Game #136 Nats must win for a split!

The Washington Nationals got a zero last night from Matt Waldron in his 2.0 innings of work. Unfortunately, bullpen games don’t always go by plan, and Wednesday’s game was a disaster. The near-perfect Will Dion gave up two bombs of the 2-run variety, and he departed with a 4-1 deficit. Then the real issues and the pre-game plan of manager Blake Butera went awry with the newly called up Luis Perales.

The average WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched) in Major League Baseball is approximately 1.30, and 16 pitches per inning for the 2026 season.

That means that the average pitcher should face 4⅓ batters per inning. In a typical 2.0 inning appearance that would be 9… pic.twitter.com/XmOuvgnpBF
— Nats.Talk (@TalkNats) August 27, 2026

CJ Abrams returned to the lineup on Monday and DH’d for two nights, and was supposed to play shortstop on Wednesday — and then the lineup changed to where Abrams was back at the DH.

Can the Nats get on a winning streak as there are just 26 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 20-6 to finish the season.

Sometimes, a manager needs to look in the mirror. Manager Blake Butera was critical of his own team and made a mistake of painting his team with a ‘broad brush’ when saying his team “didn’t play as hard as we normally do.” In the 9th inning of a 13-1 deficit, Jacob Young dove for a ball. Dylan Crews sprinted a double into a triple. Some guys gave the max effort. And the biggest offender on the lack of hustle, Andres Chaparro, was a triple-shy of a cycle. He was most of the Nats offense in the game.

Some guys are built for hustle. Chappy is just slow, and that is being kind to the word, ‘slow.’ But he cost the Nats a run when he jogged out what looked like a routine flyball that was lost in the twilight, and Chaparro only went from first base to third base with Jose Tena, the lucky recipient of a gifted double, could have had an RBI if Chappy hustled. That was one example. Instead, Butera called out his whole team. That might not sit well with everyone.

❝Bad. Really bad. I thought we were pretty flat. I thought we didn’t play as hard as we normally do. Um, I know the score got to where it got to — I’m not sure if we played a little harder if that would have changed anything. But at the end of the day, like, we have to come out expecting — and playing our butts off every single [game]. I felt like we were short tonight.❞

❝Credit to Colorado. You look at Cole Carrigg hit a groundball to second base, and he is absolutely flying down the line — that’s how you play baseball. And they did that [in that game] and I didn’t see the same from us.❞
— said manager Blake Butera after last night’s game

On offense, the Nats have the most runs scored in MLB this season at 697 runs, and that is an impressive 5.16 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 +6 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: 1:05 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 175 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.