The Nationals May Need A Plan B

When Jim Bowden saw my hand in a splint, he laughed. "Did you punch the TV watching us play?" asked the general manager, whose Nationals have lost eight of 10 after last night's win over the Pirates. "My leg should be broken from all the stuff I've kicked."

Nick Johnson (arm in a cast), Austin Kearns (elbow encased in ice) and Ryan Zimmerman (nursing a bum shoulder) joined the morbid fun. "I know how you did it," one said, making the universal gesture of smacking your palm against your forehead in disbelief after watching a bonehead play.

"I'll be as good as new in five weeks," I said.

"So will we," Bowden shot back.

By the all-star break, starting with Ronnie Belliard's two-homer return to the lineup last night, Bowden figures his halt and lame, including closer Chad Cordero and catcher Paul Lo Duca, should be back.

But between now and then, what torment awaits Nats fans? For every 10-9 win on an Elijah Dukes walk-off homer last week or 7-6 win last night on a two-run homer in the ninth by Lastings Milledge, how many other games will resemble the limp 4-0, 5-0, 6-1, 4-1, 10-1 and 6-0 beatings the Nats have suffered in just the last 10 games?

In the last two years, the team hasn't taken out a nickel's worth of insurance -- in the form of big-name free agent signings -- to buffer itself from just such a disaster.

D.C. shelled out $611 million for this? On Opening Night, the whole city was full of waterfront joy. In two months or two years, that mood probably will return. But not now.

The Nats have been cruising along for two years, living the bright side of their Plan. Spend on the minors and ballpark amenities. Use the big club to hold tryouts, hoping to find a star in the remainder bin. And promise fans the world (series) someday.

Now, the worse-case scenario, in the form of a hurricane of injuries to a fragile, low-budget team, has arrived just as a new stadium, built at public expense, is opened. Great park plus cheap team minus bad luck equals rotten karma.

Suddenly, a new phrase rises to mind -- "margin of safety." You'd think businesspeople such as the Lerner family, who've already sunk $500 million in the Nats, and an old victim of the caprices of sport such as Stan (14 division titles, one champion) Kasten, would include concepts such as worse-case scenario and margin of safety in a master plan.

But apparently they didn't. The Lerners and Kasten have been so successful in the past that they barely imagine failing. As Kasten says of his new park that averages 30 percent empty seats, "When we win, they'll come." He never says "if." Just a footnote on repeating great success: How'd that work out for Joe Gibbs?