Short Hops: New stadium can't save Nats from embarrassment

You can take the team out of Montreal.

But apparently, there's no removing the traveling carnival atmosphere from the team.

It hasn't been easy for manager Manny Acta in D.C. (Getty Images)

As the Nationals' fourth season in Washington, D.C., swirls badly down the drain, even a brand new stadium isn't enough to cover the ugly organizational warts and blemishes:

•  On the field, the Nationals are wretched. Their 12-game losing streak through midweek is the franchise's longest since a 12-gamer in August 1976 (perhaps the club just doesn't play well with the Summer Olympics going on).

•  On the farm, the club whiffed on signing its first-round pick at last Friday's deadline, right-handed pitcher Aaron Crow from the University of Missouri, despite the fact that, according to various reports, the two sides moved within $500,000 to $700,000 apart from each other.

•  On the couch, television ratings for the club are the worst in the game, with only 9,000 households in a metro area of 5.3 million watching on any given evening.

•  On the legal front, the Washington Post reported last week that the Nats have refused to pay $3.5 million in rent to the District of Columbia, charging that the publicly financed Nationals Park is not "substantially complete." Even though it has been open for business all season.

That the Nationals would squabble with D.C. over rent -- whichever side is in the right -- shouldn't be surprising because this is an organization that continues to give every sign of financial trouble or mismanagement, take your pick.

The Nationals, according to multiple sources, are habitually late in paying their bills on matters ranging from road trips (hotels, reimbursements to players for their expenses) to other matters (scouts often have to wait four and five months for their expenses to be paid, though one source said this week that has finally been sorted out and mostly corrected.)

"They're late on all their payments -- all of their payments," one industry source saaid. "People hate dealing with them. All aspects of what they do.

"They've got problems. Big problems."

All signs point to a complete and utter mess, as far as the eye can see in nearly every direction.

Regarding last week's draft-signing deadline, the Nationals, Seattle and the New York Yankees were the only clubs that failed to sign their first-round picks. But schoolboy pitcher Gerrit Cole, who will start at UCLA in the fall, essentially told the Yankees that he wanted to go to college and would not sign, period, whatever they offered. The deadline did not apply to the Mariners because right-hander Josh Fields has already finished his senior season at Georgia.