Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
If the measure of “worst team” is the one that wins the fewest games, then the Nationals are, in fact, as bad as it gets. They’ve lost 95 games, and are well on their way to back-to-back 100-loss seasons.
But that doesn’t mean they’re the worst club in baseball, according to manager Jim Riggleman:
“You pick up the paper, you hear things and a lot of comments get started with: ‘The worst team in baseball, the Washington Nationals.’ You know, we’re not the worst team in baseball,” Riggleman told us reporters afterward. "Unfortunately, you are what your record says you are. But we’ve got a good ballclub. And this good ballclub just found ways tonight to shoot ourselves in the foot and lose a ballgame, which adds to the record and the negativity and allows people to write those things.
“For me, our record does not indicate the quality of the ballclub that we have. The score of that ballgame did not indicate the ballgame that was. That ballgame was 2-0 for a long time and now it ends up 6-1 and it looks like the worst team in baseball again, people write.”
So, they’re a good ballclub, but they just can’t seem to win games. Odd. Although I will say this in Riggleman’s defense: their offense actually isn’t awful. So there’s that.
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