The Washington Nationals became (I believe) the first team in fifteen months to have a pitcher not named Shohei Ohtani pick up a stick and put on a helmet when they sent Shinnosuke Ogasawara to the plate in the top of the fourth inning yesterday afternoon (the last non-Shohei pitcher to bat was Sho̅ta Imanaga last May for the Cubs). As you might expect if you weren’t paying attention to some bad midafternoon baseball - and good on you if you weren’t - the reason for this plate appearance was not good. In the top of the third inning with the Bronx Bombers already up 5-0 with a man on second, Austin Wells reached first via catcher’s interference, breaking and dislocating Drew Millas’s middle finger in the process. Riley Adams was serving as the designated hitter, so upon coming in to catch for Millas the Nationals then forfeited the DH for the rest of the afternoon. It is quite literally a bad break for Millas, who was playing well as the backup of late; now the Nats are bringing up CJ Stubbs, whose brother Garrett is a backup catcher with MLB experience in the Phillies’ organization. This CJ is not a prospect, but has strong defensive chops and will probably catch once a week.

It was a lifeless New York matinee show for the visitors, who were at no point ever in the game. Cade Cavalli got strafed for four of the Yankees’ home runs in two and a third (Ogasawara gave up the other two) as the hosts mounted an 11-0 lead after four that was never in doubt - the nine-run third took those two pitchers 77 total pitches to complete. The Nats managed a CJ Abrams RBI single in the sixth and an Andrés Chaparro home run in the ninth - good on him for taking his original organization deep, that probably validated the Yankees’ Venezuelan scouting department - but that was all in an 11-2 loss. Whoop de-freaking-do. With the short bench (Daylen Lile was still out sick) interim manager Miguel Cairo didn’t even give fans the mild amusement of a Paul DeJong eighth inning pitching appearance.

Not that it will matter for the end record this season, but it will be interesting to see who the Nationals call up on or after Monday when rosters expand to 28 players. The past two years they have simply added an extra catcher (Millas), but they don’t have any catchers worth bringing up to just have a spare for their spare and never play. Given that the Nats still have two open 40-man roster spots available, they don’t have to bring up any of the several existing members of that group as the fourteenth pitcher - and if they don’t it will be a pretty stark sign about how the organization views all three of those arms. The best guess is that it will be the recently claimed Júlian Fernández, late of the Dodgers, first to see if he has enough to stick over the winter.

Among position players I think the Rizzo/Martinez move would have been to recall Nasim Nuñez or Trey Lipscomb and nail them to the bench for most of the month (barring a professionalism-related emergency or some such event), but I am hoping that trade deadline acquisition Christian Franklin a) gets the call and b) gets some run, even with the outfield as crowded as it is. Franklin’s profile is that of potentially a rich man’s Alex Call, an above-average defender at all three spots with strong on-base skills but not much power. If he can indeed play a major league center field and display an OBP within even loud hailing distance of his minor league career rate of .394, then he should be the Nats’ fourth outfielder in 2026 and make someone - likely Jacob Young - expendable in a trade.

📌 Former baseball commissioner Bud Selig says salary caps are ‘working well’ in other sports (LA Times)

📌 How Can Major League Baseball Be So Awful at Marketing? (Sports Illustrated)

📌 Mets pitching prospect Jonah Tong to make MLB debut vs. Marlins (ESPN)