Nationals Emerging Young Star Has Turned Into MLB’s Best Strikeout Artist

As a whole, the Washington Nationals have been somewhat disappointing with an 18-26 record to start the 2025 MLB regular season.

Some of their young foundational pieces, such as right fielder Dylan Crews, are struggling. But on the other end of the spectrum you have youngsters flourishing.

Arguably the most impressive has been the work of starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore, who is developing into an ace before everyone’s eyes this year.

In 2024, he made strides to realizing the incredible potential that made him a key component of the return package from the San Diego Padres in the Juan Soto blockbuster trade in 2022. He sandwiched ace-quality performances to start and finish the season with some struggles during the summer.

If he could find more consistency with his performance on the mound, he would be able to take that next step in his development.

Thus far in 2025, that consistency has been there, and he is taking the league by storm.

Through his first nine starts, Gore has a tough-luck 2-4 record with a 3.59 ERA across 52.2 innings. He has already produced a 1.4 WAR, with the most eye-popping statistic in his stat line being his strikeouts.

He is currently leading the MLB with 75 stirkeouts and 12.8 K/9 ratio, a massive increase from the 9.8 that he averaged last year.

His performance has caught the eye of Jim Bowden of The Athletic (subscription required), who named Gore leading all MLB pitchers in punchouts one of his 10 biggest surprises thus far this season.

His 35.2% strikeout rate is nearly 10% better than his previous single-season high of 25.9% in 2023.

Can Gore maintain this incredible pace throughout the course of the campaign?

With excellent chase and whiff rates, it certainly seems plausible that the emerging Nationals star will be able to keep pace with other strikeout artists such as Zack Wheeler, Tarik Skubal and Chris Sale, a group that includes both the American League and National League Cy Young Award winners in 2024 and the runner-up in the NL.

The best part about Gore is that he has another level to reach, only scratching the surface of his potential.