Photo by Kevin H..

Maybe we should have known that it was too good to be true, something that was never meant to last. Our own utopian vision of a perfect summer romance — a riveting and competitive campaign by our Washington Nationals — seemed less like a pipe dream after Baseball Prospectus’ highly-anticipated PECOTA projections predicted that the Nationals would finish the season with a record of 82-80. PECOTA even suggested that the Nats would be but mere games behind in the National League playoff race.

Sadly, just like so many young flings beneath the hot August sun, it was nothing more than a reminder that hope often times clouds the logical mind.

Thanks to a boatload of glitches, PECOTA revised their projections yesterday to gauge the Nationals at an (arguably much more likely) 76-86, good enough for another last-place finish in the division and nowhere even remotely close to the NL wild card position. So, why the six-win drop? The Nationals’ pitching staff got several fixes (including a massive, nearly half-run hike in John Lannan’s projected ERA), and an understandable adjustment to the Nationals’ defensive capabilities — it was probably silly to assume that a team that led the league with 143 errors in 2009 would suddenly become a top-notch defense after a single offseason.

Not all is lost, though! As The Nats Blog astutely points out, even a 76-win season would be an incredible improvement over last year, when the Nationals finished with a sad 59 wins. Ah, sweet optimism.