I am astounded. I know fandom clouds judgment, but neither the “technical projectionists” nor the “always careful on their bets” crowds saw anything like this. This team needs a positive jolt and keeps getting mostly negative jolts.

First, Braves were playing a fundamentally atrocious team. Well, not as bad as the White Sox, or the Rockies, maybe. But clearly consensus view number 5 in NL East.

Charlie Morton created a hole in the first inning and that made it awful unlikely. He got to 2 outs and one on, and then allowed double, walk, single, double. So, it was then 4 to 0.

So, then, for the next 6 innings, the offense said “Charlie, hold my beer.” Mitchell Parker, the Nats rookie starter, has showed pretty good stuff this year, so it is not preposterous that he might do pretty well. But this? Horrors!!!

Charlie “braved” it out and saved the pen. But he gave up single runs in 2 and 3 and 2 more runs in 6 before Uncle Jesse Chavez came in and stopped the bleeding. So, after it was 8 to 0, the offense almost woke up.

Scored 4 in inning 7, the Braves got 4 runs with all sorts of positives (walks, hits, home runs, stolen bases, things like that). But that was it for the night.

As the chronicler David Essex, OBE said, “And where do we go from here? And which is the way that’s clear.” Damn if I know.