Nats’ Jayson Werth: NL East ‘our division to lose’

The Washington Nationals are mired in a slump having lost 10 of their last 16 games, including four of their last five. What used to be a comfortable 4.5 game lead on the New York Mets in the NL East has now turned into a one-game deficit. Heavy favorites at the start of the season to take home not just the division but the World Series as well, now the Nationals face an uphill climb to fend off the Mets and reclaim the East as the MLB season winds down. None of this worries resident lumberjack Jayson Werth, however.

Speaking with the D.C. media on Tuesday, the 36-year-old veteran expressed confidence that the Nationals will easily be able to turn on the jets in the second half and take back the division before season’s end.

“It’s a matter of time, really,” said Werth via Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. “We’re a great second-half team. We’ve been playing, half our team has been hurt all year. That’s the reality of it. When we all get back, we’re right there, in first place. We’re a game out now. But I think going forward we can get all back healthy and get rolling and it’s our division to lose.”

Though the notoriously pompous Werth has at least some basis for his confidence given the talent on Washington’s roster, one would think that holding off the Mets will take more than simply getting healthy. Jacob DeGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and a rejuvenated Matt Harvey atop the Mets’ staff is looking like this generation’s answer to Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz. The Mets’ rotation poses the biggest non-Dodgers counterthreat to the Nationals’ elite pitching staff in the NL, and certainly the biggest one in the division. Plus the Mets’ offense landed the power right-handed bat they so desperately needed by trading for Yoenis Cespedes at the deadline. Not to mention that Lucas Duda has been on an absolute tear lately.

For the Nationals, the eventual returns of Stephen Strasburg and Denard Span from the DL will be a boost, as Werth alluded to. Ditto for the addition of reliever Jonathan Papelbon at the trade deadline. But between Werth’s certainty and Bryce Harper’s comments yesterday, it really seems like the Nationals are in denial, fooling themselves into thinking that the Mets aren’t a threat when in reality, that couldn’t be more wrong.

Indeed it is the Nationals’ division to lose. But right now, they are doing just that.