Photo by Jake Stephens/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals went from a promising 3-1 start to their 2026 season into a 4-game losing streak. Today is one of those pivotal games where you either go into tomorrow at 4-5 or 3-6. The Dodgers are a behemoth when their offense is hot — and they are red hot.
Speaking of “red hot,” where has Joey Wiemer been? He hasn’t been seen since April Fool’s Day except for cameos in the dugout. For that matter, where has the real James Wood been? For a player who needs offense, a TV replay showed that Wood jogged out of the box on a grounder up the middle that he had a legit chance for an infield single. What happened to manager Blake Butera‘s promise that his players would run a Hard-90? “We’re going to play hard. We’re going to do the little things right. … Control the things we can control — running a Hard-90,” Butera said at the time. So far, Wood has been a -0.4 WAR and a -2.0 on his OAA which are both the worst on the team. While the stats are small sample sized, the effort has to be there in what you can control.
On Wednesday, that blown save changed a lot too. The Nats haven’t been the same since that point — but then again, the Dodgers crush bad pitching. Two days in a row, starting pitchers looked like they were tossing BP. Today’s hopes are pinned on starter Foster Griffin. He won his first start in Philadelphia.
Look, beating the Dodgers on any given day is a tough enough task, no matter as to who the starting pitcher was going to be. The worst case is the Nats get swept by the Dodgers and are 3-6 going into the Cardinals series on Monday. But obviously you don’t want to get swept. A win means the team is 4-5 which sure would be great.
Here is a chart of usage on manager Butera‘s bullpen:
The FanGraphs WAR chart is accumulating data. This will start to give us a clearer picture in six weeks when the sample sizes get larger. The OAA defense stat requires a minimum of 10 defensive plays. We will start adding more statistics as the sample sizes get larger.
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
