The Washington Nationals needed a win last night, and the offense fell flat in a game when the bullpen looked so April 2026. The 4-1 loss just felt like those April games when the starter pitched well and departed in a close game.

This afternoon, the Nats will start Brad Lord who just got stretched out to over 50 pitches. The hope is he can be effective and get well past 50 pitches in this game against the Mets in CitiField. The Mets will have a lefty on the mound and manager Blake Butera will go with more righties in his starting lineup.

At some point, the Nats have to get on a winning streak as there are just 37 games remaining in this regular season.

❝I think our defense did really good as of late. … Just didn’t go our way.❞

— said manager Blake Butera

On offense, the Nats have the 1st in MLB for the most runs scored this season at 663 runs, and that is an impressive 5.35 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.72 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +20 run differential on the season.

Here is manager Blake Butera‘s bullpen chart:

The FanGraphs WAR chart is now large in its sample size. You can certainly start to extrapolate the numbers for the full-season. The OAA defense stat is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have — and don’t have.

Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets

Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York
1st Pitch: 4:10 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 177 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Sol Tucker/Nats.Talk