The Washington Nationals showed their resiliency to bounce-back from a tough defeat, and put a blow-save-loss on the Miami Marlins after they did the same to the Nats on Sunday. Now, the Nats are winners of 4-of-5 and matched their win total from the 2025 season, with 22 more games to play.

Since the World Series season of 2019, the Nationals have not won more than 71 games in a season. Can these Nats surpass that number? That would take 6-wins to reach that mark. There are 21 games remaining in this 2026 season. To avoid a 90 loss season, the Nats need to get 7-games in the win column to get to 73 wins. And to get to a winning season, the Nats would have to go 16-5 to finish the season.

Last night, Daylen Lile continued his hot streak after collecting Player of the Week honors for last week. Lile was the 2025 Player of the Month winner for September, and the hope is that he can match his Sept. 2025 numbers.

Also, what about reliever Erik Tolman who is doing things we’ve never seen before. His life right now should be a baseball movie. You must listen to his MLB Network Radio interview from today. An absolute story of tragedy turned to a medical miracle along with his perseverance in baseball. He said that he was yanking his fastball and recently fixed that with some new drills.

The Nationals made their two Sept. 1 roster additions with corner infielder Yohandy Morales and LHP Jared Simpson joining the roster. Both were Rule-5 eligible and a good move by the team. Morales will start as the DH in tonight’s game. The active roster is now at 28-players.

❝Man, we’d be in a really good spot if this is the real Daylen, and I do believe it is. No doubt, he’s hot right now, but I think this version of Daylen. The way he’s taking his at-bats right now, and the way he’s laying off pitches and waiting until he gets something in his zone, we all know how good his swing is. We all know how athletic he is. The ability to drive the baseball when he’s hunting a certain pitch and a location. He’s not missing it right now.❞

— said manager Blake Butera after yesterday’s game

On offense, the Nats have the second most runs scored in MLB this season at 726 runs, and that is an impressive 5.21 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 +19 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.

Miami Marlins 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 206 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Marideth Sandler /Nats.Talk