[sphinx]

Good point. It is also worth remembering that most people, during preseason, were picking the Nats to win the NL East. No one anticipated that the Nats' bullpen would be as bad as it turned out to be. Heck, I didn't know it was possible for a bullpen to be that bad. Atlanta had a great season, but had the Nats had even average relief pitching, they would have edged out Atlanta. And then they lost Rendon, Turner and Zimmerman to early season injuries. The Nats' recovery from a 19-31 start was terrific, but this team had potential all along.

I don't know why it took the Nats so long to figure out the bullpen issues. The solution was obvious by mid-May. They needed to go into the 7th inning with an eight run lead to have a chance of hanging on to win by one or two. I don't know why Davey didn't figure that out a lot sooner. The trades at the deadline helped some, but the bullpen will still probably be their undoing.

[nobamanomore]

The other thing to remember about playoffs is that you don’t need 5 starting pitchers, you need 2 killers. You can have one pitch the first game, the 2nd, then a travel day, use another pitcher the next day, the let them pitch again. They can pitch on three days rest and pitch four out of five games in the series.