CJ Abrams and Jake Irvin lead the Washington Nationals to another series win

The Nationals just wrapped up their first winning week since late May but there is still worries about their star bats struggles

The Washington Nationals had their best week since the end of May. They had a winning week for the first time since they took series against the Mariners and D-Backs right around Memorial Day. The Nats played a good ball game today, pouncing on mistakes at the plate and locating on the mound.

Jake Irvin had an excellent start. He wasn’t missing a ton of bats with just two strikeouts and eight whiffs. However, he did a nice job limiting the damage and avoiding hard contact later on in his start. He was running into a lot of loud outs early, but as the game went on, he settled in

Interestingly, Irvin’s velocity was up today. He averaged over 93 MPH on his 4-seam fastball and it was up 1 MPH from its season average. The Minnesota native was excellent in his first start back home. After a few discouraging starts from Irvin lately, it was great to see him get back on track in a home coming game.

CJ Abrams was also fantastic today. He set the tone on the first pitch of the game, sending a moonshot into the muggy Minnesota air. Abrams has been on a mini-slump lately, so it was nice to see him break out of it in a big way today.

Abrams was also making an impact beyond just one home run. He stole three bases today, reminding us of how much of a threat he can be on the bases. After a single in his second at bat, Abrams stole second and third before scoring on a sac fly.

It was a run that Abrams created all by himself. Today was one of Abrams best games of the season, even though he did make an error. Defensively, he made up for that error with a few athletic plays.

While Abrams was the star of the show offensively, Josh Bell and Alex Call just continued to hit. Bell has been one of the Nats best hitters for a while now. The Nationals are simply a better baseball team when Alex Call is in the lineup. It feels like his good at bats can be contagious for this young team. He is such an under appreciated player.

Today was a mostly positive day, but there is one negative we need to talk about. It is a bit of an elephant in the room right now. James Wood is really struggling man. He had a golden sombrero today, going 0/4 with a walk.

His average is down to .263 and his OPS is down to .868. Going into July 4th, Wood’s average was .294 and his OPS was .958. It has been really tough sledding since then. In his last 15 games, Wood is hitting .121 with 31 strikeouts in 58 at bats. It has become extremely difficult and painful to watch our young slugger at the plate.

He is going to bounce back, but it is pretty clear he needs a mental reset. It would be pretty crazy to let him face Framber Valdez tomorrow, one of the best lefties in all of baseball. Wood’s mechanics are all over the place and his confidence seems dangerously low.

Besides that, today was a great Nats game. The boys played well and have shown some fight these last couple of days. Enjoy this offense while it lasts because at any moment, the bats could go radio silent. Time to carry this momentum into Houston!