Ok that was all bad

The question now is - do they do something about it? 

The Nats pen has been known to be bad. They currently have the second worst ERA in the majors at 5.05 and yes it was a little better before this series but it was still well ensconced in the bottom group of teams, ahead of the Twins. They've giving up the third most walks (172) and by FAR the most home runs (61).  To be fair they've been asked to pitch way more than any other team.  Their 392 innings is 10% more than the 3rd place Mets. That doesn't sound like much but trust me it is. 

So it IS connected to the starting pitching.  In order to save the arms of a perfectly average starting pitching staff they are throwing fewer innings. Which then go to a bad relief staff. 

So one correction is right there in front of the Nats. Time to take the training wheels off and let the starters go 6+ innings if they can.  But that still doesn't solve the problem that by the fancy stats they Nats have one good reliever (Alvarez) and two ok ones (Lord, Ribalta).  Beyond that Beeter and Schultz are currently usable and the rest are trash. And the depth is worse. There is no real help expected to come from the minors. 

It's unlikely the starters can be as good pitching longer but it's also known that the relievers aren't good pitching as much as they have.  The Nats have let it go because they've won enough early to just accept it, but if they want to really win they need to fix the problem

Which then begs the question : do they really want to win in 2025?

My guess is no so while some relievers might be available out there, I don't think we'll see them here. These are your 2026 Nats. These are the results they will get. Buckle up. 

OK that was bad

Baseball, huh? 

The crazy part wasn't the loss. A two out single and homer meant the game was tied and going into extras it's basically anyone's game. No the crazy part was with two outs the Phillies went :

Single - Homer - Single - Single - Homer - Walk - Single - Double - Walk - Single 

They didn't just bat around - after two outs they batted around and no one got out. Forget the runs, I just want to know the last time 10 straight men made it on base safely in a game. 

It also kind of stinks that Ribalta was looking good and probably could have handled the 8th (or at least deserved a shot) but they have a plan and that plan in their head that said Lovelady into Beeter. They want that 8-9 set up because it makes things easier. Even if it's probably not better, there is something to be said for roles being known for clubhouse headspace and all. But they failed and Lord and Schultz both pitched so they won't be exactly fresh for tonight and the Phillies will have seen them once - which as we saw with Lord and Beeter tonight - makes a difference.  WIll it matter? Better hope it's the rarer good Mikolas that shows up tonight. 

The Nats get Nola tonight and Sanchez tomorrow which you can't feel is in your favor.  Rolling through a 4 game set with the Phillies and not getting both Wheeler and Sanchez demands you take 2 of 3 from the other guys.  It's 1-1 right now. 

Monday Quickie - is this worrying?

 On May 22nd the Nats were 25-27 and looking like they were going to stay in that area - flirting with .500, maybe going a game or two over but likely dropping back under - for the rest of the year. That had been the story of the season after the 3-1 start, and fit with the pre-season expectations mixed with what we were seeing on the field. But since then they've gone 15-8 and have put themselves squarely in the "huh, we need to check in on these guys before the All-Star Break and see how real they are".   But it's not all good news. 

On May 22nd the Nats were in 3rd place in the NL East. 11 games behind ATL, 1 game behind PHI, 2 games ahead of MIA.

On June 22nd the Nats are tied for 3rd place in the NL East. 9 games behind ATL, 2.5 games behind PHI, and tied with the Marlins. 

They are undoubtedly in a better position today than a month ago.  They were 4.5 games out of the 3rd Wild Card while today they are a half-game out, but there isn't an NL East team they've played more than twice. If the NL East is really this solid there are a lot of hard games coming. They'll play 4 more against Philly this week then it's NL East free until August where they'll cram all the rest of their inter-division games into the last two months. 

The tendency is to sort of say - hey the Phillies aren't real and the Marlins REALLY aren't real but how does that apply to them and not the Nationals?

The Phillies stats suggest their record should be a lot lower, but taking a closer look at it, it's more that when they stood at 13-19 to start May they should have been like 10-22 or worse. The recent Phillies have been scoring runs and pitching well. 

The Marlins stats suggest they should be a LOT better. Like one of the B-Tier teams in baseball behind the Yankees, Brewers and Dodgers. What they have is a lineup with no obvious low points (hey Nasim! What are you doing here? And you brought Jose today? How relevant!) and a very solid pitching staff that is deep with maybe the best bullpen in baseball.*

At this point we are taking the Nats to be real so we have to do the same for these other teams. Which means we have to move forward thinking if the Nats are going to compete for a Wild Card, it'll be a dog fight within their own division and someone is likely to be left out if that's the case. 

 

*Fun fact?  The Marlins have the best inherited runner scoring % at 22%. The Nats have the worst at 44%. 

Foster Griffin - the actual find?

There was an article somewhere recently about the turn around for Littell and Mikolas.  I kind of dismiss that because major league pitchers aren't going to go out there and throw like trash for 30 games. There are ups and downs and adjustments and injuries and chances are if you started slow you'll look better. I don't pretend those guys aren't what they are. 

But Foster Griffin was a pull from overseas. A former 1st rounder that couldn't control anything that now is mixing like 8 different pitches for success.  Is he real?

I want to say yes but that HR rate is what's keeping me from doing that. Giving up a homer plus every game is not a recipe for success.  His last 5 homers have been solo shots where as that was more like half his early homers. Yes he's keeping guys off base with limited walks, but his hit rate isn't that great and that first set makes more sense to me. 

What's that mean?  It means that we should be looking at a future around where his ERA was before this solo shot barrage.  4.00ERA+.  But hey - that's STILL a find. 

I don't mean OMG they found a star, but they did grab a cheap guy that isn't just filling in innings at the back of the rotation. An ERA of say 4.15  puts him around the 75th best starter in the game. That's a legit 3/4 type arm. 

Littell and Mikolas are rotation fillers. Don't think that isn't important. Having a slight turnaround from "maybe they should quit baseball" to "ok as a 5" is important for the Nats because the bullpen is so bad. An inning more of under 5.00 ERA ball matters to this team. But maybe you can dredge this up from the minors or any rando free agent. That's what they did this year and the last few (Irvin, Parker). Finding a guy you need in your rotation or else you take a big hit is something else. And I think Griffin is that guy

Monday Quickie - Under the radar time

 Sometimes a team just needs to be left to do what they are doing with no scrutiny.  There isn't a real tell if the Nats are that type of team but it is clear they have been working out of the spot light for longer they might have in a typical sports year.  However this year we had a NY title in basketball with all those stars out, we had a crazy start to the Stanley Cup, and now we have the World Cup going on.  In baseball the best teams are the Braves, Dodgers and Yankees (and yes the Brewers).  The media air has been sucked out of the room. The Nats aren't on anyone's mind.

Let's put it some other baseball ways.  

The Mets spent a ton and are almost certainly playing themselves out of the playoffs. The Red Sox might be the 2nd worst team in baseball (probably not and the Rockies aren't going to let anyone take the worst title from them). The Pirates with Paul Skenes are in the thick of the playoff hunt. The White Sox are leading the AL Central.  The WHITE SOX.   

The aforementioned Skenes has a 2.85 ERA and 100Ks already and who cares.  Cam Schlitter has a 1.82 ERA, as does Christopher Sanchez who shut out teams for 5 games in a row.  Both are looking up at Jacob Misiorowski who might be breaking through the media ceiling a bit by having a 1.34 ERA and 131 strikeouts while throwing the ball regularly well over 100 MPH over his starts. And all this while Shohei in his starts just went over 1.00 ERA.

It's not hitting like it might have hit in 2025.  

So if the Nats ARE a team that need a little peace and quiet to keep going, they have it for a few more weeks.  

We are two weeks into June.  Keibert isn't hitting as he was but he's hitting fine.  CJ isn't hitting like a star but he's hitting ok. Mead isn't hitting anymore but it's not embarrassing.  And in their place Lile is hitting and Garcia is hitting and most importantly Wood is a superstar again. .281 with 20 homers and almost 60 walks.  He's going to hit 40 plus homers. He's is leading all NL Players in Offensive WAR*, and is in a battle with Alvarez in Houston for best bat in baseball this year. Carrying this team. 

The pitching is not better but they are also covering for themselves with better play here and there.  Sure it just keeps them at "pretty bad" but with the offense as it is, that's all it needs to be. 

The Nats are doing what they are doing and aren't stopping just yet.  Take notice, even if everyone else isn't. 

*Pete C-A is hitting pretty well and plays amazing defense, and of course you aren't going to catch Shohei in WAR unless you pitch 

Are playoffs a possibility?

I don't see the Nats as a .500 team on talent. 

BUT here they are. Which begs the question for me - maybe this is a season where this level of talent gets you to .500. And there are seasons where .500 ish can get you to the playoffs.  Does this seem like a good fit for 2026? 

Currently the Nats are a game out of the Wild Card, behind two teams and slightly ahead of... well most of the NL. What do the adjusted standings (trying to take luck out of what happened so far) tell us? You can choose which one you like but looking at the various projectsion the Nats are where they are supposed to be.  Maybe a touch more 33-34 than 34-33 but let's not quibble.  We talked about why I think they'll end up a little below that but what about the other teams.  Is the NL East weirdly underperforming? The NL in general? I can't really say that  as you'd expect with groups that big it looks like a mixed bag.  So there's not a good reason to think luck will swing for the Nats opponents. 

What about though the ones that matter - the ones in the playoffs? The idea here is the Nats look to be pretty stable.  If someone ahead of them has a worse projected record than the Nats they might fall past them. On the other hand someone chasing the Nats could catch them if the numbers say they've been unlucky. 

The Braves, Dodgers, Brewers are all out of reach as expected. Things can change but right now they are better than the Nats and have a better record. The gap should grow, not shrink. 

The Cardinals and Phillies are in and based on these numbers are catchable. The Cardinals aren't better than the Nats, but aren't worse. Their advantage is simply being where they are right now. The Nats have to catch them. The Phillies are more in danger, powered to their record by a 14-5 one-run game record as opposed to the stats. The Nats have a good shot of catching Philly if they play like they have this year. The question there is do you take the year as a whole or ignore the terrible start?  If you put that behind the Phillies, they probably are in the Cardinals area - not great but good enough to hold that advantage. 

Arizona and San Diego, tied for the 3rd spot right now. Both look worse than the Nats for the season. Not a bad chance to catch them at all. They do get to feast on the Rockies though. 

Just ahead of the Nats are the Cubs and Pirates. This may be where the problem lies for the Nats. These two look like teams that should do much better. So while the Phillies, D-Backs, and Padres might flub the last two WC spots, it's the Cubs and Pirates who'd the numbers say you should bet on. 

Behind the Nats are Cincy and the Marlins.  Cincy appears to be a mirage even at this modest record. The Marlins though... are kind of real? This is weird.  I don't know.  I can believe in James Wood / CJ Abrams MVP pair a lot easier than Xavier Edwards / Otto Lopez. But I think the Marlins, real or not, are in the same sort of fragile boat the Nats are. There isn't obvious depth.  If one key guy goes down it could get ugly. There's a lot of variance here, too much for me to say, yeah they'll catch the Nats. 

Finally there's the Mets, not buried far enough to be out of it, but they haven't been good and something would have to change for this team to catch the Nats. It certainly could but the numbers so far suggest lots of other possibilities first. 

So looking at the way the season has gone so far. The Nats have been a .500 team and if they can keep that up they COULD make the playoffs but it's likely they'd be the first or second team out. It's not out of the realm of possibility though.  We'll see how this all changes around the All-Star break. 

What about the pitching?

The pitching - well it's not very good but we can't just go ahead and make assumptions that it'll stay that way.  Maybe it will get better! (or worse!) 

About a month ago I looked at the starters and tried to figure out who was "real" there. I said Irvin could be a poor innings eater and Litell really was bad.  Well May has not been kind to Irvin.  He might have broke. On the other hand Litell looked much better. I said I didn't know about Miles and I still don't. Mikolas has been a weird mixed bag, shutting down ATL for 5 then two starts later getting pounded by MIA. I do think we still don't know what this guy is from capable mid-rotation guy to coaching high school baseball. I said Foster Griffin wasn't an ace (he's not) and Cavalli should be better (he has been) 

I think it means the starting pitching can maintain it's current "not very good but maybe good enough not to drag the team down" trajectory. Cavalli is an actual not back of the rotation major league starter.  Four the rest of the four, I'd say something decent is there each time around from Litell, Griffin, Mikolas, and the last spot while also two not so decent things and a bad thing. That's a below average rotation but one that 2 out of every 5 days is good enough and you might get lucky another 2 with this offense. 

The relief pitching hasn't been good either and there's a decent argument it should get worse with Schultz, Lovelady, and Beeter seeing important innings and all should get worse based on stats. To me though if Varland, Lord, and Ribalta are real that's enough to hold down your wins. 

Again we're not looking for the pitching staff to win, we're looking for them to hold place.  They are currently one of the worst staffs in baseball but not the complete drag the Cubs or Giants rotations are.  I think they can hold that. The relief staff is decidedly belwo average but not game losing... I think they might be a little worse that that actually. Just more guys who are doing better than you'd expect. Maybe you can dial that in.  It's hard to say because if one position is still in the "it's early" stage - it's relief pitching. A couple bad outings for a guy who throws 17 innings can really screw things up.  So while I THINK they might be worse than that, it's what I'm least confident about. 

Where does this leave the Nats as a team?  

I think it's a team who's bats and staff are both a little overperforming.  They've basically earned their .500 record 62 games in but I'd be surprised if they matched it in the final 100.  But also 40-60 would be a surprise.  45-55 makes more sense to me which puts this at a 76 win team. Is that good enough? 

I think cooling down right now might be best because people were getting excited in a "playoffs maybe possibly, if I squint my eyes?" way and that was an overreach. That isn't this team. I think what will get people properly excited is if the season ends with kids like King and Morales up and looking good and a sensible pitching plan for 2027 that isn't "find what scraps you can put behind Cavalli"