In spring training, I bored Kilgore and other beat guys with my odd-ball theory that, while the Nats were far from a great team, they accidentally had depth at exactly the proper places that __as I said then (paraphrase)__ "They could lose their best OF from last year (Werth), their best infielder (Morse at 1st), their best catcher (Ramos), their best reliever (Storen) and their top winner from '11 (Z'mann) and still be a respectable 75-win team. Try that experiment with almost any other N.L. team __they'd be devastated. The Nats still have a real team."

But, good Lord, I didn't thionk it could actually happen. Ballplayer may be able to jinx ballplayers or themselves. But spring training chatter does not fall under the potential jinx category. I hope I didn't include that little theory in any of my chats or columns back then.

(Knock on wood) As long as Strasburg, GG, Z'mann, Detwiler, Jackson and Wang, when he returns, make the Nats one of the best rotations in baseball __and their 2.76 team ERA is the best by .42__ you'll be amazed how hard it is for them NOT to make a 10-team playoffs setup.

BUT they have had absolutely all the major injuries they can take. Zimmerman has to start to hit. He's contributed nothing. Espinosa has to play like '11. And Harper has to shake off all this nonsense that keeps happening to him __or that he keeps doing to himself__ and have a decent rookie season.

When '12 is remember for Nats injuries, I wonder if all the current DL guys won't be back and perfectly OK in future, while the one thing we remember is: "Bryce Harper almost pulled a Tony Conigliaro ON HIMSELF but didn't."

Everybody has smashed equipment. Presumably Harper has had a long corrective conversation with himself, thanks to Mr. Bat. Just so he understands that 1) he didn't do anything awful, 2) but he did do something really dangerous to himself and 3) he was damn lucky, NOT unlucky.

On the flyball he missed, in the minor leagues, NO park has a second deck. So the lights for night games are much lower. So the ball on Sunday __close to twilight, in the mist with the ball up in a bank of lights that Harper has only a few games of experiencing__ was the definition of a "rookie mistake." Meaning things like that happen to almost ALL rookies because they face conditions/circumstance in the big leagues for which the minors simply cannot prepare them.

But, by next year, he should catch that ball 100% of the time __at a standstill. He just has to get used to "picking up the ball" at a different point in its flight and expecting the lights to be where they are __high in MLB__ not lower like the bush leagues.