The Washington Nationals have to get their bats going tonight after they just went from 13-runs scored on Monday to just 1-run last night. The Nats have called up two new pitchers as Matt Waldron and Luis Perales have taken the roster spots of Trevor Williams and Jake Bird.

After a waiver claim this week, the Nats got Waldron, a knuckleballer, and Perales was acquired in December in a 1-for-1 trade for Jake Bennett in a deal of top prospects. The Nats faced Waldron in his MLB debut in 2023 when he was with the San Diego Padres.

CJ Abrams returned to the lineup on Monday and DH’d for two nights. In today’s game, Abrams is back at shortstop. He still hasn’t appeared at second base after it was announced nearly two weeks ago that he was making the position change.

Can the Nats get on a winning streak as there are just 27 games remaining in this regular season. If they don’t, the final results might look very disappointing. To avoid a 100 loss season, the Nats need to win one more game. To avoid a 90 loss season, the Nats need to win 11 more games. And to get to a winning season, the Nats would have to go 20-7 to finish the season.

❝[CJ Abrams] is one of the best players in the league, so whenever you’re missing him, you feel it as a group. Just him being in the lineup, his presence in the lineup takes some weight off a lot of guys’ shoulders and also just makes the whole group feel good about the game.❞

— said manager Blake Butera

On offense, the Nats have the most runs scored in MLB this season at 696 runs, and that is an impressive 5.19 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.66 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +18 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.

Colorado Rockies vs. Washington Nationals

Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 182 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Marideth Sandler /Nats.Talk