Nats Insider: Crowds growing week to week

Nats Insider: Crowds growing week to week:

'via Blog this'

Duh, winning.

As if this is somehow strange.

Although it may be that its not just winning but exceeding expectations that is the real key.  These Nats have exceeded expectations of everyone (me included) and this aspect makes the story of the Nats season that much better.  A surprise twist if you will.

Atlanta has shown us how the tyranny of missed expectations can deflate what is by any other standard a highly successful franchise. The Capitals are another example.

In any event, I never bought the crap that Washington "wasn't a baseball town."  A town is what its most successful franchise is.  Maybe St. Louis really is a baseball town (as shown by David Freese's 8 million plus votes. Side note: although there are still all star caliber players who aren't going to KC, Freese should get this dispensation just for what he did last October. ) but that's about it.

The elements are in place for sustained period of good baseball here.  It will be interesting to see what this town would look like with a perennially successful baseball franchise while the other sports teams continue to flounder (I'm looking at you Dan Snyder don't think this is a football town forever, your sustained lack of success isn't going to be turned around by one flashy draft pick.)

As for the Nats, I don't think things could be going any better right now.  The Phillies are this close to running up the white flag (as they should), the Braves rotation is a problem, the Marlins are an overrated mess, and the Mets are well the Mets.  This generation of Mets specializes in caving down the stretch not running down a frontrunner.

Not only this, aside from Gio and Ian is anyone really having a season beyond reasonable expectations?  There aren't any luck factor stats showing this 16 games over .500 to be a fluke.  So far, they are a 94 win team and have played like it.  Maybe that pace is a little much but they only need to play .500 the rest of the way to be a wild card contender.  

edit:  rather than put up a new post, I'll just throw it here since it is sort of relevant.

Playing .500 from here on out would give the Nats 41 wins. Added to the 48 they already have and you are at 89.

So the target for the rest of the division is 90.

Mets  79  GTG Need 45 wins   WP needed  .569
Braves: 80 GTG Need 47 wins  WP needed  .587
Marlins 80 GTG Need 50 wins  WP needed  .625
Phillies 84 GTG Need 53 wins   WP needed  .630