Nationals' biggest challenge right now is survival

It should seem self-evident what type of shape a team that is approaching 30 games over .500 in late August is in. The easy answer should be that they are putting the finishing touches on what has been a spectacular season, and should be counted among the very best in the game.

Perhaps no word is more synonymous with the Washington Nationals than ‘should,’ because it sums up both the recent history and immediate condition of the franchise so well. They are a team that boasts the reigning National League Cy Young winner in Max Scherzer, as well as one of the game’s most prodigious talents in Bryce Harper, who is just two years removed from a precocious Most Valuable Player award in his own right. Mix in the presence of last season’s MVP runner-up in Daniel Murphy, a stockpile of highly lauded prospects made good upon in the likes of Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner and cap it off with one of the most impressive veteran revivals in recent years in Ryan Zimmerman, and the Nationals should be considered an unbreakable force headed into the postseason.

But because of what has been, that perception cannot be fully embraced. That impressive collection of talents is nothing new in the nation’s capital. If anything, no team in the National League has looked more impressive on paper than the Nationals have over the last half decade. Since 2012, they have won the NL East three times and finished no lower than second place in any season. In those championship seasons, their average season record has been 96-66 and have held home-field advantage in each series.

Despite this, they have failed to win a single postseason series over the same timespan, securing a deserved reputation as the game’s most reliable underachievers. It has been a "Groundhog’s Day" dilemma of sorts: win big early, before flaring out late. In the last six years, three different managers have been tasked with getting them over the hump, with Dusty Baker the latest to come up short. Both of his predecessors – Davey Johnson and Matt Williams – won NL Manager of the Year while in D.C., an honor that could find Baker this season, and were replaced the following the year. And due to this checkered past, it has seemed impossible to trust the Nationals to live up their potential. But this year, something seems different. Maybe, after all the years of failing early in the battle, the Nationals have developed a callous to the wounds of defeat; the type of scar tissue that allows them to trudge forward regardless of the obstacles along the way.

And those obstacles have been plentiful, as the summer of 2017 has presented a plethora of complications unlike any the previous incarnations of the team has endured. On the year, there have been 11 different starting pitchers have been deployed, with another 15 different relievers being in the mix behind them. 13 different outfielders have suited up, while nine different pitchers have tried (and largely failed) at closing out games within a regularly resurfaced bullpen that has spent much of the year as the National League’s worst. At the peak of club’s health and wellness misfortune last week, 12 different members of the roster inhabited the disabled list at once, including five members of the Opening Day lineup.