we're playing from behind quite a bit. So you don't want to run into outs. The other is that a lot of our guys are just situational basestealers, so they're not just gonna go over there and just run just because they're on first base. They gotta be smart about it.

“Losing Victor didn't help. We're hoping that Derek Hill will get on base and be a guy that could run for us. Lane picks his spots to run. Luis every now and then will pick his spot to run. Abrams, when he gets on base, he'll run quite a bit.”

Making matters somewhat worse is the fact that the Nationals aren’t good at holding opposing teams from running on them.

Nationals pitchers have allowed 82 stolen bases so far this season, third-most in the majors and second-most in the NL.

“We got to get better,” Martinez said. “We definitely got to get better at that. Giving extra bases, we don't want to turn singles or walks into doubles. So, we definitely got to get better. But a lot of times I talk to these guys, not to screw up their mechanics and what they're trying to do, which is take their focus away from the hitter, is just change their looks. Change your times going to home.”

To their credit, Keibert Ruiz (who threw out 22 baserunners last year, second-most among all major league catchers) and Riley Adams have combined to throw out 16 runners this year, which is average across the majors.

But Nats batteries only have a 16 percent caught stealing rate, which is tied for 23rd in the majors and 11th in the NL.

“I thought Josiah (Gray) did a better job at that,” the skipper said. “After the guy stole the base the other day, he was able to hold some guys on. I know that our bullpen guys have been doing that a little bit better. (Kyle) Finnegan, (Hunter) Harvey, they've been working on that, doing a lot better. So hopefully we continue to do that. Because like I said, a guy gets a single, all of a sudden he's on there and we’re worried about him stealing. It's crucial. It could be a crucial time of the game where all of a sudden, he steals the base, he's on second base and a base hit knocks him in. So we got to be more conscious about keeping that guy at first base.”

The pitch clock this year has given the advantage to the runner, especially when pitchers use up all of their mound disengagements. So the Nats are hoping to flip this coin in the second half of the season to hopefully flip some games in their favor.

“Hopefully in the second half, we'll be up or in games where we could steal more bases,” Martinez said. “But I'm pleased about how they're running the bases, particularly first to third, scoring on base hits and stuff like that. They've all been doing well.”