All aboard the struggle bus with the Nationals grounds crew (Video)

As if the Washington Nationals season wasn’t bad enough….

The Washington Nationals entered the 2020 season hoping to defend their World Series title. Those hopes and aspirations reached a screeching halt just hours before Opening Day after star outfielder Juan Soto tested positive for COVID-19. Then, all the dominoes fell, resulting in the Nationals sitting in last place in the entire NL East.

If you needed a visual encapsulation of the Nationals’ struggles, just look at their grounds crew get utterly defeated by their own tarp on Sunday. That’s right, the crew couldn’t get the tarp on the field as rain fell from the skies during Washington’s game against the Baltimore Orioles.

It took the grounds crew over 15 minutes to finally cover the infield of Nationals Park, but not without it looking like a mud pit.

The Nationals repeat bid sputtering out of control

Usually, an MLB grounds crew gets the field covered within two minutes. But as you saw in the nation’s capital, the tarp got tangled up. The good news is that the rain showers ended as soon as the infield was covered up and the sun actually broke through the clouds. So…there’s that. The bad news is that the game was suspended, where it’s scheduled to resume on Friday, Aug. 14.

The Nationals were trailing the Orioles 5-2 entering the delay. To make matters worse, this was the first start of the season for ace Stephen Strasburg, who has missed time due to nerve issues in his right hand. Strasburg was great through the first four innings of the game, but surrendered all five runs on seven hits in the fifth.

Sunday wasn’t the only day Washington had trouble with Baltimore. The Nats lost the first two games of the series against the Orioles, where they were outscored 16-3. Yes, you read that correctly. 16-3!

The Nationals better hope they can have a season resurgence like they did last year starting on Monday against the New York Mets. The even better news is that it will be on the road, which means Washington’s grounds crew can recuperate after a rough Sunday afternoon.