Washington Nationals: Top 10 moments from the 2018 season

The Washington Nationals will not remember 2018 fondly as a whole, but that doesn’t mean the team didn’t have some truly memorable moments along the way.

The 2018 season didn’t play out as everyone had hoped for the Washington Nationals as they finished 82-80, missing the playoffs. The offense was inconsistent, the pitching had peaks and slumps and the bullpen never really got fully healthy.

But in every season, no matter how poor the outcome is, every team has several memorable moments fans and player alike will remember fondly. That’s no different for the Nats, and we take a look at the top 10 moments from the 2018 season.

You’ll find a lot of the usual suspects making appearances in this list, with players like Ryan Zimmerman and Bryce Harper no stranger to dramatics. A new name among them is Juan Soto, who made his debut in 2018 and had some key hits for the Nats in his rookie year.

Honorable mentions

It was a tough decision to trim the moments down to just 10, and there were a few that we felt worth mentioning. Mark Reynolds had a Cinderella start to his Nats career with two home runs in his debut as he steered his team to a 6-4 win in Arizona on Sunday Night Baseball.

Reynolds also had quite the series against the Miami Marlins in early July. The Nationals had just completed a dramatic comeback the night before and Reynolds hit the walk-off home run to keep the feel-good factor around. Then he went 5 for 5 while driving in 10 runs in the third game of the series. Not bad.

The legend of Juan Soto began on May 20th when he received his first major league call-up, but yet he has a home run registered to his name before that date. He’s now an expert time traveler, as he hit a long ball when playing in a resumed game against the New York Yankees from May 15th. Freaky.

Our final honorable mention comes from the day that the Nationals actually traded away two of their better hitters. Earlier in the day, Daniel Murphy and Matt Adams left for pastures new, but the game that followed was particularly wild.

With those two leaving, new call-ups Andrew Stevenson and Adrian Sanchez had to drive from Syracuse to Washington for the game. Thankfully, the rain delay meant they arrived early on, cue the stage being set for the adrenaline-filled Stevenson to hit a pinch-hit game-tying home run that showed the Nats would be ok without Murphy and Adams.

So, let’s get to the top 10, and funnily enough, we start with another game that followed the Nats making an interesting trade.