We clearly played well against rest of the NL and AL and did very poorly against the best teams. Look at the rest of the league (NL + AL) we clearly conceded only 3.91 runs and scored 4.48 runs. Against the DIV leaders, the runs scored were 2.23 and runs given were 3.68.  It really doesn't matter if these were earned runs or not, as both Earned and Unearned contribute towards the final runs.  

On top of that Nats made 107 errors. The third highest in the NL League. The only team that had more errors than Nats, and did better were LAD. Guess how many errors STL and ATL made?  75 and 85 respectively. STL made the least errors in NL.  The more errors you make, the worse your prospects are of making it to the playoffs.  LAD made lot of errors, but they scored hell lot of runs too. Total of 649. So their errors could be easily overshadowed by their stellar offense.  Team ERA of LAD was also very low. Second lowest in NL. ATL was only lower than LAD.Total runs given by LAD were 582 - again 2nd lowest in NL. So it seems, somehow, by hook or crook, they were able get it from biting their asses.  

A lot of this could be co-related easily that half of the team as banged up until July or so.  

Another week, we would have made it to the playoffs as a Wild Card.

I would think of it as a perfect storm hitting us when ATL, LAD, and STL play against us. We give up too much runs.. Don't score enough, and Errors aren't helping us out either.  

 
Split W L RS RA
ARI 4 2 24 17
BAL 1 3 17 20
CHC 4 3 31 36
CHW 3 0 20 13
CIN 4 3 27 36
CLE 1 2 8 10
COL 4 3 27 29
DET 2 2 10 21
KCR 2 1 22 18
MIA 14 5 86 52
MIL 4 3 31 27
MIN 2 1 15 8
NYM 12 7 88 76
PHI 11 8 94 56
PIT 3 4 29 31
SDP 5 2 41 38
SFG 3 3 17 24

SUM 79 52 587 512

Per Game RS 4.48  
Per Game RA 3.91


ATL 6 13 49 73
STL 0 6 8 19
LAD 1 5 12 22

SUM 7 24 69 114

Per Game RS    2.23
Per Game RA 3.68

 
* Sources
-MLB.COM
-BASEBALL-REFERENCE.COM

-- Modified on 4/14/2014 5:58:58 PM