Bullpen woes strike again as Nationals fall to Guardians

The Washington Nationals bullpen did it’s thing yet again, resulting in another frustrating loss

The Washington Nationals were the better team for 8 of the 9 innings today. Unfortunately, they were really bad that one inning. In the sixth inning, the Nationals allowed 8 runs in an embarrassing inning for an embarrassing bullpen.

This game kind of summed up a lot of the key themes of the Nationals season. There was a lot of promise from the young stars. James Wood and CJ Abrams each had three hits and Alex Call was fantastic. For the first five innings, Michael Soroka turned back the clock to 2019. There were legitimately a lot of positive things to take away from this game.

However, those things were overshadowed by the negatives. Soroka hit a wall in the sixth inning, allowing the first four batters to reach and gave up a three run double to cap off what was a great performance prior to that disastrous inning.

After he left the game, the bullpen did not do anything to help out their starter. In fact, as usual they made things worse. Jorge Lopez came in and did not fool anyone. After he pitched 1.2 innings yesterday, his stuff looked diminished. He faced three batters, walking one and giving up two hits. By the time he left, the 3-0 lead the Nats started the inning with was now a 5-3 deficit. There were still zero outs. It was an awful effort from an historically bad bullpen.

Andrew Chafin got put into a tough spot, and while he was not great, this mess was not his fault. After a sac bunt, Keibert Ruiz let a pitch get by him that he should have blocked, which scored a run. After an RBI groundout, Chafin walked two and then allowed a base hit to Jose Ramirez. Carlos Santana, the 13th batter of the inning finally showed the Nats some mercy and got out to end the inning.

However, the Nationals offense kept fighting. This Nationals team might have fatal flaws, but boy do they battle hard. In the 7th inning, they plated three runs to make it an 8-6 game. That score would stand as neither team scored again.

After the sixth inning meltdown, Cole Henry did a great job keeping the Nats in the fight, with three scoreless innings. Outside of one really bad game against the Mets, Henry has been fantastic since his call up. He and Jackson Rutledge deserve more looks in high leverage. At this point, what is the downside of giving them opportunities. It is not like things could get a whole lot worse.

While the Nats offense was scrappy and always provided a threat, the situational hitting left a lot to be desired. The Nats were 4/19 with runners in scoring position and left 15 runners on base. That is really bad baseball. While the Nats offense fought hard, they left a lot on the table. Dylan Crews was a major culprit of this. He came up in a couple big spots and failed to deliver.

Crews has really struggled lately, and it is fair to ask if he should get some time off or be sent down. He just looks really uncomfortable in the box and his mechanics are all over the place. Crews does not look anything like he did a couple weeks ago, both mechanically and confidence wise.

This loss was a gut punch, as the Nats looked in control until that nightmare sixth inning. I am getting really tired of writing about how the bullpen blew a game, but I feel like this will be far from the last time I am going to write a story about that. The Nats have a lot of heart and some exciting young talent, but this bullpen is unacceptable.