Photo by jocemne.

Geez, could tomorrow’s Nationals home opener get any more depressing?

As of this posting, the club is 0-5 on the season, only one of two teams in Major League Baseball — along with Cleveland — yet to win a game. The team’s first week included a game on Friday in which they stranded 16 baserunners, only to lose by one run to the Braves. That letdown followed a three-game pasting from Florida, a team that, for some reason, top baseball statisticians pegged to finish below the Nats in the standings.

By now, everyone knows that the President isn’t throwing out the first pitch, so if any of you bought tickets for a chance to see the world’s biggest celebrity’s pitching motion, that’s sadly out the window.

Oh, and here’s a good one: Nationals President Stan Kasten went on Philadelphia sports radio last Tuesday to shamelessly beg Phillies fans to buy tickets for Monday’s home opener. An example of Kasten’s sales pitch to fans of the WFC:

“Hey, you’ve got an opening day hat!” Kasten said, when asked about any giveaways on Monday. “It’s a Nats hat, which is ok, but we do feature for sale many Philly hats in our store, so come on by.”

It’s telling that Kasten, the Nats’ most visible executive, finds one of the most basic representations of the team which he helps run on a day-to-day basis just “ok.” Nationals baseball: feel the enthusiasm!

But hey, if the terrible baseball on display, or the lack of Obama, or the fact that the team’s executives are openly courting road fans (from Philly, no less!) to the team’s still kinda new stadium to boost attendance for a home opener doesn’t get you down enough: check out Dana Hedgpeth and David Nakamura’s front-page WaPo story about how — so far — Nationals Park has been a colossal failure for its neighborhood. Is it the team’s fault that the stadium’s completion happened on the cusp of a recession? No. But still, the park fostered an idealistic run on real estate and development which fostered incredibly unrealistic expectations about the area.

Office buildings stuck in limbo whose doors are kept locked most of the time, small businesses which can’t afford the rapidly rising property taxes but can’t find any buyers for their land, and holes in the ground which represent the stalled development around the park: this is what will greet you on your way to the stadium, just like it did last year. It’s all just so uplifting. At least the weather should be nice while you’re walking by said holes.

There’s no crying in baseball, but at the moment, there’s certainly not much to smile about either.