Jim Riggleman is delusional. The interim skipper is apparently too close to his torturers and is inflicted with Stockholm Syndrome. The old guy is insisting that the Washington Nationals, the team that has six more losses than the next worst team and 44 more than the worst, are not, repeat, not the worst team in baseball.
Has he been napping through the games? Or just, like the majority of the D.C.-area population, just completely ignoring the team since, oh, about July?
Here's what he said to reporters after yesterday's slopfest loss to the Phillies, which made them 7-20 in the last month of play:
"[Y]ou pick up the paper, you hear things, and a lot of comments get started with, 'The worst team in baseball, the Washington Nationals.' And you know, we're not the worst team in baseball. Unfortunately you are whatever 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, the negativity, and allows people to write those things."
Yeah, those silly people writing those things about a team that basically clinched a second consecutive No. 1 overall draftpick by May, a team that dumped its sadsack manager after a long series of hideous losses, a team that has allowed 70 more runs than the next worst team in the league. Yes, 70!
They're really underrated, Jim. The Phillies are quaking at their boots, no doubt, in fear that they've gotta play such an awesome juggernaut again tonight. Maybe they'll only win by four or so this time?
His comments were particularly galling coming after the game they did, in which the Nats' Keystone Kop routines from early in the season reared their heads. Nats Journal helpfully summarizes:
Wednesday, the Nationals bunted into outs when there was no particular purpose for bunting. They hit into strange double plays. They hit into even stranger double plays. And when that ran its course, they hit into conventional double plays as well. Defensively, they committed an error and botched and first-and-third double steal play where Cristian Guzman was so preoccupied with the tag play at second, he never even threw home as Chase Utley broke for the plate. Yeah, an uncontested steal of home.
Riggles had this to say: "For me, our record does not indicate the quality of the ballclub we have. The score of that ballgame did not indicate the ballgame that was; that game was 2-0 for a long time, and now it ends up 6-1 and it looks like the worst team in baseball again."
The Nats have been quacking like a duck for months, Jim. You don't have to pluck the feathers are stare at the bill for hours to figure out what exactly they are.
They stink, Jim. They really do.
