The Washington side got a little bit of good news yesterday in the AFL, but it was buried under a messy scoreboard. Salt River jumped ahead 7-1 after a six-run second inning, and the game turned into a full-on pitching slog from there. The Desert Dogs ended up on the wrong side of it, falling to the Rafters 13-9.
Teo Banks was the lone National in the starting lineup, and he handled center field while going 2-for-4 with a walk, two runs, and two catches on defense.
Nolan Hughes was Washington’s only pitcher in the game, and he entered with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth. He escaped that jam with a sacrifice fly and a popup around a walk. Things got uglier in the seventh: Hughes retired two of the first three batters he saw, then allowed a single and a walk to load the bases before issuing a walk that forced in Mesa’s sixth run.
He was charged with four runs overall after Konnor Eaton came on and allowed a three-run double.
The Rafters improved to 5-1 and will host the Scorpions this afternoon.
As for the 2026 DSL Nationals, the numbers were rough enough that there’s no way around them. Washington has now gone five straight years without a winning DSL team, and the trend line has only gotten steeper: 11 wins in 2023, 23 in 2024, 27 in 2025, and just 14 in 54 games this year.
The offense and pitching both lagged behind the league. The club scored 5.0 runs per game in a league environment of 6.39, while allowing 7.2 runs per game. Even with those ugly totals, neither mark was the worst in the league, since the D-Jays scored just 4.67 per game and D-Pads Brown were at 9.58 allowed.
There were a few encouraging individual performances, though not many. For the second year in a row, six batters repeated the level, but none of the graduates was in the group.
Of those six repeat bats, two were above the league average in Gross Production Average, and both were 18-year-olds. The overall age for the hitters came in at 17.4, a touch younger than the league average of 17.6.
Pitching was a different story. Nine different pitchers started, which is easier to stomach in a front office that seems to love bullpen games, but none of those starters was 18 or younger.
The best of the group was 20-year-old Ranger Sarit, who posted a 4.50/5.42/1.32 line. The staff as a whole was older than the league average, 19.2 to 18.5.
Defense didn’t help matters. The Nationals made 100 errors in 54 games for a .941 fielding percentage, and they also allowed 200 stolen bases, second-most in the league, while catching just 48 runners for a 16% success rate.
Rather than sorting through a standard top-five list, the season basically narrowed to a handful of useful names. Four hitters finished above the league average GPA of .275, along with one pitcher who turned in an above-average FIP over 18⅔ innings before Washington moved him stateside, where he struggled.
17-y.o. Samil Serrano, CF - .328 GPA, 5HR, 25RBI, 13SB, 29BB in 48G; 3E (all in CF) in 40G in the OF
16-y.o. Juan Duran, 1B - .316 GPA, 2HR, 18RBI, 11SB, 23BB in 43G; 1E in 30G @ 1B; 0E in 8G in the OF
18-y.o. Rony Bello *, 2B/SS - .296 GPA, 4HR, 25RBI, 21SB, 16BB in 38G; 5E in 18G @ 2B; 3E in 17G @ SS
18-y.o. Esnaider Vargas *, 3B/1B - .279 GPA, 3HR, 23RBI, 16SB, 16BB in 46G; 9E in 21G @ 3B, 1E in 17G @ 1B
18-y.o. Maximin Medina - RHSP 0-2, 0SV; 0.96/3.02/0.96, 2.4 BB/9IP, 10.1 K/9IP
Serrano and Duran were part of the big-ticket 2026 IFAs, while Bello and Vargas came from the small-ticket 2025 IFAs. Medina was neither.
One final note on the walk totals: a year ago, they looked more impressive. This season, the league context makes them harder to read, with average OBP at .400 across the league and pitchers averaging 7.1 BB/9IP, compared with .377 and 6.1 the year before.
In Other News...
Nationals Park Hosted A Wild Baseball Show Washington Fans Felt Personally
Nationals Park turned into something closer to a summer carnival than a standard ballpark night as the inaugural Banana Bowl brought a different kind of baseball spectacle to Washington. The championship game mixed live baseball with theatrical flair, celebrity cameos and nonstop entertainment, giving fans the sort of offbeat show that can feel especially personal in a city still fond of its Nationals alumni and the ballpark they once called home.
The Texas Tailgaters and Savannah Bananas wound up giving the crowd a tense finish before the night settled into a winner, and the connections to Washington only made the atmosphere louder. Former Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann showed up with Texas, while Ryan Zimmerman was part of the Bananas side, turning a novelty event into something with a local edge that had Nationals fans leaning in all the way to the end. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals Young Core Just Sent Fans A Clear Rebuild Message
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Cade Cavallis recognition as Pitcher of the Year added to that theme, because it reflected how much the Nationals are investing in their homegrown core after years of turnover. There is a reason these awards matter even in late September: they signal who the team believes will carry it forward, and Washingtons latest vote of confidence leaves little doubt that the next step in the rebuild will revolve around players who are already here, even as the full picture of that future is still taking shape. [Read more 🡒]
CJ Abrams Still Has A Real Shot To Keep Shortstop
CJ Abrams entered last season with his defensive future under a microscope, and the Nationals spent time weighing whether a move from shortstop to second base might best fit his long-term outlook. An injury cut into the reps he would have needed to get comfortable on the right side of the infield, but the club still saw enough progress to keep the conversation alive as the offseason moved along.
Manager Blake Butera said Abrams has improved at both spots and will get a real chance to compete for the shortstop job in spring training, which keeps the door open on a position the Nationals had once seemed ready to revisit. Even if most of Abrams playing time is expected to come at second base, the front office has not shut the book on him handling shortstop in 2027, leaving this winter as an important stretch in defining where he fits best. [Read more 🡒]