Washington Nationals 2025 Season

THE LEAD

Considering that it took both DJ Herz tearing his UCL and Shinnosuke Ogasawara proving not ready for the major leagues for Mitchell Parker to secure a spot in the Nats’ rotation to start the year, I don’t think a lot of people had him opening the 2025 season with five straight quality starts, punctuated by last night’s eight innings of one-hit shutout ball on ninety-nine pitches. Parker has a steady heartbeat in big situations - his two best starts thus far have come against the potent lineups of the Phillies and Orioles, in which he has allowed a combined zero (0) runs in fourteen and a third innings.

There seems to be plenty of evidence that at some point Parker might come back to Earth. He doesn’t miss a ton of bats (only twenty strikeouts in a little over thirty-two innings, after 133 in 151 inninga in 2024) - although his strikeout rate was very strong in the minors. His fastball is pretty average, and most of his Statcast page is likewise…meh. And he remains a poor fielder for his position. But he has above-average extension (so hitters pick him up late), does a pretty good job of keeping the ball on the ground, and avoids barrels with the best of them. There’s a chance that he can keep doing this effectively, although maintaining a 1.39 ERA and sub-1.000 WHIP would take some doing. Still, a year after being perhaps the most pleasant surprise for the 2024 Nationals, he’s somehow repeating that feat.

 Washington Nationals 2025 Season

Game Recap

Parker didn’t have the only star turn in yesterday’s 7-0 romp against Dean Kremer and the Oreos. On the first of consecutive bobblehead nights, James Wood had two doubles and an infield single, and both Nathaniel Lowe and Dylan Crews homered. Josh Bell and Nasim Nuñez were the only two Nationals who did not collect hits (how about José Tena and his seven total bases?!?), and Nuñez at least played a stellar shortstop. Davey Martinez did not let Parker come back out to try and finish the shutout, but Colin Poche walked two of the three batters he faced in the ninth, forcing Davey to call upon Cole Henry to clean up his mess (which he did). It was a complete win in every sense.

 STORY TYPE

Title of the Story

After three strong appearances to begin his MLB career and a dearth of better available options, it might be time to start trying Cole Henry in higher-leverage situations. He has always had great stuff, and in stranding two runners with consecutive strikeouts to finish last night’s game, he showed that he very well may have the right makeup for such situations also. He at least cannot be worse than half of the Nationals’ bullpen has been thus far, and the best-case scenario is that he turns into another Hunter Harvey.

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 WHAT WE THINK THE NATIONALS FRONT OFFICE IS READING

Speed Reads

📌 Scherzer On His 2008 Scouting Report (Fangraphs)

📌 Shohei Making Progress For Mound Return (Yahoo!)

📌 Francona On Managerial Comeback (The Athletic)