Yes, we’re paying attention to the Florida Marlins, just for fun. Nobody wants to finish last, so we’re looking at the papers to see the standings and how close we are to them. Nobody wants to finish fourth, either, but that would be a mental victory for us. Everyone thought we would be so horrible this year so it’s nice to surprise people and prove them wrong.

This just shows that we do have a good future here. A lot of people thought it would take longer than a year or two and we’re showing them that if we get a player or two here in the offseason, we could become a good team here real quick.

We’ve convinced people that we have some good players who have a good future. To be a good team, you have to win and we’ve obviously figured it out for a couple months here. But that’s part of starting to learn how to be good. It’s also nice to win because losing gets old real quick.

Since our 9-25 start, we’re only a game and a half worse than the Mets and three games better than the Braves. Good teams do not start 9-25, but if you take that away we are a good team and we can use that to build for next year. It gets our confidence up to show that we can do it.

This story continues below
Advertisement

I think we’re all surprised at how well the pitching has done seeing as to how many people we’ve had get hurt. This is creating quite a controversy for spring training next year. It’ll be a good battle for those five spots.

And we talk about the signings from the draft. The Lerners have shown that they’re willing to open up their checkbooks a little bit and pay a little more than people would have done in the past. That also gives us confidence. They want us to be good and that fires us up a little bit.

Basically, we had nothing to lose this year so there was no reason to be nervous. There was no pressure. You show up and you play. If you win, great, if you lose, OK. That was the attitude in the first month and then all of a sudden we played better and thought we could win every day.

That’s what’s so great about baseball. If you play the right way, it doesn’t matter who you have on a team, you can beat them. That’s what Manny has instilled in us. We’re a tough, scrappy team and a lot of that has to do with him.

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. Now he’ll share his thoughts with The Examiner’s readers each week throughout the baseball season.