Nats come all the way back, only to lose in ninth (updated)

There was nothing at stake tonight, nor will there be all weekend, as the Nationals and White Sox wrap up equally frustrating seasons with three final games that have no bearing on the standings or any pennant race.

Tell these two last-place opponents and a boisterous crowd of 33,938 that packed into Nationals Park tonight this one meant nothing, though.

With a barrage of big home runs – three of them off the bat of Luis García Jr. alone – the Nats stormed back from seven runs down to take an improbable lead in the bottom of the eighth. Then they watched in horror as Jose A. Ferrer blew that lead in the top of the ninth and took a head-spinning, 10-9 loss to Chicago on the chin.

"That happens," García said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "That's nothing that you can control. That's part of baseball."

After digging themselves into an 8-1 hole behind a rocky start from Cade Cavalli and some very shoddy defense behind him, the Nationals easily could’ve played out the string and accepted their 95th loss of the year. Instead, they banded together and put together one of their best rallies of the season, thanks to the kind of power display they’ve long been waiting to show everyone.

The Nats hit six homers in total in this game, five of them coming from the fifth inning and beyond. And three of them came from García, the streaky second baseman who enjoyed the biggest offensive night of his career.

García had already homered in the fifth and sixth to get the improbable rally going. When he stepped to the plate in the eighth, the game was now tied, thanks to Daylen Lile’s three-run blast two batters prior. And then he left no doubt about his third and final homer, launching a 1-2 fastball from Jordan Leasure deep to right to give the home team its first lead of the night and the crowd reason to roar in celebration.

"When I hit the two home runs, my next at-bat I had a confidence that I haven't felt in my career," García said. "I can't describe it right now. I don't have any words. That's the first time that happened to me in my career. But I'm really happy for that."

Lile’s earlier homer was nothing to gloss over, either. The rookie took Leasure deep to right-center for his eighth home run of the season, his fifth this month to go along with seven triples during a breakthrough September that should earn him consideration for National League Rookie of the Year honors.

García became the eighth player in club history with a three-homer game, but only the second to do so in a loss, joining Ryan Zimmerman (May 29, 2013 at Baltimore). This was the 11th time the Nationals have hit six or more homers in a game, but the first time they did so in a loss.

And so when it was all said and done, the most important home run of the night came not from a member of the home team’s lineup, but the visitors’ lineup. Moments after Ferrer botched a little dribbler to the right of the mound for the Nationals’ fourth error of the game, Colson Montgomery took the young closer deep to right-center for a two-run homer that flipped the score back in Chicago’s favor.

"I had my objective to attack the strike zone," Ferrer said, also via Ortiz. "That's the pitch I wanted to throw, but I left it hanging, and he did made good contact."

All this after a four-inning performance from Cavalli in his final start of the season. The numbers will suggest the right-hander’s first extended stretch in the major leagues was decent, but hardly great. Anyone who watched him over the course of his 10 starts would probably make a compelling argument he looked a lot better than those stats suggest.

Cavalli’s final outing of the year won’t go on the highlight reel. He was charged with six runs (though only two of them were earned) over four innings. But as they count down the final hours of a hugely disappointing year, the Nationals undoubtedly can look at their 2020 first-round pick as one of their biggest success stories of 2025.

It took a lot of patience after Cavalli needed more than two years to fully return from Tommy John surgery, but it looks like he was worth the wait. With some of the best pure stuff any starting pitcher on this staff has owned since Stephen Strasburg was still active, Cavalli not only reached the big leagues for good, he kept himself healthy enough and effective enough to stay here.

That was hardly a given earlier this summer, when Cavalli was pitching once a week at Triple-A Rochester and sporting an ERA north of 6.00. But the organization believed he was ready for the call in early August. And the ensuing two months proved he was up to the challenge.

"I'm just feeling extremely grateful that I'm healthy, and I'm going to have a regular offseason, the first one in three years," he said. "I felt like I got a lot better this season. It was really good to get my feet wet up here and hopefully take that and just go get better."

There were a handful of dominant starts sprinkled in, including seven scoreless innings against the Phillies on Aug. 16 and five scoreless innings against the Mets last weekend. There was one true dud Aug. 27, when the Yankees blasted him for seven runs in 2 1/3 innings.

That outing in particular made Cavalli’s final numbers – a 4.12 ERA and 1.480 WHIP – look pedestrian. But he struck out 40 while walking only 15 in 48 2/3 innings, a solid ratio. He allowed three or fewer earned runs in eight of his 10 starts. And then there’s the most important stat of all: He totaled 122 2/3 innings across 27 combined starts in the minors and majors, a nice baseline entering the 2026 season.

"For him to be healthy and helping us every five days is cool for the pitching staff, for our pitching coaches and for himself," interim manager Miguel Cairo said. "He’s healthy. He can go – (knocking on the wood table he was seated at) – into spring training ready to be a part of the starting rotation."

Tonight’s start might have looked a lot better from Cavalli’s vantage point had his teammates merely played clean baseball behind him. Alas, that was too much to ask. The Nationals were charged with an error on each of the game’s first two plate appearances, with Josh Bell booting Chase Meidroth’s grounder to first and CJ Abrams making a nice play to get to Kyle Teel’s grounder to short but then wildly flipping the ball away in the general vicinity of second base.

Cavalli would go on to allow three more run-scoring hits, with four runners crossing the plate. But because the inning would have been over if not for the errors, all four runs were considered unearned.

The White Sox plated two more runs in the fourth, getting a leadoff homer from Lenyn Sosa and a two-out RBI single from Teel. With his pitch count already up to 72, Cavalli was pulled at the end of the inning, bringing his season to an end with his team trailing 6-1.

"I could've been better; that's my biggest takeaway," he said. "There were some pitches that I'd like back. I was in the zone, which is a plus. I tried to stay in attack mode, and the results didn't go my way. I hate to end that way. I hate to not leave our team in that position. Thank goodness we fought back, but it shouldn't have been that hard for us."

The deficit grew to 8-1 when Orlando Ribalta retired only one of the four batters he faced in the top of the fifth, with yet another error (on a way-too-high throw from catcher Riley Adams to second base) playing a role.

But the Nationals weren’t ready to call it a night, because they still had plenty of punch in their bats. Bell got the party started with a solo shot in the bottom of the first, his sixth homer of the month and 22nd of a season that got off to a terribly sluggish start. Abrams added his 19th of the year with a leadoff blast in the sixth.

The rest of this one belonged to García and Lile, turning what might’ve been an ugly Friday night into one of the wildest nights of the season. Until Ferrer turned it even wilder – and ultimately demoralizing – in the ninth.

"It was awesome," Cairo said, focusing on his team's rally as opposed to the other team's final rally. "The boys keep coming back. ... They're fighting to the end, and that's what you're looking for. There's no giving up."