dpAfter a strong start to their series in Baltimore, the Mariners had to settle for a split series after two lackluster efforts on Wednesday and Thursday. That eight-game win streak a week ago is doing a lot of heavy lifting for Seattle’s overall place in the standings. It feels like the team has slipped back into the listless play that defined a lot of the first two months of the season. Maybe it’s just the fatigue of a long East Coast road trip. Whatever it is, they’ll wrap up the trip with a three-game set in Washington DC.
The Nationals have been one of the feel good stories in the National League to start this year. Stuck in a long rebuilding cycle since winning the World Series back in 2019, this is the first time they’ve shown a little progress towards actually breaking out of their doldrums. This big step forward comes after they hired Paul Toboni to take over as their new president of baseball operations last fall, becoming the youngest top executive in baseball. While there’s still plenty of work to do on the roster, especially on the pitching side of things, the lineup has been one of the most potent in baseball this year.
The Nationals have scored the second most runs in baseball thanks to a handful of breakouts from their young stars in the making. James Wood is looking like he’s ascended to a true superstar level this year; he’s absolutely crushing the ball and has mostly gotten his high whiff rate under control too. He’s already accumulated 3.0 fWAR, just shy of his total from last year, and has slugged 18 home runs. CJ Abrams has also taken a star turn, pushing his wRC+ up to 150 behind a huge increase in power output and patience at the plate.
It’s not just their two stars who have ascended, they’re seeing big steps forward from a bunch of their role players too. Curtis Mead, Keibert Ruiz, Luis García Jr., and Jacob Young have all enjoyed varying levels of newfound success this year.
Zack Littell has carved out a nice little career as a back-end starter after spending the first five years of his career as an up-and-down long reliever. It took a trade to the Rays to unlock his potential and he accumulated 4.4 fWAR across parts of three seasons in Tampa Bay. He signed with the Nationals this offseason and got off to a really poor start with his new ballclub. Through his first six starts of the season, he was running a 7.85 ERA and a 9.03 FIP. As soon as the calendar flipped to May, he turned things around, lowering his ERA to 2.27 and his FIP to 3.47 over his last seven appearances (four starts and three bulk relief appearances). He lives on the margins with a deep repertoire of modest pitches that he can usually command to any part of the strike zone.
It’s been a long and winding road for Cade Cavalli over the last few years. A former first-round draft pick back in 2020, he quickly made a name for himself as a top prospect the next year and made his big league debut in August 2022. He made one start in the majors and then was shut down with a shoulder injury. He injured his elbow the next spring and missed all of ‘23 and most of ‘24. With all that missed development time, it’s no surprise he struggled after rehabbing from his injury. He’s been excellent this year, showing off all the skills that earned him such a high prospect rating all those years ago. His best pitch is a hard curveball and he’s added a variation on that breaking ball that has a bit more horizontal break which Statcast labels a sweeper.
After years of soaking up innings in the Cardinals rotation, the Nationals signed Miles Mikolas to do the same for their young roster. As you’d expect from a wily veteran, he’s got a deep repertoire of six different pitches that he mixes well to keep batters off balance. His usually excellent command has waned a bit as he’s grown older — his 6.1% walk rate this year is higher than it’s been since 2014 (!). There really isn’t much more to his approach. He doesn’t strike out very many batters, his batted ball profile is pretty average, and his stuff isn’t getting any better with age.
The Rangers won their series against the Royals this week, climbing back to .500 and inching closer to the Mariners in the AL West standings; they’ll travel to Boston this weekend. Playing in the Las Vegas heat/altitude/Triple-A band box, the Athletics played three wild games against the Brewers this week. They’ll continue that Vegas homestand with a three-game set against the Rockies. The Astros wound up losing their series against the Angels, squeaking by with an extra-innings win on Monday but losing the deciding game on Wednesday in extras again. They’ll take the place of the Rangers and play the Royals in Kansas City this weekend.
