The Washington Nationals finished on a hot streak en route to winning 10 of their final 14 games to finish the season. Just over two weeks ago, the team was stuck at 67 wins and now got to 77 wins — just 4-wins from a .500 season. Those 77 wins were an 11 game and a 16.7 percent improvement from last year.

This final game had some wonderful finishes as Andres Chaparro cranked two home runs to get him to an .894 OPS as he led MLB since the All-Star break. While Chaparro didn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify, he passed James Wood (.891) for tops on the active roster. CJ Abrams added to his team leading RBI total at 106 and had that 30+/30+/30 season for his speed and power as part of a group of just 13 players in MLB history to have those numbers in a season.

Reliever Erik Tolman who made his MLB debut on Aug. 22 after a minor league career history of catastrophic injuries is a success story. He showed his perseverance on the way to make it to MLB — and today he recorded his 5th save. DJ Herz started today’s game as he makes his way back from his TJ surgery in 2025. And the bullpen threw 6.0 scoreless today. Great ERA finishes by Will Dion (3.62), Riley Cornelio (3.68), Jack Sinclair (2.45), and Tolman (2.93).

The season started with a lot of criticism and ageism about the hirings of Paul Toboni and manager Blake Butera and members of their coaching staff. Toboni made the ownership group look wise, and Butera made Toboni look smart. None of that means that there weren’t hiccups, mistakes, and growing pains — but let’s give credit where credit is due.

Both Toboni and Butera made campaign promises that they would find an extra gear in the returning players, and would be judged by the visible scoreboard. They get an A+ for doing just that with the position players to find that extra gear, and the final record of winning 77 games shocked most evaluators and did better than any of those media predictions where the two ex-Washington Post beat writers both predicted 100+ losses this year.

Now on the other side, Toboni and Butera didn’t fare as well overall with the pitching staff, but after the trade deadline, the pitching staff really started to figure it out. You have to believe this will be a focal point for Toboni and his staff.

Anyone who thought they would get it all right in Year 1 would be dreaming. The local “experts” in that media poll had an average of 65 wins from 14 D.C. based media people. So the Nats clearly surprised the experts. On the win total, I had a range of 74-78 wins which was largely based on addition by subtraction plus progression from the offense.

We will talk about improvement over the offseason which begins for the Nats tomorrow. We will discuss this daily. So we have plenty of time to do that. For now, enjoy 77 wins, and that Cade Cavalli declared that the rebuild is over.

Cavalli said, the team’s ❝Process is of a winning culture. … Fully plan on playing in October [2027].❞ And the talk of October is synonymous with the postseason. Yes, Cavalli said it. Why not, you play to win the games. Toboni has work to do, and he is now on the clock.

Photo by Marideth Sandler/Nats.Talk