Les Carpenter of the Washington Post looks at why the Nationals have fallen so fast.

And if so, why had it disappeared so fast? The best answer seemed to lie in the results of one-run games, normally a reliable barometer of a team's resiliency. On July 8, the Nationals were 24-8 in one-run games. Since then they are 0-10 in such situations. Still, all that says is Washington can't win close games the way it once did. There lingered a deeper solution, something felt but unable to be grasped.

I'd say a team's record in one-run games is more a measure of luck than resilency. But once you get by that paragraph, it's a pretty good article. Robinson discusses the weaknesses of the team quite frankly.

Robinson doesn't believe his team was playing flawlessly in the first half, quite the contrary. While the statistics showed the Nationals were one of the best defensive teams in the majors, he saw blunders that worried him. Perhaps it was a bobbled ball that prevented a double play from being turned or a throw to the wrong base that allowed a runner to move up -- mistakes that didn't show up in box scores or were minimized and eventually forgotten when the other team didn't score.

Suddenly those errors seem to matter. The ground ball that was bobbled allows a runner to score these days. The throw to the wrong base is bringing the decisive run home. For most of the past few months, shortstop Cristian Guzman and third baseman Vinny Castilla have not been hitting. Guzman's average is at .186; Castilla's is at .246. Together they have just 58 RBI. Their offensive ineptitude was considered acceptable as long as they played good defense. But lately both players have started making defensive errors or, particularly in Guzman's case, missing balls they probably should have had.

The Nationals are a team whose luck (at least temporarily) ran out.