Just take deep breaths Nationals fans. With the most recent news of Max Scherzer signing with the division rivals the New York Mets, it's time to face the hard cold facts Nationals fans: It's going to be tough sledding over the next few years, and there is no doubt about it.

Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't being honest with you. No matter what Mike Rizzo and others from the organization say publically, there is a lot of pain that fans are going to be experiencing and the season hasn't even started.

Besides the fact that Scherzer is now with the New York Mets, it looks like there will be no big free-agent signings this offseason, all signs look like there will not be a Winterfeast where the Nationals will trot out their newest signing, it's going to be a cold winter.

What bobbleheads and what players are the Nationals going to be featuring this upcoming season? Ah... even the small things in life are going to be painful.

The pain will continue whenever the season starts because when the Nationals take the field in New York City for the first time in 2022, against the New York Mets, Washington Nationals batters will have to look right at either Jacob DeGrom or our former Ace Max Scherzer and maybe both during the opening two series.

Sure, the first match-up between Juan Soto and Max Scherzer will be fun to watch just as the first match-up between Max Scherzer and Bryce Harper was to watch back in the Spring of 2019, but the excitement will wear off pretty quickly and sure when the Mets come to town, there will be a lot of Curly W Scherzer jersey's there also will be a lot of Mets Blue Scherzer Jerseys also in the stands.

Related Article: What’s the Plan for the 2022 Season? Simple, Make Juan Soto want to Stay

We all sort of knew that when Scherzer was traded to the Dodgers in July, the chances of the Nationals re-signing Scherzer wasn't more than 10% but, to have Scherzer in the NL East is just another punch in the gut for fans, and ever since the Nationals won the World Series, there has been punches after punches that this team and fan base have had to deal with. It's actually incredible to watch and to experience.

Sure, there are going to be a lot of highlights and excitement that might be coming out of the Nationals, from seeing a new batch of Nationals prospects rise through the minors and become part of the new "core" of the Nationals, and we will see another World Series win, but it's going to take a long time for that to happen.

We've seen this team get built from the bottom up, however, this "reboot" is really the first time that the Nationals and the fanbase have been through a re-build of this magnitude and process. In the past, the Nationals were just building a brand new franchise, and not a franchise that won a World Series.

Related Article: Perspective: The Great Rizzo Reboot of 2021

Nationals fans have grown accustomed to seeing winning teams year after year, and it's going to take a bit of getting used to again not seeing any real playoff run in the immediate future. Sure, we could be wrong, and the "root boot" only takes one to two years and the Nationals are back being competitive year after year, but realistically, it is going to take time and we should be ready for that reality.

There is one reason to be optimistic right now as a Nationals Fan, and that is Juan Soto, but who knows how long that is going to last...

Wake me up when this nightmare is over, please.