Photo by Sol Tucker/Nats.Talk

We all know what we saw. Can we erase the latter innings from the last three nights? The Washington Nationals had late-inning leads in all four games of this series, and actually won the first game of the series. Should the Nats be 6.0 games over .500 now instead of sitting at .500? They should have leapfrogged the Phillies for the second Wild Card spot. It didn’t happen.

The Nats offense put up 22 runs on the Phillies in this series at a time in the past three games that James Wood and CJ Abrams combined for only one hit and no runs. An incompetent bullpen, some questionable coaching decisions, and a few defensive mistakes were the undoing. How it got to this point has a long history of ineptitude. But let’s cover some positives first.

Can we talk about how the Nats got Cristopher Sanchez for FIVE RUNS! The worst drubbing of his Cy-worthy season since he was victimized by the Wrigley winds.

What a series by Foster Griffin (7⅓ IP, 1 R), Zack Littell (4.0 IP, 2 R), Miles Mikolas (3⅓ IP, 0 ER), Cade Cavalli (6.0 IP, 2 R), and openers PJ Poulin (2⅓ IP, 0 R) and Carson Palmquist (3⅓ IP, 1 R). That’s 26⅓ innings and just 6 earnies and a 2.05 ERA.

The team got clutch home runs from Curtis Mead, Jorbit Vivas, and Luis Garcia Jr. And Dylan Crews was 7-17 in this series (.412 batting average).

The Nats looked competent on Monday with Griffin pitching into the 8th inning en route to a 4-1 win. On Tuesday, the Nats had a 5-2 lead going into the 7th inning. On Wednesday, the Nats had a 4-3 lead going into the 9th inning. Last night, the Nats had a 5-2 lead going into the 7th inning. Four blown saves in total in this series with two blown saves in Tuesday’s game. That’s the worst 3-game stretch in Nats’ history.

Three relievers were sent back to Triple-A as Paxton Schultz and Gus Varland were demoted for cause. Palmquist was sent back because he threw a season-high pitch count of 58 pitches, and the Nats needed a fresh arm. Somehow Richard Lovelady and Mitchell Parker have remained employed by the Washington Nationals.

President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, was upset after Tuesday’s game when he said that he was “Freaking pissed-off.” Imagine how pissed-off he is today.

Manager Blake Butera in his postgame presser last night was brutally honest. Here are some excerpts from the Q&A:

❝You have to attack. You have to throw strikes. If we’re afraid to do so, we will keep giving the next guy an opportunity until someone steps up, and shows they want the ball and ready to go attack. … The 7th, 8th, 9th, those are big innings. … There’s no excuse. … We need someone to step up. … My job is to continue to put our guys in positions to do the best they can. … When we’re walking guys late in the game, it’s not going to set ourselves up for success.❞

— Butera said in his Thursday night postgame presser

The truth is that all organizations try to build the bulk of their bullpens internally from failed starters. The Nats haven’t done this in over 15 years when they actually had a bullpen of studs of Tyler Clippard, Drew Storen, Craig Stammen, Sean Burnett, and Ryan Mattheus. In the old days, bullpens were made up of 7-relievers and increased to eight when rosters expanded to 26.

In fact, Storen was drafted as a 1st round pick, №10 overall in 2009, as a closer out of Stanford. That’s unheard of, but former GM Mike Rizzo did just that in the same year he drafted Stephen Strasburg №1 overall. But somewhere, Rizzo’s player development system stopped developing good bullpen arms.

By 2013, the Nats had lost their way with their bullpen and paid the largest salary ever to a free agent closer when they signed Rafael Soriano. By doing so, the Nats forfeited their 1st round draft pick that season. That started a cascading problem that has continued to this day in exactly what Butera said that they have relievers who are either too afraid to throw a strike or not competent enough to do it. We posted these stats yesterday in an article. Let’s update them after last night’s meltdown.

In a year of bad bullpenning, the Nats bullpen is only the worst in K% and blown saves, now at 24. The Nats bullpen is only the fourth worst in save conversions at 50 percent. And the bullpen is the 2nd worst in terms of ERA at 5.05, not the worst. They are also the 4th worst at HR/9 at 1.40. The Nats bullpen is the worst in bullpen K% at only 17.9 percent, which means they rely the most on their defense in pitch-to-contact. Those are a lot of stats that point to the bullpen is the most impactful problem on the team.

Look, Toboni inherited an horrific minor league bullpen pipeline, but he also made the decision to trade away the team’s presumptive closer, Jose A. Ferrer within weeks of taking over with the Nationals — and then never replaced him with a competent closer. That’s squarely on Toboni. What isn’t on him is the poor system he inherited.

Things were so dire in the Nats bullpen that year after year they would trade away competent minor leaguers like Nick Pivetta and Jesus Luzardo and even the promising Blake Treinen. The years of incompetence in trying to internally develop bullpen arms was futile. Year after year the parade of free agent relievers became a source of embarrassment. The 2019 bullpen that started with Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough ended in their DFAs. Then luck happened when they least expected it — they got Daniel Hudson at the 2019 trade deadline in a salary dump deal.

Other teams would take the Nats castoffs like Joel Hanrahan, Felipe Rivera, and Treinen and turn each of them into bullpen aces. All three became All-Stars after the Nats traded them away. It was certainly a player development issue. There were other relievers who found success in bullpens when they got away from the Nats. At least the lucky ones who got away before their arms were often overused like Wander Suero and others.

Through a source, he assured me that Toboni very much aware of the issue and said these issues take time to fix. He said this is a system problem. Well sure, the team hasn’t wanted to take struggling starters and convert them into relievers earlier. Look at those first round draft picks who failed as relievers from Mason Denaburg to Jackson Rutledge. The team has two fireballers in Luis Perales and Jarlin Susana who should seriously be considered to start-off as relievers. As with David Price in 2008, you can debut as a reliever and be converted back to a starter.

The other thing is that the Nats need a Mental Performance Coach like what John Lannan does for the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s a former Nats’ pitcher who went back to college and got a Master’s degree in Sports Psychology and a second Master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. Lannan is also a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) which is a specialized credential administered by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP). Most of the problems with good pitchers is getting through the mental grind of the game. You remember the Yogi Berra quote, “Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”

@TalkNats
worst 9th inning ERA in a month since 2002
Jun 26 Was 15.50
Aug 04 Tor 12.57
Apr 03 Stl 12.50
Jun 03 Tex 12.18
Jul 24 LAD 12.18

worst 9th inning FIP in a full month since 2002:
Apr 03 Stl 11.64
Jun 26 Was 11.27
Jul 04 Sea 10.12
Jul 04 KC 9.65
Sep 07 TB 9.64

— stever20 (@StatmasterSteve) June 26, 2026

Toboni has to think outside of the box. He was dealt some bad cards on the depth of his farm system’s relievers, but he also has to take the blame for trading away Ferrer and not bringing in a competent replacement for him. This will get fixed. But it will also take time.