The Nats are a .500-ish team but as I've noted they've managed that in part by luck and part by schedule. The former is up to the baseball gods but the latter shifts like sand and there is a sandstorm coming. After facing the sort of in trouble Blue Jays the Nats have the following schedule  Orioles - Great! Red Sox - Surprisingly good! White Sox - probably the worst team in baseball, them or the Rockies Phillies - good Twins - good Mariners - good Braves - great Guardians - great Mets - good Braves - great Tigers - maybe good, we'll see when the Nats get there YIKES!  That's a LOO ..read more

The Nats did not get out of the month with Davey's first winning April. But 14-15 is a pleasant surprise. Of course it is early and a mere 13-16 probably fits with most projections, if not that 12-17 certainly does so small sample size caveats hold.  We (we being me and most people) often say Memorial Day weekend is the time when you look at things and can think "oh this might be real". It's a full third of the season in and gives plenty of time for the hot or cold week-10days-two weeks to balance out. That being said this first month is the information we have and sets us up for what to ..read more

So that answers that. At least as far as I think.  Yes, the Nats have played a relatively easy schedule and yes, they've gotten a bit lucky by the metrics, but I think checking out the first three games of this series, there's no doubt they are the better team. They have what looks like a complete offensive player in Abrams, a young pitcher rounding into form in Gore and a bullpen full of fairly good bets that turned into a solid pen. Add in a few FA and returning surprises and it's a competitive team. Are they really .500 ish? Nah. but let's see how long they can pretend to be because if ..read more

After that disappointing finish to the home stand, the Nats head to Miami for a four game set. I see this as a season-setting series. The Marlins are very bad, but after a 0-9 start they are 6-11. That's like "usual worst team in the majors this year" as opposed to the "is this a historically bad team?" their record might suggest. The Marlins' starting pitching is fine and back of the pen is fairly reliable and they might be coming around depth-wise on both of these to form a more average ish squad, maybe even good. This is in line with the last couple of years. But their offense remains terri ..read more

 Lane Thomas went to the IL and there was some hope James Wood would get the call. Sorry. Trey Lipscomb is back!  Why? Why replace an OF with an IF? Well from biggest reason to smallest...  1) Trey is already on the 40-man. So to bring him up you don't have to make room.  You would if bringing up nearly anyone else as the rest of the 40-man is basically injured guys and pitchers. Except...  2) The OF on the 40-man is Alex Call. They gave Alex a good long trial last year. He can sure field, but he can't hit.  He's currently hitting .212 / .312 in AAA (though with 6 ..read more

The Nats have had a good start. They continue to be fed by close wins (yesterday was only the second time they've won a game by more than 2 runs) and a relatively weak schedule* but if they are beating the worst that likely means they aren't the worst themselves, which was an honest question to start the year. But of course we only have the start of the year to go on and that's not much.  If you look at all the worst teams last year they all had longer stretches of better baseball at various points. The A's went 13-12 at one point. The Royals finished they year 15-12. The White Sox pulled ..read more

There's no doubt about it, the Nats had a good road trip. 5-4 away puts the Nats at 8-10 and not in any contention (the Mets and Phillies have picked up their respective games as expected) but into "decent season" territory which is what they needed to make 2025 one that fans could pins hope to. Of course it's only 18 games but better this than the alternative (see; Marlins, Florida)  So how did this happen?  Well somethings are going WAY right.  CJ Abrams, who should have been signed long-term last year, is looking like a star with that power surge noted before continuing. Jess ..read more

A lot of them in a lot of ways.  Even if the Nats are showing some top level competence - Abrams is probably good! Winker could be a steal! - they are still very shallow and if you start to need the 2nd level or god forbid the 3rd level of the team to perform you are asking for trouble. Still a win in LA will make it a successful road trip and a sweep by the Dodgers is basically expected and doesn't constitute a disappointment. That's not much of a hurdle.   Gore did look good against the A's, so did Williams, and Jake Irvin.  Of course the key to that is the A's themselves ..read more

James Wood had four hits yesterday including his first homer, and oh yes, his second homer of the season. He's currently hitting .441 / .558 / .794 in AAA and while that would obviously cool down given time, it's also obvious he can handle AAA pitching and is ready for the majors Exhibit 1 is his stats.  Along with the above, in 2023 after some struggles in July and August, hit .353 / .421 / .569 in September.  Exhibit 2 is his Ks.  The only real question about Wood is did he strike out too much. Not that it looked like that would keep him from being a good play but it could lim ..read more

2-0 and feeling good. It might be that the Giants are bad. We are still feeling these things out. And definitely San Fran going 1-16 with RISP over the first two games is unsustainable, but as we always say here - you don't have to give the wins back.  Take them and run.  As constituted the Nats still aren't playoff contenders but with the Marlins looking like maybe the worst team in baseball all it would take is the Phillies or Mets to disappoint (and both are so far) for the Nats to get a nice 4+ win boost just for being in the right division at the right time. Have some kids get h ..read more