Nationals lefty DJ Herz tossed two innings two scoreless innings in the Florida Complex League on Friday. It’s the southpaw’s first game action in two years, as Herz underwent Tommy John surgery at the beginning of the 2025 season.
It’s the start of what’ll likely be more than a month-long buildup. Acquired from the Cubs as a prospect in the 2023 Jeimer Candelario deadline trade, Herz started 19 games for the Nats a year later. He posted a solid 4.16 ERA while striking out nearly 28% of batters faced as a rookie. He was the top swing-and-miss arm in the rotation that year.
Washington starters are middle of the pack in strikeout rate this season. They’re nevertheless in the bottom third of MLB with a 4.59 earned run average, largely thanks to one of the sport’s highest home run rates. The rotation has been better of late, albeit with the aid of a heavy usage of openers.
The Nats have been among the most aggressive teams this year in using openers. Their actual rotation has been fairly settled all season, however. Cade Cavalli, Foster Griffin, Jake Irvin, Miles Mikolas and Zack Littell have gone every fifth day as either a starter or bulk arm behind an opener for most of the season. The Nats lost Irvin to a shoulder strain in late May, necessitating their first real change of the year.
Lefty Andrew Alvarez appears to have that job for the time being. The 26-year-old made his first start of the season on Wednesday, working 4 2/3 innings of one-run ball against the Marlins. He’s slated to start the second game of their ongoing series in San Francisco tomorrow.
Alvarez was on and off the active roster twice early in the season. He has worked as a starter in Triple-A but had pitched long relief at the MLB level until last week. Alvarez only sits in the low-90s, but he has recorded a 27% strikeout rate over 20 1/3 big league innings this year. He had some of the best swing-and-miss stuff in Triple-A as well, relying mostly on his slider and curveball to compensate for the mediocre fastball.
“Right now, we have our rotation set,” manager Blake Butera said over the weekend (link via Jessica Camerato of MLB.com). They are carrying Mitchell Parker and Brad Lord on the big league roster, but they’ve been full-time long relievers this season after holding rotation spots for a good chunk of 2025. Rookie righty Riley Cornelio is also in a multi-inning relief role despite working as a starter in Triple-A.
Cornelio just came back up over the weekend. Washington optioned righty reliever Cole Henry in a corresponding move. Henry goes back down for the first time since his MLB debut last April. The former second-rounder tossed 52 2/3 innings of 4.27 ERA ball as a rookie. He has been limited to 12 frames this year by a rotator cuff strain that cost him six weeks. Henry has surrendered 10 runs (eight earned) on 14 hits and six walks.
While they’ve tinkered on the pitching staff, the Nationals have not made any roster moves on the position player side in almost a month. They’ve carried the same 13-man hitting group since they optioned Brady House and Joey Wiemer to recall Dylan Crews and Andrés Chaparro in the middle of May. House’s demotion opened the third base job, which Curtis Mead has seized.
Mead, acquired from the White Sox after failing to break camp with Chicago, has hit .247/.356/.487 with nine home runs through 180 trips to the dish. He’s making contact at a career-high rate and chasing fewer pitches off the plate. The 25-year-old former top prospect has played his way into the middle of the lineup. He’s mostly at the hot corner after beginning the season in a first base/designated hitter role (though he was back at first base tonight).
Luis García Jr. has been the primary first baseman all season. He has a league average .256/.284/.442 slash through 208 plate appearances. 24-year-old Abimelec Ortiz, one of five prospects acquired from Texas in the MacKenzie Gore deal, has 10 longballs with a .263/.361/.514 line in Rochester. Although there’s a case for giving Ortiz a look, Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic wrote last week that the Nationals are unlikely to call him up until after the All-Star Break.
That seemingly suggests they’re content with García, whose bat picked up in May after a rough April, continuing as an everyday first baseman. García has plenty of second base experience in his career but seems to have firmly moved off the position this year. No team has gotten less offensive production from the keystone, where Nasim Nuñez and Jorbit Vivas (plus a few scattered at-bats from Mead and José Tena) have combined to hit .185/.279/.208.
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