The Washington Nationals are winners of 5-of-6 games and have now surpassed their win total from the 2025 season, with 21 more games to play. The bad news is that starter Jackson Kent won’t pitch today. You should not be shocked as we warned you five days ago after he was shoved to a high in pitch count (106) in his pro career.

For this afternoon game against the Braves, Brad Lord will be the opener. You can look at the bullpen usage chart to see who has innings to give. Riley Cornelio is back today. More on that below. He is fresh and threw 12 pitches on Aug. 30 in relief. This is Cornelio version 4.0 meaning this is his 4ᵗʰ stint with the MLB team this year. Hopefully this is the BEST version of Cornelio.

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 5-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 6-games in the win column to get to 73 wins. And to get to a winning season, the Nats would have to go 15-6 to finish the season.

Yesterday, the Nationals made their two Sept. 1 roster additions with corner infielder Yohandy Morales and LHP Jared Simpson joining the roster. Both were key parts in the Nats win and were the stars of the game. Today, James Wood is back. Cornelio was added for bullpen depth. To make room for Wood and Cornelio, Andrew Pinckney was optioned to Triple-A, and Tom Cosgrove was DFA’d which put the 40-man roster at 39.

❝Wanted to push-back Jackson Kent, just after all the pitches he threw in his last start.❞

— said manager Blake Butera after yesterday’s game

On offense, the Nats have the second most runs scored in MLB this season at 735 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 +23 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: 1:05 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 203 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Marideth Sandler /Nats.Talk