Young Nationals Relief Pitcher Has Steadily Found His Stride in Recent Weeks

The Washington Nationals have had a difficult season but some of their bullpen arms have started to really find some productive pitches.

May 29, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Washington Nationals relief pitcher Jose Ferrer (47) pitches to the Seattle Mariners during the eighth inning at T-Mobile Park. | Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

The Washington Nationals have had a pretty brutal 2025 campaign from a record perspective, sitting at 51-75, six and a half games back from the fourth-place Atlanta Braves in the National League East. This is not exactly what the team had envisioned heading into the season, more than likely, and it has really started to shake up the roster both via trades and restructuring of staff.

Thankfully, there is some hope for the future of the franchise, as they have found a multitude of young, talented prospects both at the MLB level and throughout their farm system, who they could be able to build a team around. Many of the pieces from the Juan Soto trade have already panned out sooner than expected, and now, with many younger talents making splashes in the Major Leagues, there is some positive momentum heading into 2026.

The bullpen, in particular, has been rapidly finding its stride even with some of its core pieces being traded away at the deadline. Shinnosuke Ogasawara has had an outstanding resurgence as a bullpen arm following some struggles as a starter. Another name who has managed to produce lately is Jose A. Ferrer, who, after a slow start, has turned things around with some great performances.

Four #Nats relievers combined for 3⅔ innings of scoreless 1-hit baseball. A job well done by Cole Henry, Shinnosuke Ogasawara (小笠原 慎之介), Clayton Beeter, and José A. Ferrer.

(📸 by Sol Tucker for TalkNats) pic.twitter.com/XfH4J0Hzco

— Talk Nats (@TalkNats) August 21, 2025

What Has Ferrer's Production Looked Like in Recent Weeks?

Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

After a difficult first month to two months of the season for Ferrer, the summer has been much kinder to him, especially since around June 14, which is when he really started to find something in his arm. Over that span, he has pitched 27.1 innings, putting together a 2.30 ERA, 2.67 FIP, 22 strikeouts, two walks, allowing only seven total runs in 364 pitches.

It is clear that something has changed for the young relief arm, who had a very strong 2024 campaign before kicking off 2025 in a rather unimpressive way. Thankfully, he has reverted back to that previous form he found last year, and has been one of the most reliable arms in the bullpen for Washington.

Even more impressive is that both his strikeouts per nine (7.4) and SO/BB (4.25) have marginally risen from that 2024 year, despite having an even larger sample size this season, which initially started off poorly.

Hopefully, he is able to retain this level of success for the remainder of the campaign and finds himself in a similar position to last year, if not better. If his current trajectory has anything to say about it, odds are he will be on track for a career year.