Washington Nationals 2025 Season

THE LEAD

We’re going streaking! The Nats beat the Dodgers for their third win in a row last night, and are now 4-6 with a fill-in starter (Justin Wrobleski) on the hill for the Dodgers this evening. The Nats will counter with their own fill-in starter, Brad Lord, in place of the injured Michael Soroka. Lord last pitched Wednesday of last week in Toronto, so there’s a chance that if he can avoid long counts he can give Davey Martinez four innings tonight before he is followed by some combination of Jackson Rutledge, Jose A. Ferrer, and Orlando Ribalta (Kyle Finnegan will definitely be unavailable - see below).

 Washington Nationals 2025 Season

Game Recap

Perhaps the Dodgers were too worn out from their trip to the White House earlier in the day commemorating last year’s World Series win to give it their best shot at Nationals Park last night, but they still brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the top of the ninth inning in the person of Mookie Betts. Kyle Finnegan did what he seems to do best: close out a narrow lead with an extra degree of difficulty (Max Muncy on third base, Shohei Ohtani on first, Betts at the plate, 68 pitches on his arm over the past three days) to preserve a 6-4 win.

MacKenzie Gore struck out seven and walked just one in six strong innings marred only by Ohtani ripping a two-run shot into the Nats’ bullpen, and James Wood hit a two-run bomb of his own into the Red Porch seats in left-center that had Ryan Zimmerman - no stranger to opposite-field power - chuckling in disbelief given the ease of the swing, the pitch location, and the cold temperatures. In this tenth consecutive game of Nationals bullpen Russian roulette, it was Lucas Sims who let the Dodgers back into the game, surrendering two runs in the top of the eighth before Finnegan came in to record the five-out save.

 Washington Nationals Analysis

The Day of Our Lord

Last year at this time, I was covering the AA Harrisburg Senators for The Nats Report, and I remember being unimpressed when the Nationals promoted Brad Lord from high-A Wilmington to Harrisburg after just one nondescript start last year (he had made his final nine starts in 2023 for the Blue Rocks as well). Lord allowed seven runs (six earned) while recording twenty-six outs across his first two starts, although crucially half of those outs were via strikeout. And then what happened? Lord took to the Eastern League like a duck to water, allowing just five earned runs in his next ten starts combined, a 64-inning stretch that saw him win Eastern League Pitcher of the Month for both May and June, even though he had already been promoted to AAA Rochester on June 20. 

Lord’s rise throughout the organization from an 18th-round afterthought in 2022 to the Opening Day bullpen in 2025 was already meteoric. Now, he can grab a big league rotation spot for the foreseeable future. You might be skeptical, but Lord has been proving doubters emphatically wrong over the last twelve months, and now (like Mitchell Parker almost a year ago) he gets to test his mettle in his first career start against the Dodgers.

 theFUTURE

Down on the Farm Schedule

Since it is Tuesday, the Washington Nationals’ farm teams are back in action. Here is what is happening with the Washington Nationals’ minor league teams:

• Rochester Red Wings will be away playing the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Triple-A Affiliate of New York Yankees)

• Harrisburg Senators will be home playing the Richmond Flying Squirrels (Double-A Affiliate of the San Francisco Giants)

• Wilmington Blue Rocks will be home playing the Hub City Spartanburgers (High A Affiliate of the Texas Rangers)

• The Fredericksburg Nationals will be home playing the Salem Red Sox (Low-A Affiliate of the Boston Red Sox). This will be our featured minor league team of the week!

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 WHAT WE THINK THE NATIONALS FRONT OFFICE IS READING

Speed Reads

📌 Inside the process of making an MLB star's torpedo bat (ESPN)

📌 3 Reasons Why Mega MLB Contracts Are Trending After Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s $500m Deal (Bleacher Report)

📌 3 Major League Baseball umpires call DC area home (WTOP)