This is How They Get You

Win a couple of series, manufacture a redeeming moment for the guy riding the end of the bench, generate a little buzz with trade deadline talk, draft signing panic and typical ownership ineptitude. All of a sudden, against their better judgment, a few more people are paying attention to the Nats than were at this time last week.

Do not be fooled! The pitching is still a patchwork mess. Defense is a crapshoot at best, and somebody forgot to tell the hitters that you can't bank runs from game to game.

There's no sign that the team is committed to moving its tradeable commodities and no evidence that they could get value in return if they did. Forget the talk about August 31st being the real trade deadline. For the Nats it's July 31st or bust. Washington's hottest properties (Johnson, Willingham, Dunn, Beimel) wouldn't make it through waivers unless they were physically anchored to Austin Kearns and Cristian Guzman.

Maybe the club is showing some improvement, or maybe they just ran into two of the other awful teams in the NL. Either way, the front office has 5 days to demonstrate that their commitment to improving the Nationals is more than just hollow happy talk.