The Washington Nationals were probably the most disappointing MLB team in 2018. After winning the National League East title four of the past six seasons and finishing second the other two campaigns, the Nats sputtered to an 82-80 record a year ago and out of the postseason.
During that six-year span since 2012, they have three times fired managers who had led them to the division title -- Davey Johnson, Matt Williams and Dusty Baker. The reason? Washington failed to advance past the first round of the play-offs.
Talk about being spoiled.
The Nationals had reached this height of impatience after never having won a postseason series in their time in Washington, dating back to 2005. Four times they captured their division only to make a hasty play-off exit.
But no one was expecting last year's version of the Nats to implode as they did. Not with a line-up that featured one of the game's most feared sluggers in Bryce Harper and a pitching staff headed by two-time defending Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer.
But crumble they did. First year manager, Dave Martinez was spared the ax, though, and is once again calling the shots from the Washington dugout.
So what the heck happened? Did overconfidence overcome the Nats? Did they think they could just show up and automatically finish near the top?
"I think it just goes back to being healthy," offered Nationals' hurler Jeremy Hellickson to Wiggins' World. "Because of injuries, we didn't have a full team for but maybe a few games the whole year."
"We played without [leading hitter] Daniel Murphy the whole first month, we lost [slugging first baseman] Ryan Zimmerman for a while and [centrefielder Michael A] Taylor for a long stretch. [Closer Sean] Doolittle misses the end of the year," continued Hellickson, "and [outstanding pitcher Stephen] Strasburg is out a bunch of the time.
"For the whole season, a big piece was missing."
But this is a new campaign and -- for now, anyway -- the Nationals are healthy and hopeful of a bounceback campaign.
"We have a really strong starting pitching rotation -- with two all-stars [Scherzer and Strasburg]," reasoned Hellickson. "I don't think it gets any better than when you have two power arms leading the way."
Offensively, it remains to be seen how the Nats will manage without Harper who inked a humongous free agent deal with Philadelphia this spring.
"We're gonna miss his home runs for sure," opined Hellickson. "But we've signed Brian Dozier [ex-Minnesota second baseman], a guy who's hit 30 homers in the past.
"We're gonna miss some parts of [Harper's] game but we have some guys taking over who have ability. With Taylor we're gonna be good defensively and we'll be fast."
Hellickson is set to join the Nats starting pitching rotation. He's coming off a solid 2018 campaign as a starter with DC -- a 5-3 win-loss record with a 3.45 Earned Run Average in 19 starts before he, too, went down a wrist injury.
Hellickson is not your prototypical MLB hurler. These days the average fastball thrown is in the mid-90mph range. Anything lower in speed is considered to be "slow".
Relatively under-sized at 6-1, 190 pounds, Hellickson qualifies as an anomaly for an MLB pitcher. He rarely reaches the upper 80s with his fastball. His breaking pitches come in at a slothful mid-70mph rate.
"I just try to keep 'em off balance." Hellickson told Wiggins' World with a shy shrug, "throwing any of my pitches for strikes in any count."
That approach has worked well for 31-year-old Hellickson, who has a career 74-72 win-loss record with a 4.06 Earned Run Average over 10 big league seasons.
"I know what kind of a pitcher I am," said Hellickson. I think it's more fun being that way."
"I don't know what's so much fun about striking everyone out. I wish I knew," Hellickson said with a chuckle. "I enjoy going out and getting weak contact and letting our fielders do their job."
Hellickson told WW he expects a real dog fight in the NL East this campaign.
"We play in maybe the toughest division in the league, with Atlanta, Philadelphia and the New York Mets," Hellickson offered. "The Phillies and Mets really made some good off-season moves."
"I don't think we have the mindset where we can just show up and win," he stated. "We have to go out there and earn everything."
"I think we have a good shot -- we gotta just stay healthy."
Contact Wiggins' World at davwigg@gmail.com
