Playoffs? They went thatta way

For the eighth time in nine years, the Wild Things and the Frontier League playoffs went their separate ways.

In other words, not much has changed.

The Wild Things have gone 15 seasons without winning a championship, which is currently tied for the fourth-longest title drought in independent baseball history and the second-longest in the Frontier League. Chillicothe played 16 years without winning a title.

The Wild Things finished this season with a record of 46-49. That's an increase of four wins over last year, so there is some improvement going on. But in the Frontier League, you can go from expansion franchise to champion in less than a year, so improving the win total by a few is nothing to get excited about, especially when the team still has a losing record -- for the seventh time in eight years. In the Frontier League, one year usually doesn't have much impact on the next -- unless you're the Wild Things.

There has been only one postseason game played at Consol Energy Park since 2007.

One!

That's all. One night of playoff baseball in nine years.

That's pathetically sad.

You would think that by pure blind luck the Wild Things would fall into a season of making the finals.

The reasons the Wild Things missed the playoffs this season came down to two things: their offense was the worst in franchise history and they couldn't beat the league's best teams, going 8-22 against the four teams that made the playoffs. It also didn't help that their two best pitchers, Trevor Foss and Zac Grotz, had their contracts purchased by major league organizations in August, while the Wild Things were in the midst of a playoff race. You simply can't replace top-notch pitchers in August.

Washington was mostly terrific on the mound, OK in the field and woeful at the plate. The Wild Things gave up the fewest runs in the league yet had a losing record. That's almost impossible to do.

Foss' performance was the highlight of the season. A right-hander who was signed in the offseason out of the Los Angeles Angels' system, Foss had an 8-3 record and won the league's ERA title at 2.50. He threw eight complete games and was within one CG of the 16-year-old league record when he had his contract purchased in early August by the Cleveland Indians.

The pitching was good enough to get Washington to the postseason. The hitting, however, was what prevented that from happening.

With the exception of right fielder David Popkins (.281, 15 HR) and designated hitter Ricky Rodriguez (.289, 9 HR), Washington's offense sputtered badly. A few other players had some good stretches, but they lacked consistency.

Washington's situational hitting was abysmal. Two statistics show just how bad it was: the team batting average with two outs and a runner in scoring position was an anemic .199, and the Wild Things had only seven sacrifice bunts all season. Some of those sacrifices weren't by design. Several were attempted bunts for a hit that just happened to advance a baserunner.

Washington finished last in the league in batting average and runs, was tied for last in on-base percentage and was next to last in doubles.

The .235 team batting average and 356 runs each are franchise record lows. Oh, for the days of the 2005 Wild Things, who had a .298 batting average and scored 645 runs. It might have taken the 2016 Wild Things 200 games to score 645 runs.

During the last-month playoff push that fell three wins shy of a wild-card spot, Washington played every game with at least two hitters in the starting lineup who sported a batting average of less than .200. Sometimes it was more than two sub-.200 hitters in the lineup. It's hard to win with that kind of pop-gun offense.

The lack of offense has been a long-running problem for the Wild Things, and one that somebody needs to spend time analyzing and finding a way to correct. Washington has finished last in the league in team batting average four times in the last six years and hasn't finished higher than ninth in that span. It's hard to be that inept on offense for that long, but if Washington is last in offense again next year, then you can add another year to the championship drought.