"It could be worse."
"Yeah, they could be the Nationals."

A conversation between Dick Stockton and Eric Karros during Saturday's Yankees-Angels game. As we get to the dog days of summer, there isn't a whole lot on TV to watch for me except baseball and golf. And unfortunately that means watching the Washington Nationals. Boy is it hard to be a Nats fan.
I watched their game Friday against the Astros, which just seemed to be a microcosm of the year. The starting pitcher, Scott Olsen, got shelled for hit after hit. He was lucky to only give up four runs. The third base coach made a horrible decision to send Nick Johnson home on a single (he was out by a long ways at the plate). And yet somehow down 4-1, the Nats got to the Houston bullpen, scoring 4 runs in the 7th to go up 5 to 4. Now as a Nat fan I knew that lead would not be safe. Sure enough, the Nats give up a run in the eighth and a run in the ninth to lose 6 to 5.
The main problems all year have been the defense and the bullpen. There was one key play in the later innings when Johnson should have caught a foul ball, which would have been the second out. Instead, for some reason he quit on the ball and it fell in. The batter later got a hit, leading to the tying run. New Nat Nyger Morgan even ran all the way from center field to left on one ball to catch a fly ball right in front of the left fielder.
And the bullpen wasn't any better. Joe Beimel and Mike MacDougal could not find the strike zone or get critical outs in the ninth inning.

I don't really know what to do to help this team. There have been bad decisions made all over the place, from management to the coaching staff. And there are probably Triple A teams that have better talent in the bullpen than the Nats. At least the football season starts before too long...