Nats take page out of Dodgers handbook in Guardians rout

The Nats bats woke back up in Cleveland on Monday, leading visiting Washington to a Memorial Day win over the Guardians.

At 28-27, this is just the second time this season the team is above .500, and May 26 marks the latest point in the season the team has had a winning record since 2021. That's right, the Washington Nationals have had a losing record for nearly the entirety of the last 5 years, but something feels different in 2026.

The most obvious culprit for that feeling is the team's offense.

When you think of the most potent offenses in the league, your brain immediately goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and teams that spend big money for big bats throughout their lineup.

But the Nationals have scored the most runs in the league (298) and have clubbed the fourth most home runs (71) without having to break the bank of their offense because the young talent they've been stockpiling for the last 5 seasons is finally coming into their own.

For comparison, the Dodgers, led by Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy, have scored just 279 runs.

James Wood leads the team with 14 homers, and he clubbed his fourth career leadoff homer in the first inning off of Guardians pitcher Tanner Bibee. It didn't get any better for Bibee from there as Luis Garcia Jr. doubled on the first pitch of the next at-bat, and INF Curtis Mead gave the team a 3-0 lead with a mammoth blast to left field.

The Nats were off and running, and they wouldn't look back for the rest of the game. Bibee started off the second inning facing the bottom of the Nats lineup, only to be met with another leadoff homer from center fielder Jacob Young, who is a completely different player at the plate this year.

Young had 5 career home runs coming into his third big league season. He has 7 so far through the first third of this season.

After picking up a couple of outs, Bibee gave up a rocket single to Wood, setting up Garcia Jr for yet another home run, the team's fourth in the first two innings, giving the Nats a 6-0 cushion. Rhys Hoskins homered to lead off the bottom half of the second, but Washington opener PJ Poulin did his job, handing over a 6-1 lead in the top of the third to Zack Littell, who ended up pitching the rest of the way, giving up 1 earned run and 5 hits across 7 innings with 7 Ks.

But the homer parade wasn't finished. CJ Abrams hit a solo shot in the top of the third inning, giving the Nats a 7-1 lead on the way to ending Bibee's afternoon early after just 3 innings pitched. Curtis Mead blasted his second home run in the 5th inning, giving the team their 6th long ball of the game through just the first 5 frames.

Luis Garcia added a bases-loaded single in the sixth to give the team a 10-2 lead that would ultimately be the game's final score.

The Nationals' offense's performance was, dare I say, Dodger-esque, despite the team's payroll being estimated at over $300 million less this year.

If the Nats proved that they could win games relying on pitching over the weekend with their low-scoring series win against Atlanta, then they proved that their potent offense isn't a fluke with their long ball barrage against Cleveland Monday.

The Nats' pitching was stellar over the weekend, and that has carried over to Cleveland so far. If this team can just be average on the mound and average on defense, then a wild-card berth is not out of the conversation. It has literally been five years since the team could have said that this late in the season.

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