Whoa, the Nationals rotation just dominated Atlanta

“Championship teams are built on starting pitchers”. You’ve probably heard this motto, or something like it, when it comes to elite baseball teams, especially in the playoffs. The Nationals were once an elite team and once relied on a strong foundation of star pitchers. Since the departure of Max Scherzer, however, the team has struggled to find even half-decent starters, let alone rebuild a rotation full of aces.

The numbers speak for themselves. In 2019, the Nationals had the best starting rotation in baseball, according to fWAR. Their performance was typical of national teams of the mid-10s, and a healthy Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg led the team to a World Series victory. Since then, the team has finished 23rd, 24th, 30th and 28th, four straight years of struggles from a team that could no longer rely on its veteran aces. As the initial launch collapsed, the franchise also followed a similar trajectory.

Despite some progress from young hitters and strong veteran performances from various sluggers and relief pitchers, the team remained neutral due to a disastrous pitching staff. At the start of this season, the team returned all 5 starters from last year to the same role, Patrick Corbin and all. It seemed like another building year for the pitching staff. MacKenzie Gore looked great all season, but after last year’s ERA leader Josiah Gray was injured, there was little reason to believe the starting lineup would suddenly be good.

So, the starting staff is good?! Patrick Corbin has a 6.17 ERA, but basically everything else has gone well for the rotation. In a four-game series in Atlanta, the non-Corbin starters each pitched the 6th inning or later and allowed only five earned runs combined. Can you imagine the last three years of Nats starters doing that to the Atlanta Braves? What is going on?

Here are some quick mini-breakdowns. Trevor Williams went from a 5.55 ERA to a 2.22 ERA thanks to a few more strikeouts and ground balls as well as a huge reduction in home runs allowed. He’ll probably give up more homers in the future, but he’s been much better than expected so far. MacKenzie Gore, as previously mentioned, has been electric all year. He is 8th in MLB in strikeouts per 9 among qualifiers and 15th overall in strikeouts. He’s also benefited from fewer home runs allowed, and he just needs to keep throwing 98 mph and be healthy to be incredible.

Jake Irvin also took a big step forward and he cooked the Braves hitters perfectly with 10 strikeouts in 6 scoreless innings on Tuesday. His superpower has been his low walk rate, going from four for nine last year to just 1.57 this season, which currently ranks him 10th in baseball among qualifiers. If he can throw strikes at this level, he can be a good No. 3 starter in the future.

Finally, Mitchell Parker was incredible. He was set to go seven innings against a formidable Braves lineup, and he added a wicked slider to an already potent arsenal. Somehow, Parker went from a top 100 list prospect to an incredibly effective rotation member. Like Irvin, he avoided walks at the elite level and faced top offenses with aplomb in the first 8 starts of his career. It may be too good to be true for the rookie, but even 8 good starts is more than anyone could have expected from Parker before the season.

In 2022, the Nationals have faced the Braves 18 times and gone 4-14. They only allowed 2 points or less three times in those games. In 2023, the Nationals went 5-8 against the Braves, allowing almost 6 runs per game on average. The game was quite different this year, with the Nats running 18-9 through 4 games in Atlanta. The teams will face off in another four-game set in DC starting June 6, giving the starters another chance to impress.

It’s impossible to overstate how crucial these developments are for the Nationals as a franchise. MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin look like they could fit into a competitive rotation right now, and Josiah Gray, Mitchell Parker, and Cade Cavalli give the team a decent amount of young, cheap weapons to fill out future rotations. The team still needs a top pitcher to compete, but two seasons ago it looked like they would need to build a full free agent rotation. The team hasn’t had much success developing on the mound so far, but they’re turning a corner right now, and suddenly!

As much as I would like to, let’s avoid talking about Patrick Corbin for now. He is no longer a looming threat of perpetual poor performance. The light is at the end of the tunnel for him and his albatross contract. It’s like a weird, experimental art installation that they put up in a public park for a year, then they take it down and we forget about it. It’s not permanent. Okay, maybe I’ll talk a little about Corbin. He has the second-worst strikeout rate among qualified starters, at 5.37 per nine, which is hilarious. He struck out batters at almost double the rate in 2019. Clearly, the rotation could be even better without him lingering and the fact that virtually every arm has improved except Corbin shows how much of a lost cause he is at this point.

The Nats are struggling offensively this year, but have looked better at times as a team than they have in a long time. Finally, the pieces of a decent team are in place, and with a few top prospects on the way, the rebuild could turn into a new era of competitive teams in Washington. The last four days have probably been the best collective pitching performances I’ve seen from the team since Patrick Corbin was good, and that gives all Nats fans something to cheer about.