Ryan Zimmerman on Drew Storen: "He's the least of our worries"

Drew Storen watched his ERA jump from 1.52 to 2.70 over the weekend after two innings of work. The right-hander blew a three-run lead in the blink of an eye on Friday, surrendering a grand slam to Rockies slugger Carlos Gonzalez. And then yesterday, Storen loaded the bases in the eighth before DJ LeMahieu bounced a ball through the hole to score the eventual game-winning two runs.

"Drew's fine," Ryan Zimmerman said. "To go a whole year without having any sort of rough patch or a couple bad games is unheard of for relievers most of the time. He'll be fine. He's the least of our worries."

Maybe so, but if Storen does his job both nights, the Nationals might be sitting in first place by a 1/2 game heading into this 11-day road trip out west.

"He's still great," Anthony Rendon said. "He's an amazing pitcher. He's had like two (bad) games? He has what, 30 saves? You're going to quit on him already? I was 0-for-4 the other night ... you're going to quit on me, too? We have bad games. It's not like we go out there saying 'Oh, we're going to give it up today' or 'I'm going to strike out three times today'. It's baseball. Sometimes you get a hit, sometimes you strike out."

The loyalty permeating throughout the Nationals clubhouse is certainly a good sign for a ballclub playing well below its expectations. Unfortunately for Storen, a myriad of theories arises for his recent struggles, especially after the controversial trade to acquire Jonathan Papelbon.

"It's tough any time anybody goes out there and that happens," Jayson Werth said. "You pull for your guys. We're family in here. You live and die with each other. Those moments are tough, but we got each other's back. We got a great team, we got a great group of guys. I love coming to the park and playing with these guys. I can't say enough about them. We just got to pick each other up and just keep going. We got a long way to go. Again, I feel good. I feel good where we're at. I love my team. I feel like it's just a matter of time before we start clicking and we start gelling and we start rolling."