Three veteran hitters have made life miserable for the Nationals this season, and the pattern keeps repeating in the ugliest way possible: Washington does enough to limit the marquee names, then gets burned by the older, steadier bats lurking behind them.
Alex Bregman is the clearest example. He has had a solid but hardly dominant first season in Chicago, batting .256 with 16 homers and a .759 OPS.
Against the Nationals, though, those numbers take on a different shape. Six of his 16 homers have come against Washington, and on top of that he just delivered the first three-homer game of his career.
He has long seemed to thrive when facing the Nats, especially in D.C., and this year has only reinforced that feeling.
Derek Hill has been even more maddening in a different way. He is a former Nat who never made any real impact in Washington, and there was a point when it seemed possible he would be out of baseball by now.
Instead, his speed, defense and improving offense have kept him around. For the season, Hill is hitting .233 with a .708 OPS, 9 homers and 0.8 WAR.
Against the Nationals, he has been a different player entirely, hitting .368 in 19 at bats with 3 homers. Two of those have landed as especially brutal blows: a ninth-inning homer off Brad Lord in June in a game the Phillies eventually won, and a go-ahead grand slam off Tom Cosgrove in August that only deepened Washington’s misery.
Matt Chapman rounds out the list, and his case fits the same frustrating mold. Before season-ending surgery, he was hitting just .235 with 7 homers and a .692 OPS.
But when he saw the Nationals, he looked like a different hitter. Chapman went 14 for 26 with 2 homers and 8 RBI against Washington, including two homers in the game that fueled a horrible Nats meltdown and the game-winning hit in a 12-inning contest.
That has been the theme all season: the Nationals often have a workable plan for the stars, but the supporting veterans do the damage. Simon Mathews and Sean Doolittle have come up with solid game plans for the stars, but the lack of pitching talent really shows up against these guys. That has shown up against Yordan Alvarez against Houston, and it is happening again this week against the Cubs, where PCA has been fairly quiet outside of one homer while Bregman and Seiya Suzuki have been feasting.
It is a frustrating pattern, and one that says plenty about where the Nationals are right now. Experienced hitters have kept finding ways to beat them, and Bregman, Hill and Chapman are three of the clearest examples.
In Other News...
Nationals Depth Picture Is Shifting Fast After Rochesters Latest Statement
The Nationals farm system keeps moving in a hurry, and Rochesters latest game was another reminder that the organizations depth chart is anything but settled. Across the affiliates, recent matchups in Rochester, Harrisburg, Wilmington and Fredericksburg have brought a mix of strong pitching showings, uneven offensive stretches and the kind of roster churn that usually follows when clubs are trying to sort out who is trending up and who needs a reset.
For Washington, the bigger takeaway is less about any one box score than the broader snapshot these games provide. Confirmed results and official transactions have already produced a few activations and releases, and the next wave of moves may not be far behind if these performances keep stacking up. The Nationals have plenty of players still trying to force their way into the conversation, and that competition is becoming harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Roster Shakeup Puts More Than One Young Piece In Focus
The Nationals latest roster shuffle put a familiar mix of urgency and opportunity on display, with Zack Littell released and Miles Mikolas designated for assignment to clear the way for top prospect Jackson Kent. It is the kind of move that says as much about the organizations timeline as its current standings, and it comes at a moment when the club is trying to sort out not just who stays in the majors, but where its young core fits when it gets there.
CJ Abrams is part of that picture, too, as Washington begins moving him to second base while the team keeps tracking the health of several key players. James Wood, DJ Herz, Josiah Gray and Connelly Early are all making progress in recovery, with throwing and rehab work providing the next clues about how soon the Nationals might start getting more of their future pieces back in the same conversation at once. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Deadline Arms Are Already Creating One Bullpen Problem
The Nationals post-deadline bullpen experiment got an early look in a recent game against the Mets, and it showed both sides of what Washington thinks it added. Will Dion settled in quickly and gave manager Blake Butera a reason to feel encouraged, handling a heavy workload and keeping New York off the board while missing plenty of bats. For a team trying to sort through relief options on the fly, that kind of immediate stability matters.
Yovanny Cruzs night was less reassuring, with the ninth inning turning into a reminder that a new arm can need time before it fits cleanly into a late-game role. Washington is still working to help him adjust and get more comfortable in the bullpen mix, but the gap between one newcomers smooth debut and anothers struggle is already shaping the conversation. The Nationals wanted depth, and now they have a problem to solve before that depth can be trusted. [Read more 🡒]