Rachel Levitin: After season full of Nats' injuries, all eyes will be on Rizzo this offseason

After last night's 4-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, the Washington Nationals are 6 1/2 games back while the New York Mets maintain first place in the National League East. All other teams in the division have already been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The magic number is six.

No matter what happens at the tail end of the 2015 season, though, the unfortunate part of the year - besides possibly missing the playoffs, since it's not a done deal yet - is the fact that this team barely ever had their desired starting lineup.

Proposed lead-off man and outfielder Denard Span, third baseman Anthony Rendon, first baseman Ryan Zimmerman and outfielder Jayson Werth - just to name a few - spent a good amount of time being down for the count in 2015, and that certainly did not help the Nats' chances at advancing to October for the third time in four years.

Washington's bench did its best to fill in where needed. Guys like Clint Robinson and Michael A. Taylor have had noteworthy seasons in the progression of their respective careers, for example. So, this is not meant to be a knock on the current bench, but perhaps it's the bench's depth that was severely lacking when it came time for the Nats to cope with consistent injuries to their desired starting nine.

It certainly hasn't helped that the Nats' pitching staff took some hits too. The bullpen and starting rotation have been shuffled like a deck of cards all season long. Was it a lack of consistency that plagued this part of Washington's game or was it something else? Even the addition of closer Jonathan Papelbon has been a Catch-22 of sorts. Papelbon is good at his job, but then fellow reliever Drew Storen got frustrated after bouncing between being a closer and set-up man, ending up with a broken bone.

What seems to be the case for Washington in 2015 is that it just didn't work out the way they planned it. It's unfortunate but true. Priorities for the offseason, no matter when it begins, should be bench depth and an evaluation of what is and is not working in regards to the pitching staff.

Washington can't "clean house" and start all over, but Mike Rizzo has quite the job ahead of him and it's seems likely that all eyes will be on Rizzo making moves to establish a playoff-bound team in 2016.

Rachel Levitin blogs about the Nationals for District Sports Page. Follow her on Twitter: @RHLevitin. She will be sharing her observations about baseball in the nation's capital as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our little corner of cyberspace. 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.