5 Bold Predictions for the Remainder of the Washington Nationals' Season
Rather than carving out a path of destruction through their comparatively easy schedule, the Washington Nationals had to wait 31 games to come by their first winning record.
Bryce Harper's scorching .625 batting average in the last four games has helped melt away the remnants of Washington's glacial start to the season. But despite their star's ludicrous numbers and a 7-2 record in May, the Nationals are still a wildly unpredictable team.
In the last two games, Washington has sacrificed a lead in the seventh inning or later but still managed to produce a win out of thin air.
Many preseason prognostications are shot at this point, but with a month's worth of perspective, we're going to develop some new ones. Anthony Rendon's availability, Bryce Harper's ceiling and some potential roster moves are among the question marks in D.C. this summer.
So, ranked based on boldness, here are five predictions for the remainder of an already chaotic Nationals season.
5. The Mets Won't Go Quietly
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The Mets are a seventh-grader taking college-level calculus classes.
They have a stable of thoroughbreds led by Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom positioning them for future contention, but that overwhelming potential has materialized into wins much sooner than anticipated. New York leads the NL East with a 20-11 record, and while we flip through the schedule and try to pinpoint where the Mets will begin their collapse, they just keep winning.
New York has four starters with at least three wins, including 41-year-old Bartolo Colon's unfathomable 6-1 record and 26-year-old Harvey's 5-1 mark.
The Mets are getting the best-case scenario from everyone who touches the field, and that's what will make them a sustained threat to the Nationals. New York will win around 85 games when it's all said and done, contending for a Wild Card spot and delaying Washington's division title until September.
4. Anthony Rendon Won't Return Until After the All-Star Break
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By the end of April, Anthony Rendon's knee injury had finally progressed to the point of a rehab assignment in Double-A Harrisburg.
But now, the proud owner of the worst luck on the team has been re-sidelined with an oblique strain.
"There's no real time frame other than we want to make sure he doesn't feel it doing the other stuff," Matt Williams said via the Washington Post's James Wagner. "Once he can do that, then he can get to baseball stuff. [The timetable is] kinda up in the air."
It doesn't feel like Rendon is anywhere close to a return to Washington's lineup. Even with a knee that checks out medically, he was still scratched from a rehab start when the joint wouldn't loosen up to his comfort level. That's on top of his actively ailing oblique, which, as Wagner points out, sidelined Yunel Escobar for two weeks when he sustained a "mild" version of the same injury.
The Nationals are finding ways to win without him, but whether or not their methods are sustainable is up for debate. The point is that Washington would be wise not to rush its budding star back into action before he's 100 percent.
The unavailability of any sort of timetable for Rendon's return suggests a more long-term absence—one that will extend past the All-Star Break in mid-July.
3. Bryce Harper Will Finish in the Top 3 in NL MVP Voting
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This is the prisoner-of-the-moment portion of today's program.
Bryce Harper launched into a war against baseballs last week and racked up 11 hits, 13 RBI and six home runs in an eight-day span. That tear has him near the top of several statistical categories across the majors. He's second in baseball in home runs and fourth in slugging percentage and OPS.
If Harper maintains those numbers, which he looks wholly capable of doing, the most overrated player in the game could be the National League's Most Valuable Player.
For the sake of the argument in favor of Harper, let's take a look at the cases of the usual suspects in the NL MVP race.
Giancarlo Stanton has emerged from his slow start to collect the most RBI in baseball, but his batting average is still an anchor to his MVP candidacy at .248, and he has the fifth-most strikeouts in the majors with 44.
Even if Clayton Kershaw were to duplicate his astounding MVP season from a year ago, giving the award to a pitcher for two consecutive seasons would be a tough sell for the voters. But, at the moment, he's not even close to that kind of production.
Kershaw has an unsightly 1-2 record with an uncharacteristic 4.26 ERA.
Andrew McCutchen is bringing up the rear among NL MVP favorites, hitting an abysmal .223 with just 14 RBI.
I'm not suggesting these three will toil in mediocrity for the entire year. But I am suggesting Harper will turn in the best season of his professional career and draw more votes than at least one of them, landing at No. 1, 2 or 3 when the NL MVP votes are counted.
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2. Max Scherzer Will Reach 20 Wins for the 2nd Time in His Career
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Max Scherzer figures to have about 26 more starts this year. He needs to earn a win in 18 of them to reach the 20-win threshold for the year.
It'll happen.
Scherzer's 2-3 record is in no way indicative of his masterful start to the season. His 2.11 ERA, 49 strikeouts and 0.94 WHIP all lead the Nationals rotation.
The early-season losses on the resume of Washington's ace are the product of a floundering team that let an injury pileup derail the on-field product of a still-talented roster. Now that the Nationals have found their footing, Scherzer's dominance can translate into wins with the defense and the lineup holding up their ends of the bargain.
Through the first six games of Scherzer's 21-win 2013, his record was 4-0 but his ERA was 3.43. He finished the year at 2.90 and at no point in that season was his ERA as low as the number he's carrying right now.
For the rest of 2015, Scherzer's losses will be few and far between while he receives enough run support to reach 20 wins.
1. Ian Desmond Will Be Traded Before the Deadline
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The Nationals and Ian Desmond have been trying and failing to agree on a contract extension for several years now. And with Desmond's deal up at the end of the season, Washington will flip him—perhaps for bullpen help—before July's trade deadline.
This offseason, the Nationals held trade talks that could have seen Desmond on the Mariners or the Rays (both via Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports). And now, with Danny Espinosa and Yunel Escobar both proving to be serviceable replacements and Desmond's stock plummeting with every error, Washington could be even more inclined to trade their homegrown shortstop.
This is all somewhat contingent on Anthony Rendon's return to the lineup at some point this year. That would free up Escobar to slide over to his natural position at short and return hot corner responsibilities to Rendon.
But in the catastrophic event Rendon isn't available by the July 31st deadline, the absence of both him and Desmond would create an everyday starting role for Dan Uggla, which is a dicey proposition.
But as things stand now, with Desmond hitting an unassuming .240 and leading the majors in errors, the Nationals will actively look for a trade partner who could offer them a lift in the bullpen or the infield.
*All stats courtesy of MLB.com
Danny Garrison is a Washington Nationals Featured Columnist on Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @DannyLGarrison, where good tweets are celebrated with chocolate syrup showers.
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