Washington Nationals: Offensive barrage, tall tale after Jayson Werth’s home run brighten the mood

VIERA, Fla. — (Editor: Let’s hold the Nationals obituary column for later this week. Will find another subject for Monday paper. Boz.)

Oh, sorry. Got to keep those internal memos more confidential.

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After the Nationals went 0-10-1 in their previous 11 games, Manager Davey Johnson went to several of his everyday players, who’d been leaving games after three at-bats and seldom going to road games at all, and said, “You’ll be playing a little more . . . Jayson Werth, you’ve got nine [innings].”

“It’s about time,” said Werth.

So, with Michael Morse and Adam LaRoche, the fourth and fifth hitters, still out of the lineup with nagging injuries, the Nats sent a semblance of their best available lineup to the field against a scruffy Mets road team Sunday. “I think we’re about ready to go to the whip,” Johnson said to reporters.

Leadoff man Ian Desmond homered.Danny Espinosa and Ryan Zimmerman followed with back-to-back doubles off the right field wall. Then cleanup man Werth hit probably the longest homer to left in the eight years the Nats have trained here, over three sequential layers of signage (Turtle Creek Golf, World of Beers and Climactic), into a heretofore unnoticed grove of trees in front of a players parking lot. Before the first inning ended, Roger Bernadina homered, the Nats had five runs, 18 total bases and even Stephen Strasburg, who pitched five scoreless innings in the 12-0 win, had cracked a hit.

A team in need of a boost, and one that actually does have a bunch of worrisome issues with opening day coming just 11 days after Sunday’s game, not only had a win it wanted but added a tad of the team-bonding tale telling.

“Did you get that one?” Werth was asked.

“Off the toe a little,” he said over his shoulder. “I hit my truck.”

Werth hit his own truck in the parking lot with the longest ball here in years? Come on. “I thought it landed in the lake out there,” Johnson said.

And what is the source of this Bunyanesque anecdote? “Desmond found out from the ultra-reliable grounds crew guy,” said Zimmerman, deadpan. “I don’t know if he’ll be able to afford to fix it.”

“Right now, it’s more of a rumor, folklore,” said Werth at his locker stall, getting ready to go inspect the damage to his mythological pickup. “I think they are messing with me. But if it is dented or smashed, cracked or shattered,” said Werth, relishing the last word, “I kind of foresee it staying that way for a while.”

Probably all season. If Werth’s window is not shattered, either by his homer or by a reliever hustling out and humming a two-seamer through an appropriate window, then the Nats lack vital playoff-contending experience. Because, on a real ballclub, the story is spread and that car gets drilled.

Baseball is different, just totally different. This kind of foolishness seldom exists in other team sports; some are more violent, or perhaps, have thousands less hours to kill in a season that lasts 194 games, minimum. Everything is part of the unfolding team and individual narrative. That 0-10-1, as well as the Nats’ lousy 6-13-3 record now, is “meaningless”; but it meant enough for Johnson to call his regulars together to chat.