NEW YORK – The Nationals can’t get out of New York City fast enough. They entered this afternoon’s finale against the Yankees 0-5 in the Big Apple this year after being swept by the Mets in a three-game series at Citi Field in June and dropping the first two games of this set at Yankee Stadium.
And they will remain winless in New York until their next trip to Queens in September after an 11-2 blowout loss, their third straight to get swept by the Yankees and their fifth straight loss overall.
Just about everything that could have gone wrong for the Nationals today did. They couldn’t manufacture runs. They couldn’t prevent the Yankees from scoring. And they suffered injuries along the way, adding salt to an already wide-open wound.
If the power differential between these two teams wasn’t on display enough earlier this week, it definitely was in this finale.
The Yankees entered today with a major league-leading 219 home runs, while the Nats only had a measly 125 for the third-fewest. New York had already hit four to score eight of their 15 runs over the first two games. Washington had scored four of their six runs on one swing, Jacob Young’s ninth-inning grand slam on Monday night.
So when Trent Grisham greeted Cade Cavalli with a leadoff homer in the first, the tone was already set for a long day at the ballpark for the Nationals.
Cavalli didn’t retire any of the first four batters he faced, loading the bases after the leadoff longball on two singles and a hit-batter. But he escaped further damage with two strikeouts and a hard-hit lineout to third baseman Brady House.
The former first-round pick seemed to settle in from there, retiring six straight batters, four via strikeout, after loading the bases in the first.
But the third inning was an absolute disaster for the Nats.
Cavalli didn’t retire the first five batters of the frame, giving up a single, a double, a walk and two home runs. The first homer came from Aaron Judge, the slugger’s 41st of the season, which was a two-run shot following Ben Rice’s leadoff single. Then Cody Bellinger sent Cavalli’s next pitch out of the yard to go back-to-back.
The sixth batter out of seven reached against Cavalli on a catcher’s interference call against Drew Millas. But what was worse was Millas having to exit the game with a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger, leaving Riley Adams, who was in the starting lineup as the designated hitter, to get behind the plate and the Nats to forfeit the DH for the remainder of the game.
Cavalli then served up a three-run homer to Ryan McMahon to finally end his miserable outing. But Shinnosuke Ogasawara fared no better in relief of the starter.
The Japanese left-hander needed 41 pitches to record the last two outs of the third, giving up a home run to Rice, two singles and two walks before finally closing the frame.
To recap the third, the Yankees sent 15 batters to the plate, scoring nine runs on three singles, one double, one catcher's interference, three walks, one stolen base and four home runs.
Cavalli finished the day after 2 ⅓ innings with eight hits, eight runs (seven earned), one walk, four strikeouts, four home runs and one hit-batter on 76 pitches, 48 strikes.
Between Cavalli and Ogasawara, the Nats threw 77 pitches in the third inning, the second-most in a single frame by a team since at least 2000, per MLB.com. The Marlins threw 91 on June 27, 2003 in the first inning in Boston. And per TruMedia, the 77 pitches were the most the Nationals/Expos franchise has thrown in an inning since pitch counts were kept in 1988.
Needing at least one more inning out of Ogasawara, the reliever actually took an at-bat in the top of the fifth, striking out on three pitches, the last one being a 72 mph curveball right over the plate. Ogasawara became the first Nationals pitcher to make a plate appearance since Joan Adon in the 2021 season finale, the season before the universal DH was implemented permanently in 2022.
But unfortunately, the Yankees’ damage was not done there.
Austin Wells greeted Ogasawara with a leadoff home run in the fourth to make it an 11-0 Yankees lead, sending the Bronx Zoo crowd of 35,501 into a roar. And with their sixth homer of the game, the Yankees had exactly 100 more homers than the Nationals on the season, five days before September.
Needless to say, the Nationals' offense was not as impressive.
Max Fried was perfect into the fourth inning before Adams’ two-out, seven-pitch walk. The Yankees left-hander then carried a no-hit bid into the sixth. But that was broken up by three consecutive singles from Young, CJ Abrams and James Wood to finally put the Nats on the board. Even still, Fried cruised through his seven innings on 94 pitches.
Over the three games in this series, the Yankees hit 10 home runs. The Nationals hit five extra-base hits, with Andrés Chaparro adding a solo homer in the ninth inning of today’s loss. So it was no surprise the Yankees outscored the Nats 26-8, with 17 of their runs coming via the longball.
With a month left in the season, it’s not early to wonder how the Nationals will add power in 2026, which clearly remains a high priority for whoever is in charge of the roster this offseason.