SARASOTA, Fla. — As the Washington Nationals packed up their belongings inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Ed Smith Stadium on Saturday afternoon, they had 175 miles ahead of them. A three-hour stretch of highway between them and the end of a grueling three-day spring road swing that finished off a 0-10-1 stretch in their last 11 games.
With nine days left before the team heads north and 11 games before the curtain goes up on a much-anticipated 2012 season, Nationals manager Davey Johnson will begin playing his regular lineup Sunday afternoon. Then, he said, you’ll get a sense of how ready his team is for the regular season.
By which he means, don’t take their latest drubbing — a 12-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on a day when three starters were in the lineup and Edwin Jackson battled his location — too seriously.
“I get tired of getting whooped up on,” Johnson said. “But it’s the old philosophy: You’re never as bad as you look when you lose, and you’re never as good as you look when you win. This coming week should be a whole lot different.”
In the last three days, the Nationals have lost by a combined score of 26-4 and their starting pitchers, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann and Edwin Jackson, have allowed 22 runs (19 earned runs) off 29 hits in just 12 ⅓ innings.
They’ve also played no more than four of their starters in each of those games — including just two everyday position players in Thursday’s loss — and sent out lineup mostly uncharacteristic of the one that Johnson hopes to be penning each day during the regular season.
They’re in a period of the spring that players and coaches alike refer to as the toughest. “It’s the last homestretch,” as Zimmermann called it Friday, and it’s been brutal on the Nationals.
“It’s been kind of a grueling three days in a rough time of the spring,” Johnson said. “Even my guys competing for spots on the ballclub, I’ve played them more than probably everyday players. They’re dragging too.”
That will change Sunday. Nationals first baseman Adam LaRoche (foot) has been cleared to begin running the bases on Monday and outfielder Michael Morse (lat strain) is set to begin throwing then, too. The wounded portions of their lineup are seemingly on the road back to health and consistent playing time for the rest of the starters should help provide a better picture than that winless record since March 12 would suggest.
Even as the Nationals walked off the field Saturday, Jackson the latest victim of a sloppy start in which he allowed 10 runs off 11 hits and two walks — including one with the bases loaded, the level of panic was extremely low. Jackson’s spring training ERA the past two seasons has been at least 5.32 so, no, his 6.88 this season is not an outlier.
“I’ve never had good spring trainings,” Jackson said. “Games like this don’t affect my confidence. When we get ready to play, I’ll have just as much confidence in myself.”
The real curtain will go up April 5. For the Nationals, though, Sunday starts a period in which the stage lights are warming, and they’ll have to show they’re ready to be the team they think they are. Until they’re anything but 0-0 where it counts, though, the record won’t be a factor in the Nationals’ thought process.
“Last time I checked,” Johnson said, “they didn’t count these.”
• Amanda Comak can be reached at acomak@washingtontimes.com.
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