Mystery of the Excess Runs

The Nationals have not looked good at the plate to start the season.  The team is batting .218 (15th in the NL), with an OBP of .305 (15th) and a SLG of .333 (15th).  The Nats' OPS+ of 74 is the lowest in the league.  There are two things to say - one is obvious, but I think the other is interesting:

1. The offense will get better.  Even the worst offensive team in the NL typically finishes with an OPS+ of ~83 (translation: 83% as potent as league-average).  Cold starts are no match for the power of a 162-game season.
2. For such impotence at the plate, the team is managing to score a reasonable amount of runs. This was slightly more pronounced before Kyle Lohse did his best Jose DeLeon impression on Thursday (Cardinals hurler DeLeon also pitched a CG, two-hit shutout on the same date in 1989 - against the Expos).  The Nationals are 12th in the NL in scoring (4.06 runs/game), but are much closer to league-average (4.33) than they are to the 13th-place Pittsburgh Pirates (3.53).  We know the Nats aren't hitting - so where are those runs coming from?

How are the Nationals producing runs?

The answer is that all outs aren't created equal:

The definition of 'Productive Outs' are 1) successful sacrifice for a pitcher with one out; 2) advancing any runner with none out; 3) driving in a baserunner with the second out

Mystery solved.  Those rates are clearly unsustainable, but they are serving to temporarily bridge the gap until the bats kick in.  No, I'm not going to make a 'Bridge to Nowhere' joke.  I will include a picture, though:

Technically, last place in the NL East is 'somewhere'