Despite the early losses, we’re still real positive. It’s obviously hard to lose this many, but every team is going to do it at some point in the year. We’re just doing it at the beginning and because everyone said we’re supposed to be so bad they’re now saying, “I told you so.”

If we had started like this last year, then the mood in the clubhouse would have been a lot different. Manny Acta is a lot more patient. Frank would have been pretty upset right now. Manny understands what we have going on and how young we are and that these things will happen. He’s been real patient and positive, never saying anything negative. The chemistry is a lot better than last year. We would have had some people be more frustrated now. Maybe not pointing fingers, but they would have been upset with some people.

We have players like Dmitri Young and Robert Fick who keep things loose and upbeat. Actually, our whole team is like that. There aren’t many people stressing or pressing too much and that makes it easier to come to the park and try to win than if everyone was frustrated or mad.

We’re real close to playing well. Our pitchers have walked too many people and our defense has not been good enough. But we’re hitting. I’ve never seen any team hit more line drives or hard-hit balls right at people. Even the other team is saying that — and you don’t usually hear other teams say things like that.

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Obviously we’re frustrated after losses. But you have to come in the next day and put it behind you. That’s the good thing about baseball; you can lose by 10 runs and you come to the park the next day and it’s a totally new game.

It takes time to learn that lesson. You want to do so well because you feel like everything you do is watched and scrutinized and people want to talk to you about everything so you think about things way too much when you get up here. But you have to realize you’ll get 600-some at-bats and play 162 games. In the grand scheme of things, one game or a couple of at-bats do not mean anything. You have to learn how to deal with failure in baseball. If you don’t learn that early, the game gets pretty frustrating.

As told to The Examiner’s John Keim.

Nats third baseman Ryan Zimmerman is one of baseball’s rising stars and, at 22, the face of the franchise. He’ll share his thoughts with The Examiner’s readers each week throughout the baseball season.