Patrick Reddington: Long season taking a toll on Wilson Ramos

Dusty Baker spent quite a bit of time before and after the first two games of the now-completed three-game set with the visiting Mets talking about the offensive struggles of Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos.

Ramos, 29, was 4-for-28 (.143/.200/.179) over the first eight games in September, with a double, two runs batted in, two walks and nine strikeouts in 30 plate appearances.

The rough stretch left the soon-to-be-free agent with a .259/.299/.414 line, six doubles, seven home runs, 25 RBIs, 10 walks and 32 strikeouts in 45 games and 187 second-half plate appearances.

On the year, that brought Ramos down to a .302/.350/.488 line over 120 games and 480 plate appearances with 22 doubles and 20 homers while driving in 73 runs, taking 33 walks and striking out 70 times.

Baker was asked if the slump was a result of the backstop tiring at the end of a long, so far impressive season behind and at the plate for the Nationals, and if it was hard, especially at this time of the year, to come out a slump when you're already tired.

"It's hard any time of the year," Baker said. "I don't care what time of the year. It's not called a slump for nothing. It takes a strong mind and a positive outlook that every time you make an out you've got that much better chance to get a hit."

Ramos went 0-for-8 in three games against the Phillies in the series before the Mets came to D.C., but he did manage to play a role in the win in Sunday's finale, hitting a weak grounder toward first that moved Anthony Rendon over to third after Rendon had doubled to drive in a run.

Rendon scored what ended up being the winning run in a 3-2 victory on a passed ball in the next at bat.

Ramos went 0-for-3 in the game.

"You see a guy who's average is falling from where he's never been before and I have to commend him," Baker said before Monday's opener with New York.

"Yesterday, runner on second base with no outs, he gave himself up and hit a little ground ball to first base, which ended up being the winning run for us. So he's contributing no matter whether he's getting the hits or not.

"I wish there was a stat for a team at-bat. That was a team at-bat. That was big and these are the kind of things we're going to have to do to win these close games."

While he had managed to contribute to the win, Ramos was slumping offensively.

Baker was asked the next day how, as a manager, he went about deciding if it was just a rough stretch or a result of the catcher being worn out at the end of a long season.

"That catching position is a tough position," Baker said. "Because you get a lot of foul tips on your fingers, on your hands, I'm surprised when catchers hit in the first place, because nobody gets beat up, their bodies get beaten up, like theirs. He's never hit .330 the way he was hitting, so I think we need to give big Ramos a break. If he don't get another hit, he's had a good year."

Ramos went 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the seventh that put the Nationals up 1-0 and an RBI single that made it 3-1 in a 4-3 loss in extra innings on Tuesday.

Ramos did his part at the plate, and Baker was happy to see it in spite of the loss.

"That was wonderful," he said. "(Ramos is) seeing the ball a lot better than he was, indicative of the walks that he's taking now. He's not chasing, so perhaps Wilson is on his way again."

On Wednesday afternoon, Ramos connected for his 21st home run of the season, providing the only run in the Nationals' 1-0 win in the series finale.

"He'll be the first one to probably tell you that he's been struggling a little bit," Chris Speier told reporters after filling in on the bench for Baker. "And again, this is a long season, he's caught a lot of games, but for him to square up that ball, he's gotten some base hits, but he really squared that ball up, and I know he's going to enjoy the off-day tomorrow, as we all will."

Patrick Reddington blogs about the Nationals for Federal Baseball and appears here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. Follow him on Twitter: @federalbaseball. 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.