Washington Nationals Continue Post-World Series Slump With Another Last Place Finish
The Washington Nationals have fallen off in a major way since winning the World Series in 2019.
The Nationals are sitting in fifth place in the NL East at 69-90, trailing the New York Mets by 3.5 games with three games left in the regular season. That means Washington has clinched last place in the division for the fourth year in a row.
As pointed out by Talkin' Baseball, the Nationals are the only team in the league to finish last in each of the past four seasons.
Washington's downfall checks out in many respects, considering the core from their World Series run almost immediately disappeared.
Anthony Rendon, Matt Adams and Brian Dozier left in free agency that winter, while Michael A. Taylor departed a year later. Trea Turner, Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, Adam Eaton and Yan Gomes were all traded. Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman, Sean Doolittle, Kurt Suzuki, Asdrubal Cabrera, Howie Kendrick and Gerardo Parra got hurt and have since retired.
The only remaining contributors from the 2019 championship team are starting pitcher Patrick Corbin and outfielder Victor Robles, the latter of whom appeared in just 36 games this season due to a back injury. Corbin, meanwhile, is leading the NL in losses for the third consecutive season with an ERA of 5.20.
While the Nationals have the No. 8 farm system in baseball, per MLB Pipeline, the pedigree of their young core pales in comparison to the one that ushered in an unprecedented era of winning from 2012 to 2019.
It remains to be seen if or when Washington will be able to dig itself out of the ongoing slump, but manager Davey Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo will continue to head up the organization through the rebuild thanks to the respective extensions they signed this month.
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