The Washington Nationals went from looking completely lifeless to putting on one of the loudest turnarounds of their season Monday night.
Through four innings, they were staring at a no-hitter. By the end of it all, they had stacked together 13 hits and 13 runs over the final four frames, rolling to a 13-3 win and making a little MLB history in the process. They became the first team in league history to win a game in April, May, June, July, and August by at least 10 runs.
The burst started in the fifth, when contact finally started finding grass and the whole night changed in a hurry. Jacob Young broke up the no-hitter and kicked off the rally, while Daylen Lile finished it off with a three-run homer and a five-RBI night. Abimelec Ortiz and Jorbit Vivas also got in on the action with hits after both had struggled in Miami.
Dylan Crews didn’t pick up a hit, but he still helped turn the inning over with three walks, including an RBI bases-loaded walk. Nasim Nunez added another key moment with a bunt that could have gone the other way; he might have been called out for obstruction while running on the grass, but the umpire didn’t rule it that way, and two runs came home on the throwing error.
The offensive explosion gave Cade Cavalli all the support he needed. He wasn’t at his sharpest, but he still came away with another quality start, his ninth in a row. Cavalli earned the win to move to 12-5, worked 6.0 innings, and lowered his ERA to 3.21, which ranks 14th in MLB.
He also closed strong. After needing the offense to wake up first, Cavalli struck out two in the sixth and finished the outing with a much better look than the box score might have suggested at the start.
“We’ve been struggling to score runs, right? I think once we kind of cracked it open a little bit and some runs started crossing the plate, you could kind of sense some energy and almost a weight off the shoulders: ‘All right, now we go.’”
CJ Abrams was back in the lineup as the designated hitter after sitting with an ankle injury and had a big night of his own. He doubled, stole two bases and pushed his season total to 26. That puts him alongside Pete Crow-Armstrong as the only players this season with at least 25 home runs and 25 stolen bases.
Washington had dropped four straight without Abrams, and Blake Butera made clear what his presence means to the group.
“He’s one of the best players in the league, so whenever you’re missing him, you feel it as a group. Just him being in the lineup, his presence in the lineup takes some weight off a lot of guys’ shoulders and also just makes the whole group feel good about the game.”
The Nationals are now at 62 wins, and the math around the final stretch is straightforward. One more victory would keep them from finishing with 100 losses, and 11 more would ensure they avoid a 90-loss season for the first time in a full season since 2019. There are 29 games left, and while the playoff picture remains a long shot, the bigger point is simpler: this is progress, and wins count as progress.
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