The Washington Nationals couldn’t get key hits last night and lost 5-1 in Yankee Stadium to make today’s game a salvage game before the team heads back to Washington, D.C.
For this getaway game, the Yankees have a 1:05 pm local start time, and they have their ace, lefty Max Fried, on the mound going up against Cade Cavalli who has all of five starts to his career.
With today’s game, there are just 30-games remaining in this season. After this series, the Nats only have two more series against teams with winning records: The Cubs and the Mets. Coincidentally, the Nats open their 2026 season against the Cubs, and their final series against the Mets.
❝I’m going to tell you, we’re going to take our chances. Like I said, we’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to take our chances. And we’re going to learn from our mistakes. We’re going be smart at the same time. But we’re going be aggressive. ❞
— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.2, CJ Abrams at +3.2, MacKenzie Gore at +2.8. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.2 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier, and of course the negative tier after them of which many of those players are off the roster.
On defense, the OAA stats showed some improvement with a good defensive game yesterday. Jacob Young leads the team at +13, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -9. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -10.
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good. The issue is the consistency on this team.
❝ We didn’t capitalize in those chances, and with a team like that, you got to score whenever you get a chance. But it didn’t happen. We have to go back tomorrow and do it again. ❞
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.16 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.61 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 2.82
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 6.03
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.84 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.40
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.15
Washington Nationals vs. New York Yankees
Stadium: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY
1st Pitch: 1:05 PM EDT
TV: MASN
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 175 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
