I don’t wish to alarm you, but entering last night’s game Brad Lord had 2.3 wins above replacement per Baseball-Reference, more than all but three National League rookies (Drake Baldwin, Isaac Collins, and Matt Shaw) - all of whom are just a hair above Lord at 2.4 bWAR. That means, deep into August, the best rookie pitcher in the National League is an eighteenth-round pick out of a non-glamour school who stayed in shape last winter in part by hauling bags of soil and Christmas trees around at Home Depot. It is impossible to stress how great of a find he has been for the Nats, and I will probably reiterate it every time he pitches even okay the rest of this season.

After it took Kodai Senga all of nineteen pitches to breeze through his first two innings, I’m sure that a lot of Nats fans were thinking “ruh roh!” But then Dylan Crews led off the bottom of the third with a walk - no small feat against Kodai Senga for a guy who has struggled to pick up spin thus far in his major league career - and Drew Millas drew a catcher’s interference to give the Nats some traffic on the bases. Crews would later score on a CJ Abrams infield single for the first of two runs in that inning as seven Nationals came to the plate. An inning later, three extra-base knocks (doubles by Paul DeJong and Crews, triple by Millas) plated another pair to give the Nats some breathing room, which they would need. Brett Baty and Josh Bell traded solo shots in the fifth to make the score 5-1 before the Mets finally got to Lord with one out in the sixth, plating three to draw within one before Cole Henry put out the fire. From there, both bullpens threw up zeros, unsurprisingly in the Mets’ case and VERY surprisingly in the Nats’, with Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Clayton Beeter, and Jose A. Ferrer following Henry. The red light celebration was held up briefly for a replay review on whether or not Bell held his foot on the bag to complete a game-ending DP, but the call stood (it was correct) and the lights went off.

In his seven August appearances encompassing nine innings, newly minted closer Jose A. Ferrer - the most experienced pitcher in the Nationals’ bullpen - has allowed eleven hits and two runs (both earned) while striking out seven and walking one for a 2.00 ERA and a 1.333 WHIP. The first of those appearances was at the end of a 14-3 shellacking by the Brewers, and it included three hits, the walk, and both runs - in the six scoreless appearances since he has picked up a hold, two wins, and three saves. The level of focus looks much better than it did in May and June when his ERA was frequently starting with a ‘6’ or a ‘7’ and even once with an ‘8’. I believe that Ferrer has the ceiling of an elite closer: he can throw 100 mph with sink and has an elite changeup, meaning he can both miss bats and induce worm-burners - his ground ball rate is 98th percentile in baseball. The next step in his evolution is to hone the command of his slider, which he too often leaves over the middle of the plate; if he can get a little more break on it he should be borderline un-hittable for guys from either side of the plate. And he should be a National through at least 2029.

📌 Josh Randall: The Nationals’ New Arm with a Big-League Goal (The Nats Report)

📌 Is the Bullpen the First Big Change in the Mike DeBartolo Era? (The Nats Report)

📌 Difference in Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton powers him to new level: ‘He’s an animal’ (The Athletic)