The first nine Nationals hitters of the game were retired, and it felt like it would be another game where the offense would struggle. However, the Nats were able to flip some sort of crazy switch and put an absolute beating on the Twins. They scored 15 runs in a game where 6 Nats hitters had multi-hit games.
This Nats team has been a real Jekyll and Hyde group to start the season. They can look flat and then just pounce suddenly. When you have guys like CJ Abrams and James Wood in the lineup, good
things can happen in a hurry.
Speaking of Abrams, he was in the middle of everything tonight for the Nats. He went 3 for 5 with two doubles and a grand slam to cap off the win in the 9th. The Nats shortstop truly looks like he is blossoming into that star player we know he can be. We have seen hot starts from Abrams before, but I am not sure we have seen him this locked in for this long before.
You could have never guessed what the final score of this game was going to be after the first three innings. The lineup looked absolutely perplexed by Bailey Ober, the Twins massive soft tossing righty. He had Nats hitters guessing wrong every time in those first three innings. However, James Wood and CJ Abrams cracked the case in the fourth and the boys never looked back.
While the Nats were working to solve the puzzle that was Bailey Ober, Miles Mikolas was doing a good job keeping the boys in the game. This was Mikolas’ best start of the season. He pitched into the 6th inning and kept the ball on the ground all night long. The veteran’s velocity was up in this one and he was fooling Twins hitters not named Matt Wallner all night.
After a miserable start to the season where Mikolas looked truly cooked, he has done a good job steadying the ship. The Nats helped him get his confidence back in shorter spurts behind an opener, but now they are starting to let him loose. Hopefully this same approach can get Zack Littell back on track as well. Mikolas also got a nice reception from the home fans as he left the ball game, which was nice to see.
The pitching has been significantly better over the past couple of weeks. However, that has coincided with the offense taking an inevitable step back. Tonight, the Nats got the good pitching and the good hitting. There were so many heroes tonight that I will not be able to shout all of them out.
However, one guy I do want to mention is Brady House. There has been quite a bit of discourse in the Nats community about House over the past few days. He had not been playing as regularly, and his defense has been very suspect this season. However, he got his chance to play today and responded in a big way.
House went 2 for 5 with a double, a homer and three RBI’s. I will say that he got some absolute hangers tonight, but he did not miss them. The home run he hit to straightaway center was an absolute bullet. When he is at his best like he was tonight, House can hit lasers all over the yard.
Brady House has been known in the Nats world for so many years now, it is easy to forget that he is still just 22 years old. Will he be the Nats long term answer at third? I am not sure, he needs to clean a lot of things up. However, the youngster has plenty of talent and showed his upside tonight.
Overall, it was an unbelievable performance from the Nats. They will look to secure a series win tomorrow afternoon with Jake Irvin on the mound. Hopefully the offense did not get all the runs out of their system tonight. They are facing a struggling Twins starter in Simeon Woods-Richardson, so I hope the offense can take advantage of that. We also saw what happens when this offense can get to the underbelly of the Twins bullpen.
I have faith in the Nats getting the series win tomorrow, but that faith can be a scary thing. Whenever I believe in this team, they fall on their face and whenever I get down on this group they put up 15 runs like tonight. The 2026 Nationals are an absolute roller coaster, and I think it is a fun ride, but I cannot tell.
