Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals are down to their final 8-games of the season. With just 62-wins in the books, there is no way to sugarcoat it. The corner outfielders made three errors yesterday, leading to two unearned runs. The sloppy play was seen in the pitching and hitting approaches too.
Yesterday was just another collapse of the first bullpen arm replacing a starting pitcher. Andrew Alvarez had no earned runs given up in his first 3.0 innings last night then the meltdown happened quickly. He was pulled after giving up 2-earnies in the 4th inning and PJ Poulin allowed two inherited runners to score plus two of his own for a total of 6-earnies in that 4th inning meltdown. The Nats 4-1 lead disappeared like their 3-run lead in their previous game.
Interim-manager Miguel Cairo has no feel on pulling his starting pitchers, and seemingly can’t find anyone to shutdown these troublesome innings from his bullpen after they come in for the starter. When you need a fireman reliever to douse the smoldering issues, it’s more like he calls in an arsonist to blow it up to an instant tilt in the game. You could go back to so many poor decisions on leaving starting pitchers in games and/or that one reliever who just can’t get it done. Remember when it seemed the Nats had the bullpen figured out from Aug 12 to Sept 9? Just 10 days later and the Nats are 2-8 in that span with a 9.00 ERA and a 2.11 WHIP — the worst marks in those 10 games.
Now there are just 8-games and the season ends next Sunday. With only 62-wins in the books, it is now a mathematical impossibility to reach the 71-wins the team had in 2023 and 2024. Of course, the hope was the team would get to a winning record in this 2025 season which fell far short. The team still needs one more win just to avoid a 100-loss season. Can they get that?
Then you have to talk about the 1,000 pound elephant in the room, what happened to James Wood?
If anyone has any answers, let us know. The team’s other 2025 All-Star, MacKenzie Gore had some pointed remarks directly at the front office, and you wonder if this was all about Mike Rizzo, even though he just mentioned it as the “front office” over and over.
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— Gore said on 106.7 The Fan radio this week in an interview
Everything starts at the top. So I think that’s very important going into the offseason. I’m sure they’re going to hire whoever they think the best fit is.
As a player, I just want to get the most out of everybody in the clubhouse, and I think that starts from the front office. And I think that’s something we haven’t necessarily done the past few years…We haven’t won enough games, and it’s been frustrating.
… We’ve got some guys that can play, and we just want to get the most out of this group. I think that’s what the best teams do. No matter how much the player is making — they get the most out of that player, and I think that’s something we have to figure out how to do.
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The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with, CJ Abrams at +3.4, MacKenzie Gore at +3.1. James Wood at +2.9, Add those up, and you get a total of +9.4 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.
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— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
It didn’t come our way, but it happens, and I know they’re going to come back tomorrow and fight again. But that was the atmosphere that I want them to see. They were playing hard. We scored six runs. It didn’t go our way.
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The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.20 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 4.76
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.85
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 4.18 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.76
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.00
Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets
Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York
1st Pitch: 4:10 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 89 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
