Human beings need hope to survive. And nothing gives a baseball team more hope than looking at its schedule and seeing the following words: Washington Nationals.
This is why the Orioles should be in a terrific mood Friday when they open a three-game series against the Nats at Camden Yards.
Oh, you may be an Orioles fan and think your team stinks.
You may be a Kansas City Royals fan or a Cleveland Indians fan or an Arizona Diamondbacks fan and think your team stinks.
But your team does not stink nearly as much as the Nationals stink.
No, the Nationals, despite a core of promising young players, have brought stinking to a whole new level.
They stink in epic proportions, in ways baseball has not seen in many years.
In fact, the Nationals are threatening to break the all-time record of 120 losses held by the immortal 1962 Mets.
Let's go to the numbers: Right now, the Nats are 20-49 after 69 games.
The '62 Mets were 19-50 after 69 games, prompting manager Casey Stengel to utter one of his greatest quotes: "Can't anybody here play this game?"
Nats manager Manny Acta hasn't used that line yet - at least not publicly. But he might break it out any day now, if he isn't fired first.
You know that annoying Southwest Airlines commercial where they keep repeating "It's on"?
Well, the race to be baseball's all-time biggest loser is definitely on. And lots of people feel it's a race the Nats can win hands-down if they keep playing the way they're playing.
"I know we're better than the '62 Mets," pitcher John Lannan told the media after Sunday's 9-4 drubbing at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays. "We're not going to go down as the worst team in baseball history, that's for sure."
But this was before the Boston Red Sox crushed the Nats, 11-3, Tuesday night at Nationals Park, scoring six runs in the eighth inning and sending the crowd streaming for the exits as if someone had called in a bomb threat.
And it was before the Nats were beaten, 6-4, by the Sox on Wednesday night, too.
Look, you knew this team was in for a tough season back in April when two of its best players, Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn, took the field at a home game wearing jerseys with the team's name misspelled.
Yes, with the "O" missing, Zimmerman and Dunn proudly took on the Florida Marlins in spiffy "Natinals" jerseys, with news and photos of the screw-up quickly disseminated all over the world.
