The Washington Nationals are winners of 5-of-7 games and have surpassed their win total from the 2025 season, with 20 more games to play. Of course this weekend, they play the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Nationals have Jackson Kent as the scheduled starter on two days of extra rest as he pitched 106 pitches last weekend, and that was a career high for him as a pro.

The Nats did make a number of roster moves today with right-hander reliever Joe Glassey getting promoted to Triple-A with RHP Jack Sinclair promoted to the Nats. He takes the place of Max Kranick who was DFA’d. Also,LHP Tom Cosgrove cleared outright waivers and has been assigned to Triple-A Rochester.

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 20 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 15-5 to finish the season.

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

— said manager Blake Butera on Tuesday

On offense, the Nats have the second most runs scored in MLB this season at 735 runs, and that is an impressive 5.18 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.69 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +14 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. Los Angeles Dodgers

Stadium: UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California
1st Pitch: 10:10 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