On Saturday, the Washington Nationals finally reached their own "promised land." No, that's not the World Series. It's not even the Postseason. But it is an important step towards reaching both of those in the future: for the first time in two years, the Nationals reached a .500 record after April.
Perhaps it sounds silly, especially given that it didn't hold--the team went on to lose their next two games to drop back to 23-25 before winning last night to get to 24-25--but this is a massive development for a club expected generally to go nowhere in 2026. It becomes a perhaps larger development when one considers how close the team had come to this since it last took place.
The last time the Nationals won a game to return to a .500 record was over two years ago on the 14th of May in 2024. A White Sox team bound for 121 losses, rostering eight individual hitters who would finish the season with half a win below replacement level or worse, hosted the Nats that day in the first game of a doubleheader. In some ways, the lineup was familiar. CJ Abrams led off; Luis GarcÃa Jr. hit fifth, and Nasim Nuñez came in to pinch-run in the 8th inning of a tie game and scored the eventual winning run.
From another perspective, it's a reminder of time gone by. Eddie Rosario hit third in that batting order. After slashing .183/.226/.329, the team released him in July. Atlanta picked him up and he somehow hit even worse for them before they, too, dropped him a month later. He'd finish the year as one of the least valuable players in the league.
A couple of big days at the plate were had by Joey Meneses and Trey Lipscomb, who each reached base in all four of their plate appearances; Lipscomb stole three bases in the effort. Names on the pitching side stand out. After a five-and-dive from Trevor Williams, the Nats got four scoreless innings out of Robert Garcia, Derek Law, Hunter Harvey, and Kyle Finnegan, none of whom wear the Curly W today.
Despite three errors by the defense--some things are evergreen--the Nats won that game, 6 runs to 3, to return to a 20-20 record. Old friend Erick Fedde would shut them out in the nightcap of that doubleheader, though, kicking off a five-game losing streak. What followed is one of the most back-breaking statistics in recent memory: the Nationals, over their next 15 chances, failed to win a single game while actively sitting one game below .500.
It started later that year. They won eight of nine in the first half of June only to lose 5-0 to the Diamondbacks while 35-36, 5-2 while 36-37, and 8-7 to the Rockies--blowing a one-run lead in the ninth--while 37-38. The Nats played chicken with a .500 record in April of 2025, too. A 5-2 loss to Toronto, a 6-5 loss to the Dodgers, and then the slide began in one of the most consequential seasons in team history.
The new-look Nationals have struggled with it a bit themselves. Sure, they were even over .500 for a brief few sweet games in March, though a three-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers put an end to that. That's not to say they didn't try--they traded wins and losses back and forth all through April. They were as close as 21-22 after a thrilling 8-7 win in extras over the Reds a week ago--only to implode and allow 15 runs the next day.
On a fateful Saturday evening in the nation's capital, though, the offense exploded. The oft-maligned Keibert Ruiz drove in 5; the now-demoted Brady House had six total bases and 3 RBI as a pinch hitter. Cade Cavalli notched a quality start to secure the series victory in the Battle of the Beltways. A game two years in the making resulted in the team reaching a milestone that can't be stripped en route to eventually becoming a contender once more.
In this sense, perhaps, the White Sox and Nationals have been star-crossed lovers. Two years after becoming the losingest team in modern MLB history, the Southside club now holds a record also hovering around .500 in 2026; they've got the fourth-best win-loss mark in a weak American League, in fact. Even as players like Gavin Sheets, Dominic Fletcher, and Garrett Crochet have departed the roster and found greater success elsewhere, they've found success in guys like Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery, Davis Martin, and, notably, Miguel Vargas--who was second worst in fWAR on that 2024 club.
That 2024 Nationals team was, in some senses, just as listless. The big boppers of that game in Chicago, Meneses and Lipscomb, would finish 2nd- and 3rd-worst in fWAR on that team; they've since given way to perhaps more impactful bats, even if the presence on the roster of someone like Brady House is, in fact, no longer guaranteed.
The Nats are staring down a new generation of play. Armed with some of the brightest, youngest minds in the sport, updated technology, and a significantly deeper farm system, plus a couple of big lefty bats already proving their worth on the major league roster, the days of managers refusing to stand up for their players and presidents of baseball operations using first-round draft picks on Seth Romeros and Mason Denaburgs are, God willing, beyond us. And when push comes to shove--hey, we're still only a couple games out from .500 again.
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