Chelsea Janes explores the idea that the Nationals poor season can be explained by a lack of something intangible:

But this team, as a whole, seems to subscribe to a similar theory: Either you win or you don’t win. You play how you play, and sometimes it works.

That mentality is entrenched here. Four very different managers led this team over the last six years and couldn’t change it. Rizzo acquired gritty players including Adam Eaton and Daniel Murphy, and they didn’t alter it. A strange determinism lives in that clubhouse, one the Nationals themselves do not always recognize — one as apparent to those on the outside as it is invisible to those on the inside.

Let’s call it the win at all costs mentality. It’s supposedly what made Reggie Jackson Mr. October. Some say it’s what enabled the Red Sox to win the 2004 ALCS. It’s why players use PED and alter their bats and scuff and spit on balls.

Having know some major league ballplayers in my life, it’s pretty clear they all have this. Somebody at ESPN once noted you can’t play a friendly game of checkers against a professional athlete. The win at any cost attitude is what got them to the majors in the first place.

I think the Nationals are right. Sometimes you play well and lose, sometimes you play okay and win. Tom Tango keeps this cartoon on his site:

Note that the situational problem for the Nationals hitters came with no one on base. They did a poor job setting the table not cleaning the plate. The only place where bearing down in a clutch situation might have helped was in certain situations when the opposition had a man on third. The sample size of those situations were so small that it could just be random noise, but those 2% of PA account for about 25% of the runs scored against them.

I would bet on regression to the mean kicking in next season, and the Nationals winning more games on that alone.