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Is reaching 500 important to the Nationals this year?

Yes and no. It'd be nice to have a winning record, but no one is expecting them to be a .500 team this year. 2012 and beyond though, no excuse, this team has been set up to win starting next season.

Yes because .500 is a benchmark of sorts, but their improvement has been a step and a half up from last year......so a 77-85 record is still positive.

There is a huge performance difference in a team that wins 66 games and one that wins 75-80 games