Washington Nationals have no easy fix for their biggest problem
It's hard to know what the 2026 Washington Nationals truly are.
Yeah, I know I promised myself I wouldn't care this year, but for some reason I just can't stay away from those curly Ws.
On the one hand, you have a team that is 8th in batting average (.252), sixth in slugging percentage (.410) and fifth in OPS (.741). Only the LA Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, LA Angels, and New York Yankees have hit more than their 32 home runs so far this season and only the Braves have more than their 132 runs batted in on the season.
With those offensive power numbers, you'd think the team was at least hovering around .500, if not better, not sitting 3rd in the division at 11-16 and just having lost to the Chicago White Sox in interleague play.
Our star right fielder, James Wood, is third in MLB with 10 homers on the season, and shortstop CJ Abrams isn't too far behind him with 7 dingers so far this season.
And yet the team is struggling.
The obvious culprit in this Scooby Doo-level mystery is the team's pitching. It's atrocious. Especially the crap that has been coming out of the bullpen.
The Nats have the second-worst ERA in baseball (5.59), they've given up the second-most hits (261), the second-most runs (167), the second-most earned runs (151), etc., etc.
But the Nats abysmal pitching is most evident in the number of home runs they've given up. Just 27 games into the season, the Nats have given up a whopping 48 home runs.
The Houston Astros are the next closest competitor with 39 home runs.
The 2026 Washington Nationals are on pace to give up 288 home runs this season, which would rank them second all-time behind the 305 the Baltimore Orioles gave up in 2019.
Nats fans are in uncharted territory with this.
Ever since the team drafted Stephen Strasburg in 2009, pitching has been the Nats identity. They rode Stras, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, and Anibal Sanchez to a World Series in 2019, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a top-4 rotation that could go against anyone in the league.
Even after that championship team crumbled, the team was still able to rebuild with blue-chip pitchers like MacKenzie Gore.
But those days are officially done. The only thing more surprising than the Nats' hot offensive start is just how bad the pitching has been.
So seeing James Wood at the top of a bunch of offensive leaderboards is great, but it sucks knowing that whatever lead the team is able to cobble together isn't safe in the hands of a pitching rotation that is on pace for one of the worst seasons ever.
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This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 6:00 PM.