Williams: Struggling Espinosa working on "zoning it back in"

After emerging as one of the early positives for the Nationals this season, Danny Espinosa just hasn't been the same hitter. Since Espinosa's average reached a season-high .346 on April 14, he is batting .188 in his last 28 games. But he does have all six of his homers and all but one of his 10 RBIs during that slump. The second baseman has struggled even worse lately, batting .125 (8-for-64) with a .136 on-base percentage, 26 strikeouts and no walks over his last 18 games. Half of Espinosa's eight hits since April 28 have been homers. He was batting .317 on April 27, right before the slump, but is now down to .220 on the year. Before Saturday's game, Nats manager Matt Williams spoke extensively about Espinosa's difficulties at the plate. "I think it's pitch selection, that's all," Williams said. "I think that he has chased some balls out of the strike zone, but he's fantastic at second base and I want to put him in there as much as I can. The ebbs and flows of seasons are such that sometimes that's going to happen. The good thing about Danny is that he's not taking it to the field, and that's good. "He's excited, he's enthusiastic, he comes ready to play every day, wants to play every day and there's no reason that that first two, three weeks of the season can't come around starting today. So I think he's fine. He's driven some baseballs and that's good. I think he and I, and probably everybody on his team, would like to see him get three singles today and get him back rolling again. So he's a vital part of our team and I've said it since day one of spring training. So it continues to be that way." Is there a deeper reason why Espinosa has seen his batting efficiency dip so far since a hot start? "I just think he's ventured outside the strike zone a little bit - some balls down, some balls elevated and certainly balls off the zone," Williams said. "So he works every day at just zoning it back in, getting a good one to hit and hitting it, not trying to do too much. It's electric when he gets the head of the bat on it. "But the most important thing for me is that it has not translated to the defensive side of the baseball. He continues to play well out there and do things properly. So that's part of his maturity - separating the game. Regardless of what you do at the plate, you can help your team defensively as well." The fact that Espinosa has displayed some power has perhaps been a negative thing, maybe getting him caught in the trap of trying to hit homers over singles, doubles and the like. "Yeah, it can," Williams said. "I've experienced that before where you're doing the 1-for-4 with a homer and then all of a sudden, you find yourself 0-for-2, and you say, 'I'll just do what I did last night and hit a homer.' "When you try to do it, it doesn't happen very often. When it happens, it happens because your approach is right and because you're getting a good baseball to hit, a strike to hit, something that you're looking for, something that you want as opposed to trying to hit everything. And I think over the last couple of weeks, he's been trying to hit everything instead of zoning it back in, so that's what he's working on."