With 40 games left, the Nationals are running out of room to keep dreaming and still have time to make it real. At 59-63, Washington would likely need something like a 27-13 finish to reach 86 wins and put itself in decent playoff position. That kind of push is still possible, but every loss tightens the screws.
Friday night brought another reminder of why the margin is so thin. The Nationals finally called up left-hander Jackson Kent, and his debut had a little of everything.
The line reads rough enough - three earned runs, five walks and six strikeouts in 4.0-plus innings for a 6.75 ERA - but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Kent actually threw 4.0 scoreless innings before the fifth unraveled fast, with the first three batters all reaching base.
That’s the part that matters most right now: Washington is using this stretch to learn what it has. Can a young arm handle the stage, the noise, the pressure of a big-league park?
Riley Cornelio already gave one answer. Kent at least kept his composure.
His next start is expected to come on the road in Texas on Tuesday, and that outing should tell the Nationals a lot more about what kind of pitcher they’re looking at. The raw stuff is there - a 13.5 K/9 will get attention - but the command numbers are a different story, with an 11.25 BB/9 and that 6.75 ERA.
The bullpen, meanwhile, remains a problem the Nationals can’t afford to keep ignoring. Washington’s relievers allowed nine runs in five innings, and none of the damage was isolated to one arm.
Jake Bird, Yovanny Cruz, Tom Cosgrove and Trevor Williams all got hit, and the inning-by-inning collapse wiped out any momentum the club might have had. Just when it seemed like the relief group was moving in the right direction, it got hammered.
Alex Bregman did the most damage, launching three home runs off three different relievers in consecutive at-bats. That’s not something you see every day.
Cruz, in particular, ran into trouble because he still can’t consistently get his fastballs over for strikes. Bregman recognized the pattern, sat on a slider and made him pay.
Cruz has the kind of electric arm that keeps you interested, but until he locates the fastball, he’s more of a work in progress than a finished product.
The defense piled on, too. Andres Chaparro’s error on a soft grounder opened the door to four unearned runs, and it was the kind of play that can sink a game in a hurry.
It also reinforced a broader issue that has followed Washington all season: the Nationals lead baseball in unearned runs, and the extra outs keep costing them. Chaparro’s struggles aren’t just about errors, either.
On Friday night, he also couldn’t handle a grounder hit at his right foot while Jake Irvin was pitching, and it was ruled a single when it should have been a double-play ball.
That kind of defense does more than add mistakes to the box score. It extends innings, inflates pitch counts and drags the whole operation down. The Nationals have been burned by those intangibles far too often this year.
There’s also a bigger roster question looming in the middle of the diamond. CJ Abrams is rated among the worst defenders in baseball with a -17 OAA, and Washington has to decide whether shortstop is still the right home for him.
Moving him to second base or even the outfield has to at least be on the table, because it’s hard to justify the current setup. Beyond Nasim Nunez, the infield hasn’t covered enough ground, though Brady House has looked better at third base in his second stint and Abimelec Ortiz has shown enough in a small sample at first base to look playable.
The outfield has been the brighter side defensively, with Jacob Young leading the way. James Wood is the one exception.
He started the season well out there, but his play has slipped as the year has gone on. He’s been better going back on balls and charging in, but his lateral movement remains the issue.
Wood sits at -8.0 OAA on those side-to-side plays, offset by +2.0 on vertical plays for a net of -6.0. That opens the door to another question the Nationals may have to answer before long: could Wood be looking at a position change, too?
In Other News...
Nationals Just Opened A Rotation Battle With One Big Spot Up For Grabs
The Nationals rotation picture shifted again when the club requested unconditional release waivers on Miles Mikolas, the right-hander they had already designated for assignment to clear a path for pitching prospect Jackson Kents big-league debut. For Washington, it leaves a familiar late-season roster question hanging over the staff, with the club carrying four starters and needing to decide how to bridge the next turn through the rotation.
Brad Lord is among the possibilities to take that opening, and right-hander Luis Perales is also in the mix if the Nationals choose to promote from within. For a team that has kept leaning on young arms and roster flexibility, this is less about one transaction than about how quickly it wants to settle the back end of the rotation while the rest of the staff takes shape. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Prospects Had A Rough Friday For One Frustrating Reason
Friday was a reminder that a busy farm system can still deliver a long night. Across the Nationals affiliates, there were plenty of pitching matchups and scattered offensive moments to track, with Rochester, Harrisburg, Wilmington, Fredericksburg, Charlotte, Richmond, Hudson Valley, Fayetteville and the DSL Nationals all part of the scoreboard watch. For a player-development system, days like this can be useful in the big picture even when the results are uneven, because every level is offering a different snapshot of where things stand.
The frustrating part for Washington was how quickly some games got away, especially when early runs put the burden on the lineup to keep answering. A few clubs found enough offense to stay in it, while others spent most of the night trying to recover from the pitching side of things, which made the final lines feel more lopsided than the contests had been for stretches. For a prospect-heavy organization, that kind of Friday can leave you with just enough to note and just enough unanswered to keep following the next box score. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Just Made A Telling CJ Abrams Infield Decision
Blake Buteras pregame announcement gave the Nationals a notable infield shakeup, with CJ Abrams set to spend more time at second base moving forward. The move is designed to keep Abrams in the lineup for his bat while giving Washington a cleaner defensive alignment on the left side of the infield, where his range and arm have been under the microscope all year.
Abrams will still see shortstop on occasion, but Nasim Nunez is slated to handle that spot more regularly as the club tries to settle on its best defensive setup. For a Nationals team still trying to balance development with production, the decision says plenty about where the organization believes it can get the most value out of one of its most important young players. [Read more 🡒]