The Washington Nationals almost pulled off the comeback last night for their second night in a row of making it interesting. On Saturday night, it was back to the all too familiar blown save to ruin another great game.

In tonight’s Sunday night finale with the Dodgers, the Nationals have Andrew Alvarez on the mound tonight at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, California. He has turned his season into one of the most encouraging stories going into the offseason. Tonight will certainly be a good test for Alvarez on a big stage.

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 18 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 15-3 to finish the season.

After this game, the Nationals will travel by bus to San Diego for a 3-game series starting on Monday.

❝They’ve all gotten here in different ways, and I think that’s the case with almost all Major League players. You learn when times are tough, how did you respond vs. the guy that maybe had the clear path up here? And I don’t think any of the ones that we have really gotten recently have had a clear, easy path the way up here. You look at Erik Tolman, just given the injury history and the stuff that he’s had to do. The Jared Simpsons, of course, the Jack Sinclairs, as you mentioned, have taken a long time. They all have unique trials and tribulations they’ve gone through to get here.❞

— said manager Blake Butera

On offense, the Nats have the second most runs scored in MLB this season at 743 runs, and that is an impressive 5.17 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.70 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +11 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 89 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Sol Tucker /Nats.Talk