The Washington Nationals. Ugh. Just the mention of this uninspiring “patriotic” team name drums up feelings of mediocrity, hopelessness and despair; a certain level of inferiority; a knowledge that the team being spoken about is not quite good enough — kind of like an 1100 on an SAT test or a seven on the Wonderlic.

Harsh? Hardly. For a team that has consistently tried to put itself in a position to dominate and has continuously come up short, that opening paragraph isn’t even close to harsh enough.

Washington, D.C., manipulated its way into having its own baseball team again, this time at the expense of the Montreal Expos. The Expos, who had the fast track to the World Series with a record of 74-40 before the 1994 season ended due to the strike, are no more. Yes, those Expos… the ones who had Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, Gary Carter and Andre Dawson on their rosters at different points in time. The classy organization that painted an upper deck seat where Willie Stargell hit a 535-foot home run a shade of Pirates yellow to commemorate the furthest home run ever hit at Olympic Stadium headed south to the United States, the memories mostly remaining north of the border.

I suppose that with the way the Expos dumped salary and failed to attract fans in their later years due to ineptitude and poor ownership, the Nationals have followed the lead perfectly. Washington has only cracked the top five in attendance once in the 11 years since baseball returned to D.C. after a 33-year sabbatical from the nation's capital.

With names like Nick Johnson and Esteban Loaiza littering the roster, the Nationals had high hopes but no realistic chance of achieving said goals. Alfonso Soriano, Josh Willingham and a few other decent players have made pit stops in Nationals Park, but most of the time their careers were in the twilight years, making for more of name signings than impact signings designed to help the team long term.

Sure, Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper and Gio Gonzalez have been recent mainstays with the Nationals, but every possible combination with these “studs” that fans try to talk themselves into loving has been unable to get out of the first round of the playoffs. This group, along with key cogs like Anthony Rendon and Jayson Werth and star free agents like Max Scherzer, has yet to make anything substantial happen in terms of playoff success.

In fact, the Nationals, long expected to do big things, have made the playoffs just twice since coming back to the United States. For some perspective, that is one less time than the Oakland Athletics, who consistently sport one of the lowest payroll (and attendance) numbers in all of MLB.

The Nationals franchise hasn’t come close to making the World Series since 1981, when the Expos lost in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in recent seasons, they've underachieved, only to watch the competition thrive, whether we're talking the New York Mets last season, the Philadelphia Phillies in years prior or the Miami Marlins pushing back toward relevancy.

Host Trevor Noah may have said it best on a recent episode of "The Daily Show" when discussing another team that's recently been derided in its own sport: “The Philadelphia 76ers don’t need more basketball players; they need better basketball players.”

That’s the exact sentiment that every person not rooting for the Nats shares — “The Nationals don’t need more closers/starters, more infielders or more outfielders; they need better closers, starters, infielders and outfielders.”

However, as fandom often does, a lot of Nats fans are left blind to this realization because they’re wearing rose-colored aviators. They see names like Harper and Scherzer and Strasburg and expect success, neglecting the full makeup of the team.

Sorry, but Jonathan Papelbon just isn’t going to cut it… wait, he’s no longer part of the 25-man roster? OK, well then, Stephen Strasburg… he’s on the DL for the second time this season? Hmmm, but what about… oh GEEZ! Joe Ross and Stephen Drew are still on the DL too? How long does vertigo last?

No matter. Surely Dusty Baker can pull all the right strings and get the Nats over the hump. Wait, what? He’s roughly the equivalent of the L.A. Rams head coach as a baseball manager from a win/loss perspective? No, he must be better than Fisher in the playoffs at least, right?! Oh. They're almost identical in that category as well? Rats.

No matter what happens, the Nationals never seem to meet their potential, and even with the second best record in the National League right now, they don't have the feel of a World Series team. Why should this year be any different?

Guess it’s a good thing its football season and Jay Gruden and Kirk Cousins are ready to lead Washington back to the playoffs! Because the writing is on the wall with the Washington Nationals. They lead their division by almost 10 games and hold the reigning the National League MVP, so it should be interesting to see how the Nats let this one slip away. At least, that's what baseball fans outside the Nationals expect and are not-so-secretly rooting for.