July 14, 2026 [LINK / comment]
The 2026 All-Star Game is being played in Philadelphia this evening, and once again, I won't be there!
Three Washington Nationals made the All-Star roster: C.J. Abrams (SS), James Wood (RF/DH), and Foster Griffin (LHP). Abrams has 20 home runs, is batting .275, and has 67 RBIs. Wood has 28 home runs, is batting .279, and has 89 runs and 79 bases on balls, in both cases the most in the majors. Griffin has a 2.77 ERA (ranked #13 in MLB), has a 10-2 record, and has thrown 109 strikeouts. He is the Nats' best pitcher since Max Scherzer. Can he keep it up? And can the Nationals front office keep him in Washington?? Luis Garcia Jr. has also been putting up All-Star caliber batting numbers, and Keibert Ruiz is not far behind.
In last night's Home Run Derby, Bryce Harper didn't make it out of the first round and was thus denied the chance to win the Derby in his home stadium twice. (He did so during his final year as a Washington National way back in 2018.) His team mate Kyle Schwarber (another former National!) made it to the final round, but fell just short of the winner, Jordan Walker of the St. Louis Cardinals. The new rules took the pressure off time-wise, giving the batters a chance to get ready for the next pitch. Walker connected on his last five (?) pitches, after I thought that Schwarber had already wrapped up a victory.
For most teams, going into the All-Star break with a nine-game home stand would be a welcome opportunity, but for the Washington Nationals it was the road to disappointment. They had a good chance of winning the first series (against the Pirates) on Sunday, July 5, with a 4-4 tie going into the 8th inning. That's when the Nats' infamous bullpen choked once again. Brad Lord, who is usually the team's most reliable reliever, gave up 5 runs and then newly acquired Justin Lawrence gave up 2 more in the 9th. Final score: Pirates 11, Nats 5.
The next day the Houston Astros came to town, and this time the Nats were ready, amassing 5 runs in the 3rd inning and 6 runs in the 5th inning to take a 12-6 lead. But the Astros came back with 1 run in the 6th and 4 more in the 8th to narrow the gap to just one run. The weary home fans' nerves were on edge, but this time the relief pitchers held the line, and Clayton Beete got the save in a 12-11 cliffhanger. Starting pitcher Miles Mikolas had an unusually strong outing, going 6 innings and getting the win. But the next day Houston got the best of Andrew Alvarez, who was charged in the 6-3 loss. In the rubber game, Foster Griffin only gave up one run over 7 full innings, while Luis Garcia and C.J. Abrams both homered, leading to an 8-2 Nats victory.
After a day of rest, the Nationals welcomed the recently-struggling New York Yankees to Washington. It was a matchup between the two teams with the most number of home runs in the major leagues. The Nats were hoping to take the series and go into the All-Star break with a record above .500, but it didn't quite work out. In all three games, the Nats had the lead going into the late innings, and each time the bullpen choked badly. Manager Blake Butera seems obsessed with changing pitchers based on righty-lefty matchups, but that blew up in his face. On Friday Matt Krook, who has a career ERA in the double digits and had no business pitching in a game with a one-run lead, blew the save in the 9th inning and took the loss. On Saturday, the Nats were leading 2-0 going into the 8th inning, when Clayton Beeter gave up 4 runs and was charged in the loss. And on Sunday Andrew Alvarez gave up a 2-run triple to "Uncle" Ben Rice, giving the Yanks a 4-3 lead which they padded with one more run in the 9th. I should mention that the decisive triple might have been caught if the usual center fielder, Jacob Young, had been playing. He is only so-so as a batter, but he has made some spectacular catches on defense. Dylan Crews missed that catch as he bumped into the wall in front of the "Red Porch" section, and a photo of that play filled the front of the Washington Post sports section the next day. The Nats hit 6 home runs during that series, but the Yankees hit 7, thus widening their lead. It's now the Yankees with 142 total home runs this year, and the Nationals with 138.
And so, the Nationals now have the dubious distinction of leading the major leagues in blown saves, with 28 altogether! THE WORST BULLPEN IN HISTORY? Maybe. The MLB record for team blown saves in a year is 37, and with two-fifths of their 162 games left to play, the Nats are well on their way to surpassing that ignoble level of incompetence. The Washington Nationals BIG moments page will soon be updated to include James Wood's second career grand slam and the recent 9th-inning reversals.
It's really quite striking that a team that are veritable juggernauts on offense are so weak on the pitching side. A team that was a contender for one of the NL wild card spots is slowly fading into insignificance just because the front office can't seem to field a reliable group of pitchers. The upshot is that whereas the Nationals were considered possible "buyers" as the trade deadline approaches at the end of July, they are now more likely go trade away some of their top talent, going back to the drawing board in a never-ending ritual of "rebuidling." It is all such an awful shame.
* with apologies to Britney Spears
Over the past couple weeks, I have been revamping the format of several stadium pages, making them much more consistent and (hopefully) accessible. Other than Citizens Bank Park (because of the All-Star Game, of course), I focused most of my attention on the eleven past and present MLB stadiums in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Texas. I mentioned this endeavor in my July 3 blog post. Of special note on the Arlington Stadium page, I have edited the (low-resolution panoramic mosaic images) sent to me long ago by Clifford "Bucky" Nance, such that the previous sharp differences in lighting between the three segments have been substantially eliminated.
Views of Citizens Bank Park when I saw Nationals-Phillies games there in April 2005 and September 2016.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Independence Hall, downtown Philadelphia skyline with the City Hall in the left foreground; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Liberty Bell.