The 31-29 Nationals are on a roll. A nine game roll. They played three games against the first place team in the NL East, (Atlanta), the AL Central (Cleveland), and the second place team in the NL West (San Diego) and came away with a 6-3 record. One of those three losses was in extra innings, to Atlanta. Especially considering the competition, that’s a roll. The biggest factor in those three series was the Nationals pitching. The pitchers got the job done in ways they haven’t done too often this season.
Over those nine games the team ERA was 2.31, the best in the majors for that stretch. Compared to their 4.63 season-long team ERA, that was an excellent nine games. The Nats got five scoreless innings in starts by Miles Mikolas, Jake Irvin, and Foster Griffin, and high-quality starts from Cade Cavalli and twice from Zack Littell.
The most encouraging development in the lineup is the improvement by catcher Keibert Ruiz this season. Ruiz came to the Nationals in 2021 as one of four prospects traded at the deadline by the Dodgers for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. In 2023 he got one of the few long-term contracts awarded by the Nationals recently, and that contract didn’t seem to be working out in 2024 and 2025 when Ruiz was a below average catcher.
This year manager Blake Butera and the coaching staff have been working with Ruiz on his hitting and his defense and it is paying off big time. They looked at what he does well and figured out that Ruiz needed to swing harder and pull the ball more. He has been doing both of those and that made him the second best hitting catcher in May. His defense is significantly better too.
The new coaching staff seems to be talented at looking at what players are doing well, deciding specifically how they can improve, and communicating that effectively. There are many more examples on the roster. You don’t continue to lead the majors in runs scored after finishing 20th last year without the same players making improvements. The coaches are instrumental in that happening.
It would be a waste of time to check the standings with two-thirds of the season remaining. Completely pointless. Let’s take a look anyway. The Braves are way ahead in the National League East. At the moment the second-place Nats should only have a shot at a wild-card spot. It would also be completely pointless to check out the wild-card standings. So let’s take a look there. The Nationals are one game out of a wild card spot!
There are eight NL teams with between 30 and 32 wins competing for the three wild card spots. It’s wide open. In four months we will know which teams get those three spots but right now there’s no reason it couldn’t be the Nats. The craziest thing of all would be to remind everyone that when they won the 2019 World Series they got into the postseason as a wild card team. The 2019 Nationals were 19-31 after 50 games. This year they were 25-25. Anything can happen. Remember, 6-3 against three top teams.
There’s one more good reminder of the Nationals exceeding expectations. In spring, 2012 the Nats had never had a winning season. Expectations were low. Prized pitching prospect Stephen Strasburg had missed the 2011 season because of Tommy John surgery. GM Mike Rizzo said in February that they would limit Strasburg to 160 innings to keep the wear and tear down on his arm. And no one said much of anything about that at the time because there was no expectation that it would have any big impact. No one expected the Nats to be in a pennant race or to make the post-season. Shut down Strasburg? Fine. It wouldn’t matter.
But all that happened. When Rizzo followed through on his 160 inning plan in early September, only then was there a huge debate about taking care of a player versus playing the game the right way and risking injury for the good of the team. The Nationals won 98 games in a season when no one expected anything like that going in. Strasburg was plagued by arm problems during his career but he held together long enough to be the 2019 World Series MVP.
The Nationals play the Marlins Monday through Wednesday before leaving on a road trip. With a high-power offense, coaches that make players better, and pitching that’s improving, this is a team to start getting excited about.
Photos except Strasburg by John Canery, coalminephotography.com
