Nationals have had 15 chances to get to .500 in the past 2 years. They’re 0-15 in those games

CINCINNATI — On Thursday, gravitas was supposed to give way to catharsis.

It was not supposed to end with outfielder Joey Wiemer chuckling on the mound, nor with infielder Jose Tena standing in right field, losing a flyball in the sun, then accidentally kicking the ball away when he couldn’t find it. It was not supposed to end in a 15-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, at least not in their ideal version of events.

In truth, by game’s end, it was tough to remember why this one felt any more consequential than the other 161 they will play this season.

Then the standings were updated.

For the 15th time in the past two years (since May 15, 2024), the Washington Nationals started the day just one game under .500. They have now lost all 15 of those games.

It’s an almost unfathomable streak to process. Especially if you’ve been around for all 15 of them.

“We’ve been teasing (that .500 mark) for a while here,” outfielder Jacob Young said. “Hopefully, we can kind of get over that hump and start going the other way.”

It’s never bad to play .500 baseball on the road, Young said. Whether they’re snakebitten or the wounds are self-inflicted, whether they blame youth or an Etsy curse, whether they think about it or they don’t, it’s not an easy thing to stomach.

“You want to be contending, and to be contending, you’ve got to be at least .500,” Young said. “Everyone knows that. We’ve been teetering with it, of course. But I think if we can just catch a little momentum here and win a few in a row, we can kind of just forget about that number and go the other way.

“It’s a team goal. Once you go out there, you try to execute to get to that main goal, but it’s not something you can think about when you’re out there. You’re just going out to play that game, win that game, and … when you get in the clubhouse afterwards, you kind of assess where we are as a team, and go from there.”

The newcomers felt a bit different. They’re happy with how this road trip went, a 3-3 stretch against the Reds and Miami Marlins. Lefty Foster Griffin (signed this winter) said it was just the sort of thing they’ll have to figure out over the course of 162 games. He was more concerned with the nine runs he had just given up.

Consistent with his retorts for most of the season, manager Blake Butera (onboarded in November) saw it as something to ignore at this juncture.

“I’m just not too caught up in our record here on May 15th,” Butera said. “We want to win every day. So whatever our record is, our job is to go out there and play our best game every day. We’ve kept coming up to one game below .500, but at the end of the day, we care about where we’re at come August, September, October.”

Still, at the day’s beginning, this seemed to be as ripe an opportunity as any. Griffin had allowed 11 earned runs through his previous eight starts. Their lineup was second in MLB in runs, and erased a 5-0 deficit the night before. Daylen Lile, playing in front of more than 80 family members and friends, earned the online moniker “Louisville Slugger” for his 10th-inning, two-run, game-winning tank on Saturday.

Instead, Thursday was another emotional kick in the teeth with a quiet finish. They pulled James Wood and CJ Abrams early. They followed Griffin with Zak Kent (who was immediately optioned to Triple-A Rochester) and Wiemer (who chuckled between pitches).

On April 4, they were 3-4. Jake Irvin spotted the Dodgers a 6-0 lead. On April 13, the Nationals were 7-8. Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates handled them 16-5. On April 15, the Nationals were 8-9. Jake Irvin and Brad Lord combined to allow just two runs, but the offense was shut out for the first time. On April 17, the Nationals were 9-10 and got the San Francisco Giants and their woeful offense. They allowed 10 runs. On May 9, they were 19-20 and had a 4-0 lead over the Miami Marlins. They allowed eight unanswered runs to lose it.

Their solemnity, accordingly, sounded familiar. The clubhouse was quiet, save for three sounds: The scraping of dirt off of cleats, the thud of bags getting loaded onto carts and the soft sound of Mac Miller’s melancholy music in the background.

And yet.

“I mean, what’s our record, 21-23?” Butera asked rhetorically. “If our goal is to be 22-22, like, I don’t know (what) that does for us. Our goal is just to keep getting better every day. I know it might sound like cliche or whatever, but that really is what these guys are focused on doing.”