We’ve been warned: Building a winning franchise from the ground up takes patience. Getting better means taking your medicine, and the Nationals have been gulping it down lately.

This week the Marlins crammed a few spoonfuls of bitter syrup down the Nats’ throats, sweeping three pathetic contests that were bad even for August baseball. The Nats have now lost five straight and are a season-low 19 games below .500. Hopes of finishing the season somewhere other than last place are dwindling, with the fourth-place Braves now five and a half games ahead in the East.

It’s not just that the Nats are losing, which was expected. It’s the manner of losing that is driving management crazy. They’re committing errors in droves – an appalling 12 during the current losing streak. Even defensive stalwarts Nick Johnson and Ryan Zimmerman are culprits, committing costly mistakes in Tuesday’s 7-5 loss. One of the unpleasant surprises this year has been the substantial drop in defense from last year; the Nats are unquestionably the worst defensive team in the league, at the bottom in errors (103) and fielding percentage (.978). And while there are several not-ready-for-primetime pitchers filling August innings for the team, it’s the supposedly dependable veterans that have been particularly dreadful lately. Notes WaPo beat writer Barry Svrluga in today’s paper:

Robinson pointed out that on this trip, each of his veteran starters — Armas, Ramon Ortiz and Pedro Astacio — failed to get out of the third inning, posting an ungodly combined ERA of 32.06.

“They’ve been horrible,” Robinson said. He searched for another word, but couldn’t come up with one, so he went back to the well. “Horrible.”

Ugh.