A Record 38 Blown Saves Defined Washington's Season — and Its Entire Offseason

The Washington Nationals finished 2026 at 77-85, fourth in the NL East, and officially avoided last place only in the season's final days by pushing the big-money Mets to the bottom. But the record that will follow this team into the winter isn't the win-loss mark. It's the blown save.

When Washington's bullpen coughed up a 4-1 lead entering the eighth inning and lost 5-4, the Nats set an MLB record with their 38th blown save of the season, per CBS Sports. The Athletic's account of the same game described it as a "doozy" of an unraveling — which, for anyone who watched this team, was less an outlier than a summary.

The Numbers Behind the Collapse

The season-long relief data is just as damning: a 6.14 ERA and a 1.639 WHIP out of the bullpen across the 2026 campaign. Washington used 33 pitchers, walked 607 batters, and posted a 4.75 team ERA with a 1.41 WHIP. Only 41 saves were recorded against that backdrop, and the bullpen's 9.03 K/9 wasn't nearly enough to offset the traffic.

Here's the most telling contrast: the Nationals scored 821 runs and allowed 815, a plus-6 run differential. A team with a positive differential is supposed to finish above .500. Washington didn't, because the runs it surrendered clustered at the worst possible times. This wasn't a bad baseball team from innings one through six. It was a bad team in innings seven through nine.

What Actually Worked

The case for optimism isn't spin. Washington hit 167 home runs and stole 167 bases, an uncommon power-plus-speed combination, and it did so with an offense that quietly outperformed expectations all year. James Wood slashed .265/.388/.503 with 30 homers, 21 steals, 102 walks, and 106 runs scored on a .891 OPS — an on-base monster even as his second half drew scrutiny. CJ Abrams delivered 33 homers, 34 steals, and 106 RBI, the kind of middle-infield production most franchises can only dream about.

And the rotation has a genuine anchor. Cade Cavalli, in his first full season as a starter, went 13-5 with a 3.02 ERA, 200 strikeouts in 169.2 innings, a 1.16 WHIP, and a 3.74 WAR. The Nationals locked him up on a four-year, $47 million extension with a club option for 2031 that would push the total to $70 million if exercised. Under team control and finally healthy, Cavalli is the piece Paul Toboni's front office can build around rather than trade away.

The Winter To-Do List

The bullpen is the obvious priority — and this week's coverage has been unanimous on that point, with calls for Toboni to stop shopping at the margins and land a legitimate back-end reliever rather than another batch of reclamation projects. Free agent relief arms are reportedly on the radar, and the rotation could use a veteran stabilizer behind Cavalli.

There's an undercurrent of hope in how the championship series has unfolded, too: three of the four teams left standing don't carry monster payrolls, evidence that a rebuilt roster can contend without a blank checkbook. That matters for a franchise that was 23rd in MLB attendance this season — its lowest draw since 2010.

The 2026 season was a real step forward, year one of the Blake Butera-Toboni era. But a plus-6 run differential and a record 38 blown saves tell the same story from opposite ends: Washington was close, and one department kept it from being good. Fix the bullpen, and 77-85 becomes something else entirely.