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Walters is the place to be tonight with your friends as Max Scher pitches at Wrigley, the caps have game three in Boston, and the Lakers and Warriors meet in the play-in game.

Next pitch. Sway in a high drive, deep center field. Robla is going back to the track, to the wall, and there it goes.

David Bodie gives the Cubs the lead again with his third homer of the season at Chicago 5 and the

Nationals 3.

And welcome to Nats chat for Wednesday, May 19th, 2021, along with Nationals insider Mark Zuckerman

of Massensports.com.

I'm Al Galdi, host of the Al Galdi podcast.

Well, here's all you need know about what happened for the

nationals on Tuesday night at the Chicago Cubs. The Nats scored three runs or less for an 11th time

in 15 games. Something that should be the exception has become the rule. Another game in which

the Nats offense doesn't do nearly enough. Six-three loss at the Cubs

in game two of a four-game series. Second consecutive loss to begin the series. The Nats

fall to 16 and 22 on the season, two for 12 with runners in scoring position on a rainy night

at Wrigley. Mark, it feels like we've been here before this season. I was just going to say, Al, I think we've had this discussion once or twice or 10 times already in the first month and a half of the season. It's not good. You know, it's one thing to be 16 and 22, which is what they are, and to have done it in a couple of different ways. Maybe you have some bullpen blowups. Maybe you have some bad starts. Maybe you have some crazy games that just things don't go your way. But there is a recurring pattern here, as you just said, and it is a complete lack of offense. Now, I mean, they gave up six runs. So it's not like the pitching staff was great in this game. But as we've been talking about, there's no margin for error. They can't win a game when the pitching staff does give up anything. And here's another stat that kind of goes along with it all. This year, when they give up five or more runs, they are one and 15. Now, of course, you're going to lose more often than not when you give up five runs. But you've got to be able to win some of the times. And they've only done it once so far. I think that was opening day,

actually, which was 7-6. When you just don't have any kind of offensive threat, this is what

happens. And, you know, once you're down by the middle innings, there's just not a whole lot of

reason for them to come back. And that's a troubling development for them and concerning about, you know, what may be in the long term

for them for this season. I think what's also really emerging as concerning is this, save for

Josh Bell, everyone else is kind of doing what you expect everyone else to be doing. It would be one thing if you had a bunch of guys with great track records and you're saying yourself, well, you know, they're just not playing to their potential. We know these guys are better than what we're seeing. Beyond Josh Bell, and that's kind of a separate conversation because he is so streaky and is so up and down, Everyone else is kind of doing what they've done in their

careers. Like it's not like someone who has been great has been awful so far this year. It's kind of like, no, these guys are where they are. I mean, Juan Soto hasn't been himself since coming off the injured list. Okay, fine. But by and large, like Jan Gomes is doing Yon Gomes thing. Starling Castro is doing Starling Castro things. Kyle Schwerber has been better lately. This is what this team is. And I think that's the concern is that this isn't a slump to begin the season. This isn't a rough patch that the Nats are in the midst of. This is who the Nats are in 2020, 2021. That's the real fear, I think, if you're a Nats fan at this point. I would push back on you on Soto because I think he is much less than he should be right now. And even before I got hurt, he was starting to get going, but he wasn't really hitting quite to the extent that we have seen from him. And I think back to spring training, and it was a topic back then that he was hitting a lot of ground balls. And that's exactly what he's still doing now, he had a better game on Tuesday, a couple of hits, including a double. I don't know that he alone is going to make the difference, but when you're talking about potentially the best hitter in the league, who's just not at all looking like that, he hasn't been awful, but he's not looking like who he's supposed to be and certainly not hitting the ball for power. That alone could make a difference in some of these games, not in all of them, but in some of

them. So I would push back on that. If he was hitting 320 with a 450 on base percentage and this was still happening, then I'd be concerned. But he's not there yet. So that's the one area where you could say it should get better. But I do agree with you on the rest of them,

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