Nationals set MLB record with 38th blown save, fall to last in NL East

The Washington Nationals have set an MLB record with their 38th blown save of the season, per Matt Snyder of CBS Sports — a historically bad bullpen number that has pushed a team with a genuinely compelling offensive story all the way to the bottom of the NL East standings.

What happened

Per Snyder's report for CBS Sports, the Nationals' bullpen blew its 38th save of the season, establishing a new MLB record for blown saves. The result dropped Washington into last place in the NL East. Snyder framed the development pointedly: a rebuilding club's feel-good story of the year is being undermined by a relief corps that has now made history for the wrong reasons.

Why it matters

There is a particular cruelty to the arithmetic here. The Nationals entered this season as a rebuilding franchise — expectations were calibrated accordingly — and yet the offense has delivered something genuinely worth watching. Per CBS Sports, that feel-good story is the thing being ruined. A blown save doesn't just cost a win; it costs a starter a decision, costs the offense its reward for a well-played game, and costs the fanbase the clean narrative it had been building.

The bullpen's struggles have not arrived in a vacuum. A week removed from the Nationals placing right-hander Orlando Ribalta on the 15-day injured list with right forearm inflammation — retroactive to September 4, per earlier reporting — the relief staff has been operating short-handed at exactly the moment the schedule demands the most from it. Forearm inflammation in a reliever is the kind of injury that tends to linger in the background of a bullpen's late-season box scores, and Ribalta's absence has further strained a group already making history it would prefer not to make.

The roster churn around the bullpen has been notable in recent days. The Nationals claimed right-hander Chase Hampton off waivers from the Yankees and optioned him to Double-A, adding organizational depth without immediately addressing the major-league relief situation. Max Kranick, meanwhile, was designated for assignment, cleared waivers, and outrighted to Triple-A Rochester. The pieces are moving, but the record-setting blown save total suggests the moves have not yet stabilized the unit.

The numbers

Washington's season line reads 69-81 (.460), which places them fifth — and last — in the NL East, 19.5 games behind the division leader. They are 12.0 games below the Wild Card cut line, ranking 10th in that race, and have already been eliminated from the division. The team has won their last two games, so there is at least a modest winning streak attached to a difficult moment.

The offensive context that makes the bullpen record sting more: per reporting earlier this week, CJ Abrams hit his 30th home run, making him and James Wood the first pair of Nationals teammates to each reach 30 home runs in the same season since the last time it happened. That is not a trivial milestone for a rebuilding franchise. It is the kind of number that suggests the rebuild is ahead of schedule in at least one department — which makes the 38 blown saves feel less like a footnote and more like a structural problem sitting directly in front of the progress.

Where the club stands

At 69-81, the Nationals are last in the NL East and out of the division race. The Wild Card gap of 12.0 games makes September a developmental exercise rather than a competitive one, which is not unusual for a rebuilding club — but the blown-save record gives the final weeks of the season an uncomfortable headline to carry.

The upcoming schedule offers no particular relief. Washington hosts the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, September 13, with Riley Cornelio projected to start against Grayson Rodriguez. The Phillies — who are very much still in a pennant race — come to Nationals Park on Tuesday, September 15, with Jackson Kent projected to start for Washington against a Philadelphia starter to be determined, followed by Cade Cavalli on Wednesday, September 16. A bullpen that has blown 38 saves facing a Phillies team with something to play for is a combination that will test the relief corps again almost immediately.

What we don't know yet

The CBS Sports report establishes the record and the last-place standing, but does not specify which game produced the 38th blown save, which reliever was involved, or what the immediate roster or tactical response from the organization might be. Whether the Nationals intend to make additional bullpen moves before the end of the season — beyond the waiver and injured list activity already reported — remains unaddressed in the material.

Drew Millas, the catcher scheduled for a second left index finger surgery of the 2026 season and already on the 60-day injured list since mid-July, is not a bullpen question, but his situation is a reminder that the injury ledger for this roster has been running long all year. Whether any of the pitchers currently working their way through the system — Hampton at Double-A, Kranick at Triple-A Rochester — factor into the September bullpen picture is also unconfirmed.

What to watch

The most immediate question is whether the Nationals' two-game winning streak can survive the Phillies series, and whether the bullpen can avoid adding to its record total in the process. The 38 blown saves are already in the books; the question now is how many more get appended before the season ends.

Longer term, the Abrams-and-Wood power development is the story the organization would prefer to be telling — and it is a real one. But a historically bad save conversion rate is the kind of thing that follows a franchise into an offseason, shapes roster construction conversations, and tends to generate its own gravitational pull in the transaction wire. The bullpen that set this record will need to look substantially different by the time the Nationals are ready to compete. What that looks like, and when, is the question the front office now has to answer in earnest.