Either I'm In Bizzaro World Or the Washington Nationals Are

So, it’s been a few days since I’ve last reported on the Washington Nationals.

After watching them win their last two games against the Pirates in Pittsburgh, I woke up Wednesday morning with hallucinations. I had dreamt that the Nationals had beaten the Florida Marlins for the first time this season the night before.

So I went back to bed.

I woke up this morning, and again, more hallucinations. In my obviously sick and demented mind, I believed that the Nationals had won a second game against their nemesis, this time on a last moment, hero-making home run by Adam Dunn.

Nah. No way. These are the Nationals, and they are the Marlins.  I drifted back to sleep, waking up later in the afternoon to Charlie Slowes’ dulcet tones, telling his listeners that the Nationals were down 6-0.

In the second inning.

Feeling that life had finally righted itself, that reality had replaced mental illness, I got out of bed, took a shower, and did some laundry. Only once my chores were finished did I sit back down in front of my computer to begin the process of doing the post-mortem on the Nationals’ latest loss.

Only they won.

What? They won?

Down 6-0 in the second inning, they scored 12 runs and out-slugged the Florida Marlins 12-8.

So, I jumped into my stainless steel DeLorean and took a quick trip back in time.

Sure enough, the Nationals beat Florida 6-4 on Tuesday as Adam Dunn hit his 28th homer of the season.  On Wednesday, John Lannan gave a yeoman performance and Ryan Zimmerman and Dunn both homered to lead the Nationals to a 5-4 win.

And yes, Ryan Zimmerman hit his 23rd homer of the year on Thursday, as the Nationals overcame a bad start by Craig Stammen.

So, who exactly sent me to Bizzaro World? I mean, it must be Bizzaro World, though the baseballs aren’t cube shaped.

Wow.

On the day Manny Acta joined former senators and congressman in the D.C. ash heap, the Nationals were 26-61, by far the worst team in baseball, and on a collision course with the 1962 New York Mets.

Twenty-two games later, under new manager Jim Riggleman, they are playing .500 ball—11 up and 11 down—playing hard, hitting harder, and finally having some fun.

All around the Beltway, Nationals fans are scratching their heads, trying to find the reason, maybe reasons, that the team is no longer both an embarrassment and an abomination to the city.

Tea leaves are being read. Crystal balls are being gazed into. Mediums are being sought out.

Hey everyone, it's not a hard thing to figure out. The Nationals are hitting again.

In Riggleman’s first six games as manager—all losses—the Nationals scored a combined 13 runs, barely two per game. Since their series in Milwaukee, however, they have scored an amazing 76 runs in 11 games, or 6.9 per contest.

Other than trading off Nick Johnson for Elijah Dukes in the starting lineup, it’s the same team. The Nationals have simply come out of their two-month slump. Remember, until late May, the Nationals were among the leaders in most National League offensive categories.

For most of the 2009 season, the Nationals lost nearly 75% of their games because of a swirling tsunami of bad luck, bad defense, and a really bad bullpen.

Their luck has changed, their defense, while not great, is better, and their bullpen is actually—man, am I actually saying this?—a strength.

With 52 games remaining in the season, I think these newly-minted Nationals can win half of them, finishing the year at 63-99 and avoiding 100 losses for the second year in a row.

Either that, or I’m hallucinating again.