Washington Nationals need a spark: Matt Williams as sacrificial lamb?

The Washington Nationals were a trendy World Series pick back in spring training, and for good reason. The Nats won 96 games a year ago, and added Max Scherzer to an already-solid rotation.

Baseball is rarely linear, though, as Washington fans know all too well. The DL has been a who’s who, with Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Denard Span, Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman each shelved for long stretches.

But everybody, save Span, is back now, and yet this is the time that the Nats, 10 games over .500 as recently as the day back from the All-Star break, are now below .500.

The New York Mets haven’t exactly blazed a trail themselves, and so Washington is still only four and a half back in the National League East, but with 45 games left, the margin for error is razor-thin.

This team needs a shakeup. One logical place to shake things up would be in the manager’s office.

Matt Williams was doing a solid job a month ago getting an ever-changing everyday lineup of regulars and fill-ins to the top of the NL East, but the recent 9-20 flop is also on his shoulders.

But everything that Williams did right to get the Nats 10 games over .500, he’s done wrong to have them go 9-20 in the last month.

Scherzer, maybe overworked, has faded, big time, over his past three starts. The big trade for Jonathan Papelbon hasn’t paid off because the move for Drew Storen to the setup role hasn’t worked out, with the sulking Storen now blowing eighth innings with impunity.

The lineup lacks punch, despite the returns of Rendon, Zimmerman and Werth.

Bryce Harper has started to press, expanding his strike zone, getting on base less, getting less quality pitches to hit, in spite of the increased firepower around him.

The chemistry is all off, and with the trade deadline having passed, there isn’t much else the Nats can do to create some sort of spark.

Except fire the manager.

It might not be fair to just jettison Matt Williams with the team four and a half back, but baseball isn’t supposed to be fair.

The Nats have too much talent to be a game under .500 with 45 games to play. The buck has to stop somewhere, and if it’s not Matt Williams now, it’s on general manager Mike Rizzo at the end of the season.

– Column by Chris Graham