The Nationals found a new way to make the same old point on Tuesday night: a late lead against the Dodgers still isn’t safe.
Washington carried a 4-2 advantage into the ninth and still walked away with another blown save, another loss and another reminder of how far this bullpen has fallen. Clayton Beeter was charged with the damage this time, and the Nats’ total climbed to 36 blown saves - matching the 2021 Washington Nationals and moving within one of the major league record of 37, set by the 2024 Chicago White Sox.
Beeter’s night unraveled quickly. He allowed a walk, then a single, then a three-run homer in two-thirds of an inning. It was his seventh blown save of the season and his fifth loss, and the kind of outing that keeps dragging this bullpen deeper into the mess it already occupies.
The game did not belong only to the relievers, though. Cade Cavalli turned in another strong start, working 6.0 innings of two-run baseball with eight strikeouts and no walks.
His line was damaged in the first inning after he missed first base on a double-play chance because his first baseman was already on the bag and ready for the throw. The Dodgers cashed in on the mistake and never scored again off Cavalli, who trimmed his ERA to 3.11987.
Afterward, Cavalli owned the mistake without hesitation.
❝That’s 100 percent on me,❞ Cavalli said after the game. ❝I should have said ‘I got it, I got it.’
I just assumed, and there’s an issue when you assume. That’s my fault.
It’s something we can learn from, something I can for sure learn from and communicate better. ❞
Even with the bullpen collapse, Washington had a chance to rescue the night in the ninth. The Nats pushed back and got within a run, but they could not complete the comeback and finished one run short of tying the game.
Manager Blake Butera was left to answer for both the inning and the larger pattern. He said Beeter should be able to improve his command, though he also raised the question of whether the issue runs deeper than mechanics.
“When we look at runs-scoring, a lot of times it’s hard to have multiple hits in an inning. It usually needs some walks mixed in there, and then when you get guys on-base, the home run … it killed us tonight, of course, and it feels like that’s been the theme.”
“I think he’s going to be able to get the command better. Whether it’s a mentality piece, that’s the part that we have to figure out.”
Butera also pointed back to a line he drew last week after another blown-save loss, when he said, ❝… My job is to do the best job I possibly can with the team we have - and the bullpen we currently have. … We can’t keep giving up these leads.❞
The problem, of course, is that they keep doing exactly that.
Beeter’s struggles have become part of a much larger bullpen breakdown. The Nationals lead all of baseball in blown saves with 36, and they also lead the league in bullpen home runs with 99 and bullpen walks with 292. Those numbers fit together, and they explain why close games keep slipping away.
Toboni said in mid-May, when Washington sat at 23-24, that the club could have been better by several games. ❝We could be 4-or-5 games above .500 right now,❞ he said. That number would look very different now.
For Beeter, the slide has been especially stark. He has more walks and far fewer strikeouts this season, with his strikeout rate down 32.8 percent.
Last year, he looked like a possible future closer. Right now, he looks like a pitcher searching for answers.
Butera eventually turned to Erik Tolman to finish Beeter’s inning, though Tolman had already been warming and could have entered earlier. The choice may have come down to the matchup with a switch-hitter, but the result was the same: another lead gone, another loss on the board, and another night that felt all too familiar.
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The more immediate spark came from Jack Sinclair, who was called on for his Major League debut and handled the eighth inning cleanly. Washington ended up on the short end of a 5-3 loss, but nights like this still matter for a club sorting through its pitching future, especially when one arm is trying to settle in and another is just arriving on the scene. [Read more 🡒]