![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2272817090-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWASHINGTON \u2014 Over the last 20 years, only two teams have scored at least 140 runs and allowed at least 160 runs at this point of the season: the 2009 World Series-winning New York Yankees and the 2026 Nationals.<\/p>\n
These Nationals are fascinating, as well as perplexing, frustrating, tantalizing and alluring. They are an offensive juggernaut, though probably not the 2009 Yankees. The MLB Draft, trade deadline and offseason will determine if they can find the pieces to one day reach those heights. But it\u2019s never too early to start adjusting the on-field process to see what habits could help them get there.<\/p>\n
After a 2-5 homestand, it feels pretty clear what\u2019s gone right and what\u2019s gone wrong. One of MLB\u2019s best offenses is patient \u2014 and one of its most-battered pitching staffs is far too patient.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what that means, and how the Nationals are trying to fix it:<\/p>\n
Inside the batting cages<\/p>\n
Three hours before he hit yet another screamer, James Wood stood at his locker and began to talk about milliseconds. These milliseconds, he inferred, represented the difference between the final three months of 2025, and the first four weeks of 2026.<\/p>\n
He had nine homers over those final three months, during which he swung far too early to make any sort of reliable contact or decision. He now has more homers (10) and walks (23) than anyone else in the National League. The decision, and the swing, is happening later than ever, by a few milliseconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can take a tick more time to gain and process information before you make your decision,\u201d Wood said, \u201cthat makes all the difference in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he chuckled at how that sounded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the best way to buy yourself as many milliseconds as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
What makes Wood and his teammates so peculiar, though, is how many of them preach this message and are better when they catch the ball deeper in the zone. For as much as modern hitting development celebrates the ability to catch the baseball out in front, the Nats do not.<\/p>\n
The tough part, Wood said, is tricking himself into believing that he can be late on a pitch and still do damage. Usually, the longer a hitter waits, the less power they can generate.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Only one player (Yordan Alvarez) has more homers this season than Nationals slugger James Wood. (Greg Fiume \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Wood said Barry Bonds is an exception to that rule. Wood has now hit so many home runs into the visitor\u2019s bullpen in left field \u2014 an area that fans are debating calling the \u201cWood Shed\u201d or the \u201cWood Pile\u201d \u2014 that he probably qualifies as one, too.<\/p>\n
This season, Wood\u2019s average point of contact is about seven inches behind the average spot where he whiffs. Similar metrics have followed slower-swinging but decidedly-improved teammates Jacob Young, Curtis Mead and Jorbit Vivas.<\/p>\n
When it\u2019s going right, they don\u2019t ever feel like they\u2019re in a hurry to get to a pitch.<\/p>\n
Before Thursday\u2019s loss, Vivas sat in the dugout and talked through his process. The 25-year-old was a victim of a roster crunch on the Yankees, but the beneficiary of their player development operation. He learned that he is at his best when he can see the ball longer. Now he has a routine to back it up: Before every game, he tests himself against 100 mph pitches. That way, he knows just how long he has to wait before he swings at a pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201c(That\u2019s the case for) James, too, but I think when he decides to swing, he hits it a little bit harder than Vivas,\u201d manager Blake Butera said.<\/p>\n
Inside the pitchers\u2019 meetings: Count on the count<\/p>\n
Nothing feels worse, Nationals starter Foster Griffin said, than giving up a hit in an 0-2 or 1-2 count.<\/p>\n
He hates it. His teammates hate it.<\/p>\n
In a pitchers\u2019 pregame meeting this week, the Nationals coaching staff effectively told them, in more polite words, to get over it because it\u2019s that sort of thinking that is killing them. Entering Thursday, only two teams had thrown more waste pitches in those counts than the Nats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game has changed to where strikeouts are sexy,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cSo I feel like we might be chasing the strikeout a bit too much, as well as not wanting to give up that 0-2 hit. So those two things combined might cause a guy to yank one a little bit more, or be a little bit more hesitant to just use the pure movement or deception of the pitch to go for the swing and miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Centrally, crucially, the pitching coaches told their pitchers that their stuff is nasty enough to miss bats in the big leagues when selected properly and located effectively. But too often this year, they have gotten ahead of the hitter and then fallen right back behind with pitches far outside the zone, negating any leverage they once had and driving up their pitch counts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we go to expand the zone for swing and miss, we expand too much,\u201d Griffin said. \u201cGo more for the edge, rather than throwing it in the other batter\u2019s box.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zack Littell has allowed five more homers than anyone else in MLB, but he\u2019s attacking early. Jake Irvin has an ERA that\u2019s higher than last year\u2019s, but he\u2019s attacking early. The beleaguered bullpen is full of pitchers with high ERAs who throw first-pitch strikes.<\/p>\n
For them \u2014 at least, they convey it this way in their meetings \u2014 it\u2019s simply about what they\u2019re doing later on in the count that is dictating games. Pitching prospect Riley Cornelio will offer a good test case in his debut. Can a pitcher that nasty trust his stuff when he inevitably gets ahead in the count?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make them be close enough to where hitters are offering, but also not over the middle of the plate where they\u2019re getting damaged, but also not too far off to where it\u2019s an automatic take,\u201d said Butera, nearly running out of breath as he explained it. \u201cIt\u2019s such a fine line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Over the last 20 years, only two teams have scored at least 140 runs and allowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,2331],"class_list":["post-603493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}