The Nationals’ 2025 season has long been over, and there might not seem to be much left to play for in these final two weeks. Their opponents, for the most part, don’t have much to play for either; three of Washington’s final four series are against the Braves and White Sox. However, their fourth remaining series is against the Mets this weekend, and that is certainly an important series for New York. They’re 77-73 and holding on to the final wild-card spot in the N.L., but close behind are the Diamondbacks, who are 1.5 games back, and the Giants and Reds, who are both 2 games back.
The Mets really need to win those games against the weak Nationals, especially considering that two of their three other series are against very good teams in the Padres and Cubs. But what chances do the Nationals have of spoiling things for the Mets?
The first clue to discerning the Nationals’ chances against the Mets is to look at their head-to-head record recently. The Nationals are 4-6 against the Mets this year, and were 2-11 in 2024, 6-7 in 2023, and 5-14 in 2022. Even considering that New York has been a pretty good team during that time and Washington has been bad, that’s a pretty surprisingly lopsided situation. In baseball, bad teams beat good teams a decent amount of the time, but that hasn’t happened much between these two teams of late. This track record suggests that the Nationals’ chances might not be very good.
The starting pitching matchups should also offer insight. It looks like the Mets will be sending out youngsters Brandon Sproat and Nolan McLean and then veteran Clay Holmes. That doesn’t sound super intimidating, although Sproat and especially McLean have impressed in limited sample sizes this year. McLean has been particularly phenomenal; he has a miniscule 1.19 ERA in 37.2 innings. It’s worth noting, though, that all three are righties, and the Nationals have an offense full of lefties and switch hitters. Washington is missing New York’s two lefties in Sean Manaea and David Peterson, which might bode well for their chances.
The Nationals have recently gone to a six-man rotation, and they have lined up for the series Andrew Alvarez, Cade Cavalli, and Mitchell Parker. That’s not especially impressive, although the three pitchers the Mets are missing aren’t very strong either. District on Deck’s Thomas Carelli did write on Friday about Mackenzie Gore’s return from the Injured List, so it’s a bit unfortunate that he won’t be out there in this (relatively) big series. Alvarez has impressed in limited time this year; he has a 1.15 ERA in 15.2 innings, although his strikeout-to-walk ratio is a mediocre 11-to-6. Two of Washington’s three starters will be lefties, which could again be good for the Nationals since the Mets have a fairly lefty-heavy offense.
Another factor we should look at is how the bullpens match up against the opposing offenses. The Mets do have two lefties in their bullpen in Brooks Raley and Gregory Soto, and Raley is having a very good year, although Soto isn’t as much. Both have been much better against lefties than righties this year. Raley’s opponent average vs lefties is just .136, whereas it’s .192 for righties. Soto, meanwhile, is at .202 against lefties and .277 against righties. Both could help neutralize Washington’s lefty-heavy offense.
The Nationals’ bullpen is very weak, but there have been two bright spots: PJ Poulin and Clayton Beeter. Poulin is a lefty, while Beeter is a righty. But they can’t pitch all the relief innings, so the back end of the game is definitely something Washington should be worried about.
The last thing to look at is broad trends in the teams. The Mets’ offense is very disciplined, due in large part to Juan Soto; they have the third-most walks in MLB. And the Nationals are tied for the fifth-most walks allowed in the game this year. That’s a bad combo for the Nationals. On the flip side, New York’s pitching staff, while in general about average, does have a major weakness: they have given up the third-most walks. But the Nationals are third-worst in walks drawn, so they’re not really equipped to take advantage of that.
All things considered, there are some reasons for the Nationals to have hope that they can spoil the Mets’ season. But the odds are still very much against them, due mostly to the large gap in talent between these two teams.