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If it hasn’t been made clear by now by either myself or others, I will say it - this eternal rebuild will not be successful if Dylan Crews does not become an above-average (or better) big leaguer as part of it. Granted, missing almost three months with an oblique strain was unfortunate, but entering last night’s game Crews was hitting just .206/.299/.294 in his 77 plate appearances since his return a few weeks ago. So it must have felt good for him to have a three-hit, four-RBI game that included a three-run Crews Missile. Hopefully that gets him going more over these last three weeks of the season, and allows him to make some adjustments that can serve him well for a stronger 2026.

Crews wasn’t the only National to go yard in the 15-7 laugher win, as Luis García Jr. opened the scoring with a 413-foot upper-deck shot in the top of the second, but Josh Bell later became just the second National to homer from both sides of the plate in the same game, with his bombs coming in the sixth (righty) and seventh (lefty) innings, each with a man aboard. With the feat he joined Danny Espinosa as the only other Nat to do so. Every Nationals starter checked in with a hit, six of them multiple times, as the Nats joined the Dodgers with a dozen ten-run games on the season.

Cade Cavalli threw five innings of two-run ball on a mere 61 pitches (to be fair, he is coming up on an innings limit for the season) before giving way to first Orlando Ribalta and then Shinnosuke Ogasawara. Ribalta walked the bases loaded in the seventh, escaping without damage, but Ogasawara was not so lucky, putting two men on before a single and a Victor Mesa Jr. bomb got the Marlins four runs closer. When a reliever enters a blowout, especially on the good end of it, the most important job is to throw strikes and trust your defense, which neither of them ultimately could do.

These last three weeks won’t make any meaningful difference in the standings, but they are an opportunity for guys to prove that they belong on the 2026 roster. Right this second I would think that - barring any big trades or a new front office that upends everything - twelve pitchers (Gore, Cavalli, Lord, Ferrer, Henry, Herz, Gray, Irvin, Parker, Poulin, Beeter, and Pilkington) and eleven position players (Wood, Abrams, Crews, Lile, House, Nuñez, Young, Hassell, Adams, Millas, and Ruiz) look like pretty safe locks to at least make it through the winter on the 40-man roster, but the other seventeen spots are essentially up for grabs. Who takes the bull by the horns?

This is the time to find out.

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