The Washington Nationals‘ erratic first half of the season has been a learning experience for the fans as they come to grips with a team that may not, after all, be the first-ever 162-game winner, and for the clubhouse staff as they conduct detergent-related science experiments to get chocolate sauce out of jersey fabric.
Baseball rarely ever follows a script, but it looks like the Nationals didn’t even attempt to learn their lines. After opening the season as consensus World Series favorites, Washington promptly started said season with a 3-8 record. The team followed that early face-plant with three months’ worth of peaks and valleys.
With heroic individual performances serving to balance out inconsistent pitching, the Nationals were one of the hardest teams to predict in the first half of the year. But Washington hasn’t been without flashes of dominance on its way to a 37-33 record and a seat atop the NL East.
The Nationals are still finding their identity, and once that process is complete the team’s raw talent could overwhelm the rest of baseball. But to hazard any guesses regarding the second half of the season would be just that: guesses.
So while we wait for the team to advance the story for us, here’s a look back at the anatomy of the Nationals’ first half of the 2015 season.