Photo by Jake Stephens/TalkNats
Every team will suffer at least a dozen gut-punch losses over a full-season. And the Washington Nationals suffered one in the gut-punch category yesterday. They had the win in-hand until they didn’t. That’s baseball. Just ask the Toronto Blue Jays after they lost the 2025 World Series by inches.
If Cole Henry‘s 0-2 pitch in the 9th inning wasn’t in the middle of the zone, maybe the Nats leave Philly with a 4-2 record instead of 3-3. The loss is not on Henry or any one player. That’s a team loss. Isn’t .500 a good result at this point in time? Yes, but you also want more.
The Nats started the season facing two 2025 playoff teams that dwarf the Nats in payroll. Per USA Today, the Phillies payroll is 325 percent higher. Next up is the Los Angeles Dodgers with their $322 million payroll, nearly quadrupled the size of the Nats total spend.
Manager Blake Butera can only play — and coach-up the players he is given. He brilliantly maneuvered through his bullpen arms, and at the end of the day, Butera can’t use a joystick to put more horizontal run on that cutter (registered as a sweeper) that Henry misfired on. Nope, the players have to improve.
Bullpens will tear your heart out. Last year, the Nats struck early with that pain as their first blown save was on Opening Day. There’s never been an MLB team that has gone a full 162 game season without a blown save. That’s a reality — even with the best laid plans. The coaches will be back at work to make this a learning moment.
Continue reading
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.