The Washington Nationals returned to a familiar losing feeling on Saturday evening with lefty Mitchell Parker on the mound, as they fell to the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 6-4. The lefty has struggled immensely in 2025, and he has truly become one of the worst pitcher in baseball by a wide margin.
During this offseason, when Patrick Corbin had finally decided to move on, the franchise was hopeful that a porous performance every fifth day was in the rearview mirror, but alas, 2025 Mitchell Parker is making a case to be even worse than some of Corbin's worst campaigns. After a somewhat promising rookie season and a strong start to his sophomore campaign, Parker has completely bottomed out, and is actively holding back this team.
From a numbers perspective on Parker in 2025, it's ugly. He has a 6.01 ERA and 1.493 WHIP, and has surrendered the most earned runs in all of baseball with 90 allowed in 134.2 innings. He has only struck out 87 batters compared to 53 walks, which is already 10 more walks given up than he allowed all of last season in 16.1 less innings.
He has been worth -1.3 WAR according to Baseball Reference, and his 5.00 FIP and 5.8 K/9 ratio this year does not provide a ton of optimism for the future. After finishing the month of April with a 2.65 ERA, he was up to a 4.65 ERA by the end of May, and it has only steadily risen ever since. His regression this season has been abysmal to watch, as it is basically a guaranteed loss every fifth day.
Miguel Cairo has noticed this too, saying in yesterday's postgame that, "We're trying to figure out who can do the job," when asked about what they were going to do next with Parker, according to Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post. He went on to add, "We've got to figure out who can go out there and take [advantage of the] opportunity."
The issue for the Nationals is that if Parker was to be replaced, they don't really have anyone else within the organization who is close to being a big league level starter. Nobody on the big league roster, outside of maybe Shinnosuke Ogasawara, can be a starter for this team, but he has settled into a solid bullpen role, and it would be unwise for them to alter his routine this late into the season. The Nationals are likely stuck with Parker until at least the end of this season, but hopefully this offseason will allow them to move on from him.
What do you think the Nationals should do with Mitchell Parker? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.