Late July was supposed to be about sorting out the future for the Washington Nationals, not chasing the present. Instead, they walked out of Colorado with an 8-0 win, two of three on the road against the Rockies, and a real place in the National League wild card race.
That Wednesday victory mattered. It came behind another loud night from the offense and a gem from ace Cade Cavalli, and it pushed Washington to within 1.5 games of the final NL wild card spot heading into Thursday’s off day. For a young club that has spent years trying to climb out of a rebuild, that is no small thing.
Manager Blake Butera made sure to acknowledge what this stretch means after the game.
"Everyone in the clubhouse knows the standings," Butera said after Wednesday's game, per Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic. "We know the trade deadline is around the corner.
It's on TV every day. People are talking about playoffs, trade deadline, buyers, sellers, all those different types of things.
And I know this is the first time in a while that a lot of these guys have played meaningful baseball here late in July, hopefully, going into August. So we're having fun with this."
That’s the part Nationals fans have been waiting to hear. It has been seven years since Washington was last in postseason baseball, and the franchise’s post-championship rebuild has turned into one of the roughest stretches in the sport. But this season has at least given the club something it has lacked for a while: games that still matter when the summer starts to fade.
The offense has been a big reason why. When it’s rolling, it gives Washington a chance to hang around in games it would have been buried in during the lean years. And when the pitching shows up, as it did with Cavalli on Wednesday, the Nationals can stack wins quickly enough to stay in the conversation.
Still, the front office has a decision to make. President of baseball operations Paul Toboni was brought in to get the rebuild pointed in the right direction, and building up the farm system remains a major part of that job. That could mean moving some of the club’s best assets before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, especially with the market shaping up as a seller’s one.
At the same time, Toboni has also said he has started to think about the playoffs, which leaves room for a different approach than the one Washington may have expected to take when the season began. The likeliest path is a balancing act: selling some pieces to add prospects for the future while also trying to patch up an ailing pitching staff with help that can keep this run alive a little longer.
FanGraphs still gives the Nationals just a 7% chance of making the playoffs, which makes the long view the sensible one. But whatever comes next, the bigger point is already clear.
Washington is playing meaningful baseball in the back half of July, and that alone marks real progress for a rebuild that needs its young players to learn how to win in games that count. Under Toboni and Butera, the organization can now say it is ahead of schedule.
In Other News...
Should The Nationals Bring Max Scherzer Home For One Last Run
Max Scherzer is still showing enough to make the idea of a return to Washington feel more than sentimental. In a rehab assignment with the Blue Jays Triple-A affiliate in Rochester, he worked five no-hit innings with seven strikeouts, a reminder that even late in his career he can still miss bats and control a game when he is right.
For the Nationals, the appeal goes beyond nostalgia. Scherzers playoff rsum still carries weight, including his recent postseason innings and the World Series Game 7 start that helped define his legacy, and a reunion would also bring a veteran presence into a young clubhouse that could use it. Whether that kind of move is realistic is another matter, but the fit is obvious enough to keep the conversation alive. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Have Two Rotation Problems They Cant Ignore Anymore
The Nationals have reached the point where their rotation issues are no longer just a midseason annoyance. Zack Littell and Miles Mikolas have not given the club enough length or consistency, and the strain has shown up in a bullpen that keeps getting asked to cover too many innings. When two starters are regularly working short outings, the rest of the staff feels it, and Washington has been living that reality for weeks.
There are only so many ways to patch it, which is why the conversation has started to turn toward outside help and internal options alike. The trade market could offer names such as Seth Lugo, Reid Detmers, Dylan Cease, Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal, while the organization also has to decide how aggressively it wants to test its own depth. Jackson Kent has not yet been pushed to Triple-A, leaving the Nationals with a rotation question that is becoming harder to postpone. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Offense Is Building A Storyline Fans Cant Ignore
The Nationals are heading into a six-game homestand with a lineup that has started to look like more than just a collection of young bats. Washington opens against the Diamondbacks before turning to the Blue Jays, and the early signs are hard to miss: the club leads the majors in stolen bases, Nasim Nuez is pacing the sport individually, and James Wood has become a constant threat at the top of the order while ranking among the National Leagues top hitters in several offensive categories.
Woods production has given this offense a different kind of edge, one that blends power with pressure on the bases and makes every inning feel a little less settled for opposing pitchers. CJ Abrams and Wood have also put themselves in rare company among MLBs all-around threats, and the bigger question now is whether Washington can keep stacking those kinds of performances as the homestand unfolds and the lineups momentum gets tested by a pair of different pitching staffs. [Read more 🡒]