A Winless Trip to California

0:00The end of season, Nats Chat Podcast party is on Friday night October 2nd from 7 to 9 PM at Walter Sports Bar, the best sports bar in Navy yard. Come eat, drink and hang out with fellow Nats fans as we all try to figure out who's going to be the starting shortstop on opening day 2027. Again, that's at Walter's from 7 to 9 PM Friday night October 2nd. Now the pitch, swaying in a line drive right field. We'll be back as bowin'. He slips, he falls and it drops in front of him. Dunias comes in to score, everybody will move up one base. It'll be a base in an RBI for Dylan Cruz. He drives in his 39th run of the year that Ashles lead to it and nothing. What a break for the nationals, bowin' slipped. Now the sack can't deliver. The wing in a drive hit well, the right center field. Back goes young, back goes Cruz, way back and young. Now he had any crashes out of the wall, the ball drops.

1:02This will clear the bases in the third as Jackson Marrow. Jacob Young's slow to get up about to make another wall crashing catch. Only this time the wall won and the ball came out. This is a triple for Marrow, it's fourth of the year. Two more runs on the board for the Padres. Luis Parallel is still in the game, delivers to Jackson Marrow, a drive to deep left center. This is way back and it is gone. A home run for Jackson Marrow. Consecutive at Pants in this game with a home run. A two run triple in the third, a two run home run in the fifth. And a solo home run leading off the bottom of the seventh is 24th of the year. On a day for the suburb of Mark Marrow and native Jackson Marrow. It's the Padres, eight of the nationals too. And welcome to that chat. I'm Al Goldie, host of the Al Goldie podcast. I'm joined by Washington, nationals, insider Mark Stuckerman of NATSJ.com.

2:04He is at Petco Park in San Diego. The famous line in the famous song Hotel California is you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave, right? When the old time great lines in an old time great song. Well, the NATS could not wait to leave California. You can be sure of that. A nine to loss at the San Diego Padres on Wednesday to complete a three game sweep. This was a game in which the NATS manager Blake Gutera got ejected during the Padres three run third. This was a game in which the NATS got ripped by Jackson Marrow, who went to Severna Park High School and Severna Park, Maryland. Jackson Merrill was the Padres starting center fielder and number five batter. He went four for five with a two run homer, a solo homer, a two run triple. And in RBI single, he had six RBI. The NATS wrapped up going O and six on their six game California road trip. The NATS now are just two and 21 over their last 23 road games. That is remarkable that any MOB team in any subset of games can go two and 21.

3:09The NATS are doing that right now. The NATS now lost seven consecutive games overall. And the NATS now are 67 and 81 with a run differential of zero. And yes, I did say 67 and 81. The NATS have clenched a seventh consecutive non-winning regular season, 2020 through 2026. And remember, the NATS on this road trip set the record for most blown saves by an MOB team in a regular season at 38. Other than all of that misses Lincoln, how was your road trip in California? But it is nice to have you with us. So we have a website that we always invite you to check out NATSChatpodcast.com at which you can purchase a NATSChat podcast t-shirt. 14 games left for the NATS in their regular season. Mark, do you think that it's safe to say that the NATS are looking forward to the end of this season? Yeah, when you said you can check out any time you want, it's starting to feel like they may be checking out of this one. And look, I understand Blake butaric keeps complementing them on the effort that they're giving

4:13and the way that they bounce back from blowing these saves and coming right back and take a lead the next day. There is something to be said for that, for sure. But boy, this one was a slog. Once they were down, it just kind of felt like that was it. They were ready to go home two weeks to go with 14 games. Yes, you'd love for them to finish strong, but it may be a lot to ask for, given what they are as a team at this point. At this point, you just have to find almost individual things to play for. It's hard to think about the team collective at this spot. You've got to find whatever it is that motivates you on a personal level to try to finish the season strong. And it's a challenge. It's not an easy thing to do. And I think the problem so often is they can come out of the gates playing well. They can do good things personally. But if it doesn't result in the win in the end, it's hard to keep that momentum, keep that energy going. And we may be seeing that here as the seasons slowly reaches its final week.

5:14That starting picture in this game was Jackson Kent. Another rough outing for him. You know, you'd love to be able to say, Hey, Jackson Kent is showing themselves. You'd love to be able to say, Hey, Jackson Kent is showing us some stuff. You're down the stretch. I don't know that that's happening. He officially allowed five runs in three innings. He gave up eight hits, which were a triple and seven singles. He issued a walk. He recorded two strikeouts, 72 pitches, 47 strikes, 25 balls. Kent in the bottom of the third allowed three runs on a triple, two singles and a walk, including a two out RBI single by Ty France through the left side of the infield on a one two pitch. The cut the Nats lead to two one and a two out two run triple by Jackson Merrill to right center field for a three two Padres lead center field or Jacob Young on the triple made a valiant attempt at a catch. And young had it in the club and literally hit the wall and it came out. And it's now San Diego free in Washington too. But did not come through crashed into the outfield wall was down for a while,

6:16but appears to be okay. You can tell me if that's not the case. And then it was after the triple that Blake Boutera got ejected. Got ejected for apparently arguing a check swinkle during the tie France played appearance. But you would think that that ejection truly was rooted in the manager blowing off some steam. Shall we say all this teams recent struggles and then Kent in the Padres to run fourth got charged with both runs. He in the inning gave up a lead off single by Austin Hayes to left field and then committed a throwing air on a first pitch run scoring. Bunt single by Samad Taylor to put the Padres up for to although CJ Abrams who was playing second base. He started the game at second base and moved to shortstop. It's he was playing second base here. He on the throwing air took way too long to get to first base. Now there are bound to be some growing pains with Abrams now playing second base at decent amount. So you know, I don't really want to kill him for that. But you know, that's a spot where he needs to be better. But with the Jackson Kent outing, I guess I start with this. Butera got ejected. He was arguing the check swing call from the Thai friends played appearances.

7:19That correct correct. And so it would have benefits called a swing by a male. He meant as it would have been strike three out three inning over no runs across the plate and Kent gets out of that jam. Instead, it's called not a swing. The reaction and that's dug out as they were waiting on the appeal like they all just like. Reacted into like disgustingly upset with the call and then sure enough, the next pitch. France hits the left field for the single that drives in the first run. And then the next batter is Merrill who hits that drive to center field. Jacob Young thought he had a good shot at catching it. He was kind of upset at himself that he didn't catch it. Not an easy play at all. I know he sets the bar pretty high because he's so good at this stuff. Did come out of it physically okay. But as that all is happening the aftermath of it. I think the Nats' dugout is still chirping at Jimenez, including Butera. He actually got tossed while he was still in the dugout and then came charging out after that. That's where he laid into Jimenez.

8:20Thought France swung those big spot in the game. Thought it was a much break three against out of the inning. Obviously didn't call it and wasn't the last out of the inning. And yeah, just you know, wanted to, wanted to stand up for these guys. His argument essentially was because of that missed call and his mind missed call, it's you watch the replay. It looks like he did go. It's close. I do have sympathy for umpires when it comes to check swings in real time to be able to catch that. It's hardly definitive for anyone to be able to see that I think in real time. So I do have some sympathy there, but I think he got it wrong. And Butera's point is essentially that call set in motion the chain of events that then led to them scoring three runs and taking the lead in the game. And he's saying, you know, my guy in center field is busting himself and try to make a great catch. Maybe heard himself on the play. Never should have happened in the first place. Of course, it doesn't all work like that, but you can understand why he is feeling the domino effect of that. He insisted it was a spur of the moment, just heat of the moment that one call thing.

9:21I think deep down he probably doesn't react that way. If they've won three out of five on this road trip instead of getting swept leading into this game, I think we understand why the frustrations may have boiled up at that point. And he let it fly and it was understandable. Of course, I do think the call was wrong by the same token. And we've discussed this before when something goes wrong that's out of your control behind you. It's your job as players, the pitcher, the hitter, whoever it is, to bounce back from that and try to get out of it. And Jackson Kent wasn't able to do it. I'm not going to really criticize Jacob Young for not making the catch on an incredibly difficult play, but he thought he had a chance to make the catch and he didn't. So the Nats response to all that didn't help matters. And it allowed that bad call to fester into something more significant than maybe it would have been otherwise. Young lay on the ground for a while, but he stayed in the game. Is he okay? Yeah, he said afterwards that he was fine.

10:21He jokingly said, you know, the wall always wins on those kind of plays. I think he was dazed a little, but he hit it hard. But yeah, he seemed to be fine. The rest of the game looked fine and afterwards told us all that he felt fine. All right, with Jackson Kent. So August 12 was when the Nats announced having selected his contract from Triple A Rochester. He over his first six MLB regular season games all starts. ERA 659 whip of 1.83. He has been good in just one of the six outings. Now at this point in this season, I'd say keep putting them out there. And maybe at some point, you know, you start to see some improvement. But this has been tough. Like I said, with the exception of that one outing in which he was, you know, pretty good one run in seven innings, although the peripherals in that outing weren't anything special. These other five outings have been tough. And he had another tough one in this game. Yeah, and like the first game at Dodger Stadium to begin this trip, first couple innings, okay, got through it. Maybe not as best, but he got through it without any real damage. And then second time through the order, it caught up to him.

11:22And he ends up not even going deep in the game because the pitch count is high. He's walking batters, command clearly not there. And as I said, in this case, maybe didn't do the best job of brushing off the tough check swing call to try to buckle down and just get out of it on his own. He's very young. He's very inexperienced. I think he was called up probably a bit quickly for where he was at. They were in a spot where they really needed a starter. They still only have four actual starters in the rotation. And it's arguable whether you want to even consider him one of them right now. I mean, he's starting every fifth day. Should he be? I don't know. And he's not going very deep in games for the most part. So it's a difficult spot for everyone involved. I agree. You keep put him out there because there's no harm in that. But if the hope was that he was going to show you enough here, to say, yes, he should be a part of the rotation next year. Outside of the one game, and let's be clear that was a game against the Marlins, as opposed to his other opponents that he's faced, he just hasn't really shown a whole lot that gets you excited about the possibilities for next

12:23year. Again, he's really young and experienced, not to say that he couldn't figure some things out. But like compare it to Andrew Alvarez a year ago, he came up in September. Didn't have overpowering stuff. He actually pitched really well in September. And while he hasn't sustained it to that level, there were signs there that made you think, okay, maybe there's something here. And as we've discussed, he's been probably their second best pitcher here over the final couple months of the year and is probably doing a lot to put himself in position to be in the rotation again next year. So it is possible in these late season tryouts to make a good case for yourself. And it can carry over to the next year. And right now Kent is not coming anywhere close to doing what Alvarez did a year ago. Predicting what the Nats are going to do from a starting pitching standpoint right now is tough. The Nats have announced there's probable starting pictures for the next series, a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels at Nationals Park, Kade Cavali, Andrew Alvarez, Jake Irvin. But here's what I'm getting at. The Nats have a lot of off days coming up. Have an off day on Thursday.

13:24Have an off day for every Thursday the rest of the way. Every Thursday in September the Nats are off. And that's also having an off day coming up this Monday. The Nats have three off days over the next eight days if you go Thursday through Thursday. Do you think we see a four-man rotation or something approximating that? Do you think we see the Nats tap out on say the bullpen game because at least in the immediate future the Nats do not need a five-man rotation? You're correct. They could do something like that. You know, we haven't gotten into what their plans are beyond the next series. But yeah, when you have a day off, a three-game series against the Angels, another day off, a two-game series against the Phillies, another day off before you then hit the road. Certainly it gives you the leeway to finagle with this. If there were guys that they were worried about their workload, maybe they would say, let's stick with five man or five spot rotation to give everyone some extra rest. I don't know if they feel like Kade Cavali needs extra rest at this point. He may be fine to come right back on the full five days, same for Alvarez.

14:24I don't think they're worried about Jake Irvin from a physical standpoint. So yeah, they might go ahead and do that and not feel like they need to. Or you could also argue, do a bullpen game for one of those and skip over Kent's turn or have him maybe start a game but only plan for him to go a few innings before going to a Brad Lord or whoever else it might be and treat that as a bullpen game. So I do think they have options here. I don't think this is going to necessarily be just conventional the rest of the way. But they really do have a lot to sort through. I know we talk about the bullpen and how much work there is to be done this winter. Let's be clear. The rotation has a lot of question marks and a lot that they need to figure out as well. Beyond Kade Cavali and hopefully Conley early, assuming his final rehabs go well and maybe Alvarez, what else are you feeling good about going into next season? And we are reminded that they went to spring training this year and wound up signing Miles Michaelis and Zachlitell. They obviously signed Foster Griffin in the off season.

15:25So they're not averse to bringing in starting pictures and that you would hope they might spend a little more, get somebody a little more notable in them. But I mean, I think it should be obvious that they're going to bring in at least one starting picture from the outside if not more than one. And it would be appropriate given the lack of certainty throughout the rest of the rotation as far as their candidates go right now. Yeah, and the hit rate needs to be better than what we got with Zachlitell and Miles Michaelis. You know, you nailed it with Foster Griffin and the organization deserves a ton of credit for that. But the letel signing did not work out at all and the Miles Michaelis signing did not work out at all. I'll go all the year to tell you about wind donation. But before that, the window nation look into the future. First pitch coming home and that's Skyd in the year. High and deep to right. It sends coming back to coming him back to the fence and it's gone off the light tower in right center field. Devon Fitzgerald adds to the total. It's the third home run for Harrisburg in the last two innings.

16:30Their fourth of the night going back to TJ White's two run shot in the second. And now it's Devon Fitzgerald who joins the party with a solo homemer in the top of the ninth inning. Make it eight nothing centers. Hey, Al Goldie here for window nation. Are you dealing with drafts plus higher than normal utility bills? You know, that is an equation that homeowners often struggle with, especially if they have old windows. So the good news is that window nation can help you find the best solution this fall. And window nation will do the math for you. Add four new windows, four free windows and lower energy bills together. And you've got one affordable replacement window project plus at zero money down, zero monthly payments and zero interest together multiplied by two whole years. And you've got a whole lot of savings right now. Here's another one. Add 20 years of experience. 45,000 five-star reviews and three million windows installed nationwide. And you've got one company that you can trust. Window Nation. Let's review it all one more time. Four free windows with every four windows that you buy.

17:31Zero payments for two years and a whole lot of happy homeowners nationwide. The math is mapping when it comes to window nation. Don't wait for more problems with your old windows. Get top quality replacement windows and doors from window nation. Visit window nation.com today to get your free in home estimate window nation. You can also call 86619ation. So that's window nation.com or 86619ation. And tell window nation that you want the deal that you heard about from Algoldi on the Natchchat podcast. The 22. Tried to the year to deep left field. While going back to the warning track feeling for the wall climbing the wall he can't get it. It's gone. Into the second row of seats. An opposite field home run for Jackson Merrill and it's seven two San Diego. Number 23 for Jackson Merrill. The Natchford Leaf pitching in this nine to loss at the Padres on Wednesday. Quite bad.

18:31Three Natchford Leavers officially combined to allow four runs in five innings. Brad Lord officially allowed two runs in two innings. He gave up four hits which were home run two doubles and a single lord. In the bottom of the fifth allowed two runs. Give up an opposite field to run Homer by Jackson Merrill to left field for a seven two Padres lead. Louise Parallels allowed one run in two innings. He had four strikeouts versus two walks. He gave up only one hit but the one hit was a Homer bottom of the seventh. Give up a lead off first pitch opposite field Homer by guess who. Yes Jackson Merrill to left center field for an eight to Padres lead. And Eddie Jean he allowed one run in one inning bottom of the eighth. A letter run on three singles. One of which was at RBI single by yes. Jackson Merrill but Eddie Jean is back. The Natch on Wednesday afternoon announced having recalled Jean from Triple A Rochester. But two more relief pitching homers allowed by the Natchs. They for this regular season now have allowed one hundred two relief pitching home runs by four the worst total in M.O.B.

19:32I feel like with Parallels. He does some things that impress you like I mentioned the forced right. But every outing or at least the majority of his outings. He also gives up a run or he gives up a key hit. You know like he's not killing it right now. He's doing some things that impress you. But I would like to see some clean outings from this guy. If he's going to be someone who's a real piece for this team moving forward. We're not really seeing much in the way of the clean outing from Louise Parallels. No and let's remember this is a guy who was supposed to be a starter. And it's only recently that they moved into the bullpen and the thought was that that would just get him to the big leagues this year. But that potentially he could still be a starter in the long run. This is the guy they traded Jake Bennett for. Well, if you traded a guy who ends up being a mainstay in the Red Sox rotation for somebody who not only doesn't look like he's a starter right now, but may not even be a reliable reliever. That's not good. That's not what you were hoping for. You need somebody who's a little more consistent reliable than that.

20:32I will say, I was thinking this in the clubhouse this morning as I was looking around the room. We know it keeps changing the person now they have in their bullpen. Just seeing Louise Parallels, Edie Jean, and Yovani Crews all in there at the same time. It just looked like they had more legit big arms in there than they've had a lot. This season, some of the others they brought in that just physically don't like scream out to you. Like, oh, this is a big time big league reliever. These guys have the physical attributes. Now that doesn't mean anything if you can't be effective once you take the mound in games and they all have a long way to go. But I will say I do appreciate the attempt by the organization here to get a look at and bring in some guys who physically look the part as opposed to let's say the journey man crafty left-hander with a low arm slot in a 90 mile an hour fastball who you just hope can fool hitters.

21:34Not saying there isn't a place for one or two of them. But the best bullpen and you saw it from the Padres throughout this series have big arms. And so they do at least now have a few candidates who fit that description. It's up to them to show they can do it. But I did like the fact that I was looking around like, okay, this looks at least more like a legit big league bullpen than at times we've seen this year. Yeah, I mean we've talked about the lack of strikeouts. If nothing else that has got to be improved upon with this bullpen for next season. Like I think you start with that. Guys who generate strikeouts and then you sort of work from there. And maybe these guys can be part of a core that is better in the strikeout department next season. The Nats offense in this 92 loss at the Padres on Wednesday. So just two runs, just four hits which were Homer and three singles. The Nats did work three walks, did go two for five with runners in scoring position. And did get to the Padres starting pitcher in this game Walker Bueller. Bueller allowed two runs in two into third innings. The Nats actually were up to nothing in this game if you can believe that.

22:36But five Padres relievers combined for six and two third scoreless innings. Funny what happens when you have a good bullpen. And I give our friend Padres manager and former Nats reliever Craig Stamman credit. He made an aggressive move in pulling Walker Bueller and the move worked out perfectly. And you know what, when you have a great bullpen, you can do that kind of thing. But man, I mean, Stamman has his team in a playoff race says Bueller, you don't have it. You're not impressing me. Get out. I'm going to my super pen and the pen got the job done that this Padres bullpen really impressive. If they make the playoffs and they're still on the outside trying to catch Arizona for the last wild card spot. If they do get in, they have a chance to make some noise because of the depth of their bullpen. I know they have got big names and they're line up and everything else. But that to me would be what they have that maybe other teams don't have and they showed it throughout this series. I don't know if they picked up on this in the broadcast or not. When Stamman went out to make that pitching change, something weird happened.

23:38He went out there and he didn't immediately signal for the bullpen. He went out there and talked to Bueller who then kind of like backed off the mound. And Stamman turned around like he was going to walk back like he wasn't pulling him from the game. And then the play-dumpired jumped and said, no, no, no, you have to make the change. That was his second mound visit of the inning. I don't know for sure if they lost track of that and Stamman actually did want to leave Bueller in or if maybe there was something else going on that they were stalling and trying to give the reliever more time and they knew all along he'd have to pull him. But it was a little bit weird and I know Craig's done a great job this year and should probably get some manager of the year votes for what he's been able to do. But it's possible he had a real rookie slip up there in not recognizing the fact that he had already had one mound visit that inning and it wasn't allowed to go out there without making a pitching change. Oh, interesting. I did not get that sense watching the game. So maybe we should not be giving Craig Stamman credit for what he did. But what happened did work. There's no doubt about that. Two bright spots for the Nats were Cape at Ruiz and Dylan Cruz.

24:40A Cape at Ruiz as the Nats starting catcher and number seven batter. One for four with a solo homer. He and the Nats two run third had a lead off homer to right field to put the Nats up one nothing of the homer going projected 400 two feet per stat. As the step forward season of Cape at Ruiz continues for all of the darkness right now. A beacon of light has been Cape at Ruiz. His OPS now is at seven 77 and Dylan Cruz that continues his recent modest surge. He is an at starting right fielder and upper two batter. One for three RBI single and a walk. Cruz in the Nats two run third had a bases loaded opposite field RBI single to right to put the Nats up to nothing despite having been down at 1.02. The single happened in Lord's board maybe even entirely because of the Padres right fielder Jace Bowen falling down. But still another hit for Dylan Cruz who lately has been doing well. The O2 pitch. Swain a chopping ground ball to the first baseman.

25:41Ty France has it. He will flip to the pitcher covering and the game is over. The series is over. The road trip is over. Padres take it nine to two. The nationals go all for Southern California. They drop all six games against the Dodgers and the Padres. What I actually would like to focus on for at least a minute or two here is CJ Abrams. Abrams as the Nats starting second baseman and number four batter went over four with three strikeouts. Now his overall numbers remain impressive. Just got to 30 homers OPS 827. We all would have signed up for that coming into this season. But a big storyline with Abrams this season was would he again struggle in the post all star break portion of the season. We have not talked about this. I feel like this has not gotten a lot of attention. There of course has been a lot else going on with the Nats, including with Abrams himself right. This sort of move to second base. But Abrams for the month of August had an OPS of just five 19. He for this month of

26:42September has an OPS of just four 55. He's not just doing poorly. He's doing horribly right now. And this is like barely being noticed. I feel like, but I feel like we need to highlight this. He is struggling in the post all star break portion of this season. And it's a credit to how well he was doing that his overall numbers remain impressive. Because if you just look at the bottom line numbers, they're still good. And you're like, yeah, Abrams is having a nice season. And overall, I still would say that he is having a nice season. But understand August OPS five 19 September OPS four 55. Those numbers are brutal. They are. I've noticed it. I've tried to point some of this out along the way. And I think the question and we'll never truly know the answer to it is how much of that is connected to him being told about the position switch. If I remember right, he was still playing well through the rest of July. So after the all star break and leading into the trade deadline,

27:47maybe the trade deadline itself was a little bit of a downer for him as it was for a lot of guys. Then James would get hurt now. Of sudden, he's the focal point of the lineup and leading off again. A lot. And then, you know, a few days later, they come to him and say, by the way, we're making you into a second basement. Starts working on that. Then he has the ankle issue that cost him several games. So there are some extenuating circumstances that kind of tie in around the same timing as all this. And maybe that has had something to do with it. But we are well past the point where that should still be a valid excuse for anything. If he had a rough couple of weeks, as this was all going on, you say, okay, disappointing. That would happen. But I understand given what's going on with him elsewhere that it may have led to a little slump. The fact he has not been able to get it back. And he is once again, limping to the finish line is extremely disappointing and concerning. And it does make you wonder like what would it take to get six full months of quality baseball

28:51at a CJA brums? And it's among the reasons I wrote at the time. Why I thought it was a mistake to make the positions, which at the time, like he was going great. Everything's great. You know his history of falling apart in the second half. Why do anything that might mess that up? And I get it. It's up to him to not let those things affect him. Whether they have or not, only he knows. But the fact of the matter is he has not been anywhere close to the same player here down the stretch of the season. And it's going to leave a little bit of a sour taste in everyone's mouths. Again, unless he finishes strong. And on top of all that, if as we've suggested, part of the motivation for them having him move positions was that they thought it might boost his trade value this winner. Again, teams know the reputation. And they see that he completely fell apart offensively over the final two months of the season with everything else going on. Is that going to help his trade value? Or a team can say, this is a four month player, not a six month player. In addition, everything else that I have concerns about. So it really has gone about as poorly as you could

29:54have hoped for for him since, let's say, August 5th, 6th, 7th somewhere in that range. Yeah, I wonder if the ankle has been a bigger factor than we know. And maybe that's part of this. I mean, I would just say this about if in fact, him being asked to move to being primarily a second basement is a major reason for the slump. Like the onus is on him to overcome that. Okay. They asked you to move from a short stop to second base. It was not some unreasonable ask. They didn't ask you to sacrifice your firstborn child. Okay. Like this is the kind of thing you should be able to deal with and cope with. And if you can, that's an indictment on you. Like you have to be mentally tough in this sport. And if you're not, that's a problem. And I also would throw this into the mix. So one of the things that was said about the move from a short stop to second was that, well, this could cost him some money because second baseman don't get paid with short stops get paid. You know, who doesn't get paid? The guy who's only good for three months out of the six months. Okay. Like if you want to get paid, don't worry so much about where you're playing and produce for six months. And then we can talk about your defensive position in which one is worth more

30:56money. But if you're a three month or four month player, it doesn't matter if you're a short stop, a second baseman. You know, you want to show, hey, Otoni it and pitch part of the time. Like, it doesn't matter, man, you're not going to get paid because like you said, teams notice this kind of thing. And it's really unfortunate because he was having such a great season. And again, he still is having a good season because the overall numbers still are good. I think that's part of why this hasn't gotten more attention because if you're just checking those bottom line numbers at no point or you really alarmed, you know, you're still saying, you're still saying, yeah, I mean, that's good. He's three home runs. That's good. And there has been all of this other stuff within that. Right? You know, the terrible relief pitching and the trades and James would being injured. Like all of that stuff has been going on. But yeah, Abrams since August, you know, if you just go by month by month since, you know, his July was really good. His August was bad and his September so far has been even worse. And, you know, there's not much time left to get back on a good run. But, you know, maybe if he can at least have a good final two weeks, you know, he'd get those,

31:56those numbers up back to where the OPS is above 850 would love to see that. But, you know, for the longest time, that OPS was in the 900s. That's he's probably not getting back to that. You know, that's probably gone at this point for him this season. Yeah, it would take a huge finish for him to get back to that. But here's the thing you just mentioned is like he's on the verge of 30 homers, 30 steals and 100 RBI's for the season. So it's going to be hard for anybody to look at that bottom line and call that a bad year. But when you dig deeper, you see that it could have been even more. I mean, it was an outside shot the way it was going. If he really kept it up to like threatened 40 40 for the year. And that's obviously not happening. You know, the other part of all this, we talked about all the external things going on that may have impacted him. Just the way the team has devolved since the trade deadline and to the point where they're now playing these meaningless games, he's been through this before. What it's like to play on a team that's playing out the string. You would hope that he and others would know you can't just coast to the finish line. You got to

33:00still try to find it to find a way to dig deep and finish it out strong. I don't know if that's any part is it may be a combination of all these things or maybe he's just slumping and that's all that it is. Whatever the reason behind it, if you really want to be considered an elite star player in this game who's going to get a mammoth contract, eventually you're going to have to prove you can do this for six months and not just for four months and prove that when times are tough, whether that's for you personally or for the team as a whole, that you can still stay consistent and be that kind of player. That is still the challenge. The unfortunate thing is this is exactly what we were talking about coming into the year with him. Yes, so many things were better and the bottom line will ultimately be better this year for him, but it is still going to be a lingering question going into 2027. That's really unfortunate because I thought there that we were past that and it was going to be like, CJ Abrams has turned to corner. He is a complete player now and all star,

34:04a six month player, a leader on this team. Unfortunately, I think we're still going to have that little question in the back of our minds going into 2027. He's not an older player by any stretch of the imagination. He's in his mid 20s, but he's been a major league player for a while now and I do wonder at one point, do you stop looking for the corner to turn? At what point do you just say, this is who he is? There's not going to be some season where he's great for six months. And this is why if you are Paul Taboni, you know, you think about, okay, do we want to extend him? Well, now let's think about this. He's blocked at the position change. He still cannot prove himself to be more than a three or four month player. Are you going to push across the table hundreds of millions of dollars to sign someone like that to a long term contract extension? Like, is that the kind of person who you want? Is that the kind of player who you want to be paying that kind of money to? Now, he brings value, okay? Like definitely want to acknowledge that, but you don't trust him defensively. He has not embraced this position change, at least outwardly. It may be behind the

35:08scenes things are getting better. We don't know. And he has this thing where, you know, he's good for three or four months and then he falls off a cliff. Like, is that the kind of person who this team should be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to in a big money long term contract extension? And I think that that's a real question. I think it's always been the question. And it's the reason that when the front office took over that his name was coming up and trade talks over the winter. And, you know, they weren't ruling that out. They understandably said, if we were to do that, we'd have to get a whole lot in return. And nobody was offering that. And so they didn't. And the same thing happens this summer. Hey, they're not really looking to trade them. But they weren't saying no chance, no way. Let's hear what you might offer. And then if it's something that is incredibly good, we'll listen to it. So now they're going to be back in that boat again. And as a good I don't think you're going to hear Paul Taboni say, no way. CJ Abrams is our guy going into 2027. He's going to have to be willing to listen to offers again and decide if there are offers that are worth it. And if not how he thinks Abrams can take that next step for them next year, a year that

36:15there's going to be more pressure on everybody to play a full season and take this team to that next step that they so desperately want to get to. So next up for the Nats off the off day on Thursday is this five game home stand beginning with a three game series against the Los Angeles Angels at Nationals Park. The Nats have listed the following starting pictures as probable for the series. Game one Friday evening 645 Kade Cavali boy could the Nats use a Kade Cavali start right now. Game two Saturday afternoon 405 Andrew Alvarez and Game three Sunday afternoon at 135 Jake Irvin. Hit us up on exit Nats underscore chat. You can find us on Blue Sky and Nats chat podcast. You can email us Nats chat podcast at gmail.com all nationals radio highlights on Nats chat or courtesy of 1067 the fan from Mark Sirkerman on Algoldi. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time on the Nats chat podcast. Next one of the way is swung on driven in the air to right field. This is deep back goes bowling to the warning track to the wall and it is caught goodbye. Bang! Zoom goes K-Bat

37:21Ruiz leading off the top of the third with his tenth home out of the year. RBI number 47 as he gets a hold of a cutter running knee high to the inner half of the plate and takes it out of here four or two feet to straight away right field and it's the Nationals won the Padres nothing.