Every time we lose games like this, my anxiety gets raised. My anxiety is raised, in this case because, if Ryan Zimmerman plays like this all season, we won’t make the playoffs, especially if he continues to bat third. And I’m not ready to accept that yet. I’m not ready to accept the possibility that, on June 4th, we’re already destined to not make the playoffs. Being out of contention in early June would make this season much like almost every other season we’ve had, since the Nationals came back. I can’t go there yet.
And no, I’m not predicting that he will play like this all season but other players have played this badly for entire seasons. Adam Dunn, as we all know, played worse than this for an entire season. But the facts that we have currently on the table are that he’s playing horribly. It could be a slump or injury or decline in skills or something we’re not even thinking of. We don’t know what it is, raising my anxiety even further.
The success of this team is, in no small part, tied directly to the performance of Ryan Zimmerman and that’s not a good place to be right now.