Feb 18, 2025; West Palm Beach, FL, USA; Washington Nationals pitcher Colin Poche (41) warms-up before pitching live batting practice at spring training. Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

Nationals Manager Facing Lack of Options To Fix Biggest Weakness on Team

Originally posted on Washington Nationals on SI
By Kenneth Teape | Last updated Apr 15, 2025 7:00 PM ET

The Washington Nationals have battled in the early going with a 6-10 record.

Inconsistency has already been a major issue for the team, with wild stretches of roller coaster performances.

They started the season losing six out of seven games, followed it up with victories in five out of six games against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers, two of the best teams in the National League.

The Nationals are now riding a three-game losing streak against the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates, the last two of which have been by seven runs apiece.

A big reason for the inconsistency is the performance of the team’s bullpen.

As shared by Spencer Nusbaum of the Washington Post, their relief pitchers have an ERA of 6.91, which is the worst in baseball.

The Nationals bullpen now has a 6.91 ERA after that five-run eighth from the Pirates. That is 30th in MLB.
— Spencer Nusbaum (@spencernusbaum_) April 15, 2025

The biggest issue that the Nationals are facing is that they cannot get the ball to their two best relievers: setup man Jose A. Ferrer and closer Kyle Finnegan.

“Right now, there’s two guys back there, we can’t even get to them: Ferrer and Finnegan,” manager Dave Martinez said via Mark Zuckerman of Masn.

They have been excellent holding leads. Finnegan is 5-for-5 when it comes to save chances and has a 1.35 ERA across 6.2 innings.

Ferrer has an ugly 5.40 ERA in 6.2 innings but hasn’t surrendered a run in four out of five occasions that he pitched at some point ahead of Finnegan.

In years past, it was the inability of the closer to lock down leads, resulting in unfortunate blown saves and losses. That isn’t the case this time around, as the Washington bullpen isn’t necessarily blowing leads; they are turning what are competitive games into lopsided, mop-up duty outings.

The Nationals did spend a little bit of money in the offseason to add some experience to the staff. Jorge Lopez, Lucas Sims and Colin Poche were signed for $3 million, $3 million and $1.4 million, respectively.

They have given the team very little, with ERAs of 6.43, 12.79 and 16.62.

It is too early in the year for Washington to consider cutting them, but how many more times can Martinez turn to them until he tries something new?

Unfortunately for him, there aren’t many options to turn to, as he will have to just hope the veterans eventually figure it out and start pitching more effectively. There are only two pitchers on the 40-man roster who aren’t on the Major League team: Shinnosuke Ogasawara and Andry Lara. Both are starting pitchers.

Triple-A relief pitchers aren’t performing any better, with the entire organization struggling out of the bullpen.

Getting Derek Law back from the injured list would certainly help, but he doesn’t sound very close to a return to the mound.

Right now, the bullpen is the biggest Achilles heel the team has, keeping them from reaching the levels they feel capable of achieving.

This article first appeared on Washington Nationals on SI and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: