This weekend featured both a scorebook signing event and a retirement party for MASN’s Bob Carpenter, the regular play-by-play television announcer for the Nationals since 2006. Aside from his tendency to treat any moderately deep fly ball as a possible home run, Carpenter has been a true professional in the booth, and with the Nationals set to take their television rights to the market for the first time in their twenty-one seasons in DC, it very much is an open question as to who will replace him. Should MASN retain the Nats (please no), the odds-on favorite has to be Dan Kolko, although he is a possibility for any network since he is a longtime Nationals employee and they will obviously have input.

WJFK’s Dave Jageler and Rochester Red Wings play-by-play man Josh Whetzel have occasionally done some fill-in work for Nationals broadcasts and could conceivably be options as well.

Click here to read our exclusive interview with Bob Carpenter

The early start yesterday (11:35 AM) was not ideal for the generally-terrible-in-day-games Nationals, and it looked even less so after the Pirates put their first two hitters of the day on and scored three runs off of Cade Cavalli in the frame thanks to a seeing-eye triple down the line and a wild pitch. After that, however, Cavalli didn’t allow another hit for his four remaining innings (he did walk three more batters). The Nats got all three runs back in the bottom of the second beginning with cleanup hitter Daylen Lile, going walk, single, strikeout, double, sac fly, single to even the score.

From there both pitching staffs shut each other’s lineups down, with each team getting multiple base runners in an inning just once, until the Nationals finally broke through in the eighth. James Wood led off the inning with a walk, and after a fly to right by Riley Adams, Daylen Lile punched a ball to the left-center gap that allowed Wood to score and Lile to get to third, although he was stranded there. Mason Thompson, Konnor Pilkington, and Jackson Rutledge each pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Cavalli before Clayton Beeter came on to record his first career save, striking out the side around a walk (on which he was jobbed) and a single.

For someone whom the Nats were willing to leave unprotected in last year’s Rule 5 draft, Andrew Alvarez has taken advantage of his late-season opportunity to put himself in the mix for the 2026 season at the major league level. Alvarez doesn’t have electric stuff and shouldn’t be expected to do much more than be a fifth starter type, but his audition has yielded a 1.15 ERA through his first three starts (15 2/3 innings) and a WHIP of just 0.83. He’s not that good, but if the Nats upgrade their infield defense over the winter he could be an effective innings-eater at the back of the rotation while the team awaits the return of the likes of DJ Herz and Josiah Gray. Alvarez has been durable over his past three seasons: 129.1 in 2023 between A+ and AA (when he was the Nats’ organizational Pitcher of the Year), 131.2 last year between AA and AAA, and thus far 138.2 between AAA and the majors in 2025. Even if he winds up being an up-and-down type of pitcher next year, that kind of versatility is valuable for any organization.

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