With one-third of season complete, Nats like where they stand

OAKLAND, Calif. - The baseball season is long, and there are plenty of ups and downs, hot streaks and slumps for every player and every team through the course of a 162-game schedule.

So it would be irresponsible to suggest that what we've seen so far from the Nationals, both on a team and individual level, is going to continue exactly the same way over the remainder of the season.

But having made that caveat, we do have to point out that after Saturday's game, the Nationals' season reached one of those nice, round baseball numbers: 54. That's 54 out of 162 games, exactly one-third of the regular season.

That's more than a small sample of games from which to draw conclusions. No, the next 54 games and then the 54 games following that won't be identical to these first 54 games. But the Nationals have taken the field enough times now in 2017 to look at the bigger picture and do a little bit of all-in-good-fun extrapolation.

For example, with one-third of the season complete, the Nationals have four different players on pace to hit 30 homers and drive in 100 runs this year. Yep, there's Ryan Zimmerman (on pace for 45 homers and 135 RBIs), Bryce Harper (45 homers, 129 RBIs), Daniel Murphy (30 homers, 114 RBIs) and Anthony Rendon (30 homers, 105 RBIs).

If you're wondering - and you know you are - there have been only two teams in major league history to feature four 30-100 players: the 1996 and 1999 Rockies.

Chances are, all four Nationals won't get there by season's end. But only once in club history have two players gone 30-100. That was 2009, when Zimmerman and Adam Dunn did it.

On the pitching side, Stephen Strasburg is on pace to win 21 games, Max Scherzer to win 18, Tanner Roark to win 15 and Gio Gonzalez to win 12.

Scherzer is on pace for exactly 300 strikeouts, a feat that has been accomplished only 34 times in history, with Clayton Kershaw the only pitcher to do it in the last 15 years.

Strasburg is on pace for 243 strikeouts. No team has featured a duo with at least that many strikeouts since the Kerry Wood-Mark Prior 2003 Cubs (managed by none other than Dusty Baker).

OK, so there's no telling if any of that is going to come true. There are too many variables, too many opportunities for major events over the final two-thirds of the season (ie. injuries).

Here, though, are the most important stats to consider after 54 games: The Nationals are 34-20, which puts them on pace to finish 102-60. And they lead the National League East Division by 10 games.

No, they're not going to win the division by 30 games. That has happened only once in major league history: the 1995 Indians, who in a strike-shortened season still went 100-44 and topped the second-place Royals (70-74) by a landslide.

But think of it this way: If the Nationals only play .500 ball the rest of the way, they'll still finish 88-74. In order for the Mets to top them, New York would have to go 65-43.

It's not impossible. But it would be a dramatic change of courses for both teams.

The point is this: One-third of the way through the season, the Nationals have to like where they stand.