MIAMI — Washington Nationals infielder Nasim Nuñez sat at his locker, widened his eyes and started talking about rollercoasters.
The cliche may be a bit tired — ride the highs and lows, and understand it’s all part of the journey — but it felt particularly apt at this very moment.
Washington entered the eighth inning of its last three games at LoanDepot Park either tied with or leading the Miami Marlins. Sweeping Miami would have put the team over .500 at the quarter-season mark for the first time since 2018 and offered tangible affirmation that its new instruction is working.
Instead, the Nats dropped two of three. They head to Cincinnati three games under .500.
“You fail 70 percent of the time (in this game), so you can’t be scared of it,” Nuñez said. “You’ve got to kind of embrace it. You can’t really run from it.”
“I hate letting the team down,” said reliever Gus Varland, who had a 1.69 ERA over his previous 11 outings but took the loss in Sunday’s 5-2 defeat. “But you’re going to have days like this over 162 games. If you let one get to you, you’re not going to be good for the rest of the year. So flush it.”
The Nats seem insistent on riding these rollercoasters and being an outlier in some form or fashion. Here are the numbers that have defined their 19-22 start:
39: Errors (30th in MLB)
On Saturday, with the Nats holding on to a two-run lead in the sixth, CJ Abrams collected a grounder and couldn’t get his hand on top of the baseball. The throw took Luis Garcia Jr. off the bag and allowed speedy Connor Norby to take first … then second and third base on consecutive stolen bases … then home, when he became the 33rd unearned run against the Nationals this season.
Washington lost the game by one run.
The Nats have now committed 11 more errors than any team in MLB, which puts them on pace to commit more errors than any team in the 21st century. On Sunday, Nationals manager Blake Butera said their middle infielders have done a poor job holding runners, with two double steals helping plate three more runs. They also aren’t planning any position changes at the moment. Washington has allowed 1.4 unearned runs per game in losses, almost three times the MLB average, despite a significant increase in the focus on defense.
It’s been a confounding detail within the walls of Nats Park and speaks, in part, to the inexperience of the roster.
James Wood leads the majors in “barrels” — hard-hit balls at a good angle in the air. (Jim Rassol / Imagn Images)
“A lot of this is still new to them, in terms of the training environments, the emphasis on defense, information they’re being given,” Butera said. “I’m hopeful that if we stick with this process and continue to make slight adjustments here and there based on what we’re seeing in the game, that it’s going to click at some point. Just not sure when that is yet.”
“Everybody has to work on something, right?” Garcia said through an interpreter. “But the nice thing about this group is that everybody comes in, works hard and just wants to get better.”
26: Barrels for James Wood (1st in MLB)
There are supposed to be trade-offs in this sport. Throw harder, lose command. Swing harder, whiff more. Wood is lifting the ball more, and, somehow, the rest of his game is still intact.
It’s not a dramatic change in the swing itself (why mess with perfection?) but in his intent. Wood has stopped making contact on pitches outside the zone, which is where he hit 44 grounders in 2025. When Marlins lefty Sandy Alcantara got him to poke at a sinker down and away in the fifth inning on Sunday, it was just the fifth groundball Wood has hit on a pitch outside the zone this season.
Take away the grounders from a man who hits the ball a million mph and you’re left with what, exactly? More “barrels” — hard-hit balls at a good angle in the air — than anyone in MLB.
17: Hits with runners in scoring position for CJ Abrams (1st in MLB)
The Nationals will not move Abrams up in the order. Perhaps it is the right call.
He sees better matchups in the middle of the order, and is on pace to take 65 more plate appearances with runners in scoring position than he did last year when he led off. On Friday, he got a curveball over the middle in the first and drove in Curtis Mead from second. His 17 hits with runners in scoring position lead baseball.
118: wRC+ against left-handed pitching (2nd in MLB)
Lefties were supposed to be a problem for this lineup. Wood, Abrams and Daylen Lile were supposed to carry this offense without the support of a veteran right-handed bat. Instead, they’re hitting lefties 18 percent better than the MLB average, which is better than every team but the Chicago Cubs. When I asked Butera about it, he tilted his head to the side and said he couldn’t explain it.
Maybe it doesn’t matter all that much. An MLB-best .346 batting average on balls in play against lefties suggests some regression may be on the way. But this is about what they’ve done as much as it is about what they will do. Here, they’re an outlier.
46 (30th), 10 (3rd) and 3: Homers allowed across three different stretches
When Zack Littell gave up his fourth homer to the Atlanta Braves on April 22 — the 46th of the season for the Nats — it looked dire. From that date through Friday, they have given up just 10, the third-fewest in MLB. On Saturday, they were bitten again by the home-run bug, with three in one game. The secret: Staying ahead in the count more often.
7: Pitches Foster Griffin deploys with a batting average against under .250 (1st in MLB)
We’ll have more on Griffin later this week. At the moment, know this: His 2.12 ERA ranks ninth among qualified starters. So much of his success comes down to that kitchen sink of an arsenal.
5: Baserunning run value: (1st in MLB)
This one is a bit complicated, especially after Joey Wiemer ran into an out in the ninth on Saturday and Wood did the same in the first on Sunday. But all told, it helps to be aggressive on the bases when you employ three of the 25 fastest players in MLB in your everyday lineup, including the stolen base leader in Nuñez.
0: The amount of awareness James Wood had about their record
MLB players like to say they don’t hear the outside noise and take games day by day. Virtually everyone in Wood’s life will tell you that he does indeed embrace that mantra, as illustrated by his response to a question on Saturday about the team’s inability to get to .500.
“Honestly, I’m not that great at keeping up with our record,” Wood said. “But I mean, it feels like we’ve been playing pretty good baseball and staying in a lot of games. There’s just one thing here, one thing there. The margin in all these games is razor-thin.”