These Are the Times That Try a Nats Fan's Soul

Part of the fascination of a hometown baseball team is watching it suffer.

That's certainly where the Nationals are now with 10 men on the disabled list, others hobbled, the whole team in a three-week batting coma and the next 10 straight games against top foes. You want tough? The Nats have got it. They're on the road against the NL champ Cards. They've lost five of six and are only one game over .500. The woeful Reds just swept them. And, on their off day yesterday, they made eight personnel moves.

For those keeping score, rode-hard-and-put-up-wet Jon Rauch is likely out for the season, ineffective starters Zach Day and "I, Claudio" Vargas have been shipped to the minors while valuable reliever T.J. "Shrek" Tucker returns from the MASH unit. For some teams, Iwo Jima; for the Nats, just a typical day. The gods have gotten medieval on 'em all season.

You want snakebit? John Patterson, the starter with the lowest ERA, took three needles this week to relieve back pain. He became faint and nauseous from the treatment, so medics hooked him up to oxygen and an IV. But the IV inflamed a vein in the pitcher's arm and his wrist went numb for hours. He went on the DL on Wednesday. From his back? Or his wrist? Take your pick.

Next time, guys, why not just put the IV in his left arm? You know, the one he doesn't pitch with.

In such times, teams learn what they're made of. But self-knowledge won't be limited to Washington players. Many in this area will discover whether they are part of that perverse breed that loves the delicious agony of a 162-game season. For both teams and individuals, baseball is a game of almost incomprehensible hot streaks that are so exciting, and equally mysterious slumps that are so demoralizing, that your own daily moods can be affected by the team's bipolar fortunes.

The common denominator of lifelong fans is that, whether their team is soaring or sinking, they can't tear their eyes away. If former secretary of state Colin L. Powell gets his wish to be part owner of the Nats, he may wonder if it was wise. Attaching your emotions to a baseball team is dangerous business, more obsessive than bonding with any other sport. If that team is also a wounded underdog, surrounded by enemies as it fights for a new start in a new city, the drama can be addictive.

What attracts Powell also touches others. Countless fans take an emotional "ownership" role in a team. Half-consciously at first, they buy into the club as they sense the daily drama of a game that tests its players at so many levels so continuously.

For example, the Nats lost 4-3 in 14 innings on Tuesday and left 17 men on base. To maximize irony, the Reds won on a hit by a pitcher with a career average of .000. Since baseball's grind resembles the working stiff's workaday world, the Nats had to come back to the same Great American Ball Park for another game just 13 hours later -- to get clubbed 12-3.

Baseball doesn't help you back up to your feet. You have to do that yourself. Whimpering doesn't help. The schedule maker just sends you to St. Louis for three days. You have a choice: Show up or fold up.

That's where the Nats find themselves. And, because they have scored more than five runs in a game only once since May 7, they know exactly what to do. Well, in theory. They need to relax at the plate because they are all trying too hard.

So (all together), "relax!" they scream at each other.