Annually, they are the lions of February -- the team stacked with stars in all the right places at all the right ages with all the right awards -- and yet here the Washington Nationals are, again, on the brink of disappointment. To understand the culture of the club, its ability to generate excitement and headlines but not championships, Washington Post baseball writer Chelsea Janes joins the Best Podcast in Baseball for a discussion with host Derrick Goold, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Nationals hover around .500 and must now think about life after Bryce Harper and the possibility they've missed capitalizing -- ahem -- on the best years of Max Scherzer's career. Also discussed is what it's like to cover sports for a newspaper alive and electrified by political coverage and if that means there are certain verbs that cannot be used in sports stories. The Best Podcast in Baseball, an StLToday.com venture, is brought to you weekly by Lumberlend, Co.