Attrition

That was some road trip, huh? The Nationals blasted their way to the Pacific like a dyslexic William Tecumseh Sherman, and now they're a half a game out of first.

As in any successful march to sea, there were casualties, and I'm actually kind of worried about this.

Jayson Werth got plunked on the wrist by fancifully-named bad pitcher Odrisamer Despaigne and hasn't played since. He was shockingly understanding about the HBP for a guy who just got out of prison. I was expecting the old broken-lunch-tray-to-the-throat.

We're not losing much with Werth out (especially if that contract is appropriately insured). Werth being out bothers me only as a matter of depth. Getting Babyhead Taylor in there every day is actually an improvement, but it makes the bench shorter and means we have to see Tyler Moore more than is ideal (i.e., at all even once).

Doug Fister, meanwhile, so exerted himself in his charitable endeavors that he has "tightness" in his "forearm," which all too often translates into "surgery" in his "Tommy John."

This is a problem. We were supposed to get The Rotation of Five Aces (Under a Definition of "Ace" Expansive Enough to Include Gio Gonzalez). What we actually have is One Ace (Scherzer is so awesome. He's like the Bryce Harper of baseball players) and four guys who might be hurt and whose velocity is down and who just generally aren't as good as they were supposed to be.

We're holding steady for now, but what happens when three of these guys go on the DL and one of the survivors is Gio Gonzalez and there's no one left in the bullpen because they're all starting?

In other National League East news, the Marlins just got beat bad enough by the Braves that they fired their manager, Mike Redmond.

The Marlins seem to have realized that hiring an inexperienced, recently-retired player to manage your ballclub is not the best way to win a whole bunch of baseball games.

Why am I mentioning this in a blog about the Washington Nationals? Ha ha ha I can't imagine why!