Still searching for their missing clutch gene
Thursday night's 5-4 loss to the Braves was merely the latest in which the Nationals faltered with runners in scoring position
ATLANTA – The Nationals are, in many ways, an offensive juggernaut. They lead the majors in runs by a wide margin. They also lead the majors in home runs. And that formula has served them well many nights throughout the season’s first four months.
Baseball, unfortunately, does not just automatically reward the team that has scored the most runs and hit the most homers at season’s end with a spot in the playoffs. It’s not about how many runs you score in totality. It’s about how many runs you score within each of 162 games. Which often boils down to how many runs you score within each of nine innings within each of those 162 games.
It’s called situational hitting, and while it can and will be debated for all eternity whether that’s an actual skill or not, it still often spells the difference between winning and losing. And boy have the Nats found that out the hard way in recent weeks.
Thursday night’s 5-4 loss to the Braves was an annoying one, to say the least. The Nationals lost another winnable game because they could not deliver the one or two clutch hits they needed to take the lead despite countless opportunities.
