VIERA, FL--On Tuesday, Washington Nationals pitchers and catchers reported to Viera, Florida for the start of training camp. Though it’s only February, many players on the team have already given up hope that they will finish higher than fourth place in the NL East. With the optimism already faded, the Nationals are left with nothing to do but count the days until the end of the season.

“230 more days between now and September 30,” said catcher Brian Schneider. “Actually, 229 days and 15 hours. Tomorrow will be 228 days. Ah, I can’t wait for tomorrow. 228 days sounds pretty sweet. Then 227, 226, and so on. When you look at it like that it really doesn’t seem that unbearable. Of course, come the dog days of summer things will start to get a little torturous, but by that time we’ll just be playing out the string. Actually, we’re already playing out the string. Is it possible to be playing out the string before the season starts?”

The Nationals come into the season with a roster made up of rookies, cast-offs, and veterans attempting to come back from injury. Their manager, Manny Acta, has never managed a big league game in his life, and the pitching staff is made up of John Patterson and an anonymous group of people nobody has ever heard of.

“There’s a lot of new faces around here,” said Acta, hired last season to replace Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. “It’s going to be my job to introduce everybody and help guys get to know each other. That’s what spring training is for. By the time the regular season starts we should all be the best of pals. By the time it’s all over, we’ll all hate each other. But that’s very natural for a young team, especially one as painfully shitty as ours.”

The Nationals have lost a number of players to free agency, most notably Alfonso Soriano, who signed an 8-year $136 million deal with the Cubs in the offseason. Soriano had 46 home runs and 42 stolen bases last season.

“Filling that hole is going to be difficult,” said third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. “Alfonso was our best player last year. Now the rest of us are going to have to step it up. I had 110 RBI last year, and Nick Johnson batted .290, and Austin Kearns isn’t too shabby, so it’s not like our lineup is totally hopeless. But our pitching staff? Totally hopeless. Like Iraq War hopeless. Boston Celtics hopeless. Like the kind of hopeless where the rest of the team shouldn’t even bother trying. We will though, because it makes the games go by faster.”

On a bulletin board in the Nationals clubhouse hangs a large calendar representing the entire 2007 baseball season. Acta has divided the season into quarters in order to set goals and keep the players from looking too far ahead.

“We’re going to take it one quarter at a time,” Acta said. “The goal for the first quarter of the season is to finish .500. The goal for the second quarter is to finish no more than 10 games under .500. The goal for the third quarter? Try not to suffer any debilitating injuries. The goal for the fourth quarter is to show up for all of the games and try to remember to hold the bats right side up.”

Still, some players are optimistic that the Nationals can make some noise in the NL East. Last year, the Florida Marlins, who boasted the youngest roster and lowest payroll in all of baseball, made a surprising run at the Wild Card, forever giving hope to the league’s underdogs.

“The Marlins showed that anything is possible,” said reliever Chad Cordero. “It doesn’t matter what your fans say about you, or what your manager says about you, or what you think about yourself, or what all reason and logic dictate should and will happen. All that matters is that you believe in yourself, which we don’t, so this is kind of moot. I guess what I’m saying is I’d like a trade to the Florida Marlins.”

Copyright 2007, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.