The Washington Nationals pulled off a walk-off extra innings win that moved their winning streak to 5-games. The last time the Nationals won more than 5-games in a row was during their 8-game winning streak that spanned from September 23 to September 29 in 2019.
Maybe the significance of that 2019 streak was Juan Soto, as the primary left fielder in a Nationals’ uniform, has a related juxtaposition to tonight’s game in a significant way. This current winning streak could likely hinge on four players who were traded to Washington back in 2022 for Soto. Tonight’s starting pitcher is MacKenzie Gore, and figure that CJ Abrams, James Wood, and Robert Hassell III, and they could all find themselves in the starting lineup and a key to extending the current winning streak.
Speaking of 2019, today is a significant day in Washington Nationals history. In 2019, the Nats found themselves at 19-31 in the standings at the 50-game mark. Last night, in the Nats’ 50th game, the team improved to 23-27. That 2019 team finished their remaining 112-games with an impressive 74-38 record.
Just like Soto in 2019, Wood plays left field and is in his second season with the Nationals now, and in their 50th games of those respective seasons for the Nationals, both of them got on-base safely four times with two runs scored in three official at-bats. Their stats were very similar overall too — with the edge going to Wood. On a full season, Wood has some work ahead of him.
That photo above has Gore looking over at Abrams, Wood, and Hassell. In his debut game, Hassell came up big with 2-hits, stellar defense, and baserunning, and posted a positive WAR at +0.1. That quartet as of yesterday has combined for +5.4 of FanGraphs WAR through Game 50.
With Crews on the IL, the only other issue was the health of Jacob Young who was recovering from a shoulder contusion after he collided with the outfield wall on Saturday. He is listed as day-to-day and today the team made the decision to move Young to the 10-day Injured List (retroactive to May 20) with a left shoulder AC sprain. Up in Young’s spot is Daylen Lile who had been doing well in Triple-A Rochester plus his time in Double-A Harrisburg. For Lile’s combined 2025 minor league season, he is batting 337 with an .892 OPS. But to note, Lile got better at the Triple-A level where he is hitting .361 with a .946 OPS. Most players don’t improve moving up levels.
The Nationals made some major mistakes yesterday, and still found a way to win. No mistake was bigger than the 9th inning when Jose Tena got a tailor-made double play ball that should have ended the game — but he booted the ball and got no outs. The next batter hit a double off of the wall, and Alex Call fielded the ball and threw a strike to the cutoff man, Luis Garcia Jr., who threw a one-bouncer into the mitt of Keibert Ruiz for an out at the plate to assure the Nats would stay tied. That was the 180 degree transition from one play to the next of how you don’t compound mistakes. The Nats turned a slick double play in the 10th inning to allow them to walk-off as a winner in the bottom of the 10th inning.
“When your margin for error is smaller, you have to play a cleaner brand of baseball.”
— Rizzo said on Wednesday on 106.7 The Fan radio
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders James Wood at +2.0 with CJ Abrams at +1.8 followed by MacKenzie Gore, and Mitchell Parker. Those are impressive numbers that you can multiply by a factor of 3.24 to extrapolate to a full-season of results.
On defense, the stats are starting to give you an idea of what this defense is all about. Paul DeJong is your OAA leader and he hasn’t played in over a month dating back to April 15. Luis Garcia Jr. has slumped this season defensively to a -5.0 already — and with CJ Abrams, they combine for -8.0 OAA. Another issue that we have discussed is the positioning of Nathaniel Lowe at first base as he is too often out of position to make a play — and OAA has his chance at success at only 61 percent which must improve. With as little as Amed Rosario has played on defense, he is at -7.0 OAA this season and the worst on the team. Per Statcast, his defense has cost the Nationals 5-runs. Is his offense good enough to make up that deficit? Keibert Ruiz, per Statcast, has a -5.0 OAA also. The Nationals were supposed to be better on defense. What has happened?
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
“I loved the fight today with our guys. We got a lead, they got it back. We came back, and scored again — and then we held our own there for the rest of the game. It was awesome.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after last night’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.61 and 5th worst in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 6.22 and no longer the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 6.39
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 5.95
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.39
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.88
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.67
San Francisco Giants vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 177 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
