Under The Knife 4/30/25
Noticing The Nats
If you’re not paying attention to the Washington Nationals right now, I get it. They’re 11-14. They’re still a ways from contending. But you might want to start paying attention anyway — because something’s happening with their pitching.
It started when I was looking up Pete Alonso’s WAR the other day (because, who isn’t?), and right there in the top five was Mitchell Parker. Mitchell Parker! Fifth in WAR, ahead of names that get all the attention.
Parker was good as a rookie in 2024, making 29 starts and chewing through 150 innings, but every projection system had him coming in way below that this year. He’s had some BABIP luck, sure, and his win total looks better than it probably should. But the stuff? The approach? It’s just better.
And Parker isn’t the only one.
Opening Day, MacKenzie Gore came out looking like Oprah handing out strikeouts: you get a K and you get a K. Thirteen of them, despite not going that deep into the game. It wasn’t a fluke either. He dropped another 13-strikeout gem on the Rockies a few weeks later. So far, he’s given the Nats five starts, five or six innings each time, and looks like the breakout ace he was supposed to be when he was drafted third overall back in 2017.*
Jake Irvin punched out nine hitters last week. Trevor Williams — career journeyman, career low strikeout guy — is suddenly averaging almost a strikeout an inning. Even Brad Lord, an 18th-round pick nobody had circled, is flashing real stuff.
All of this is happening despite Cade Cavalli still running the longest Tommy John rehab in recent memory, DJ Herz going down with an elbow sprain, and Josiah Gray still being Josiah Gray. Health could make this group even better. Even now, they’re building something.
How? Start with Jim Hickey, the Nationals pitching coach. You might remember him from the Tampa Bay Rays’ early pitching factory days, back when they were spinning gold out of guys you forgot you knew. Add Sean Doolittle to the mix, now serving as a “pitching strategist” — a real title and a real factor. Together, they’ve found a way to blend old-school attacking the zone with new-school movement metrics. It’s working. Quietly.
No one’s handing out Cy Youngs in April. And yes, the Nats still need to win more games before anyone gets too excited. For a team that’s spent the last few years wandering the wilderness, this matters. Pitching development is how you get good again. It’s how you lay a real foundation.
The standings might not show it yet, but something’s happening in D.C. The Nats’ arms are getting better. And that deserves some notice and some credit. Tip of the cap and then on to the injuries:
TYLER GLASNOW, SP LAD (inflamed shoulder)
“Right shoulder inflammation” is the official diagnosis and if that’s giving Dodger fans a bit of deja vu, it should. That’s what Blake Snell is down with, but it doesn’t mean it’s the same thing or the same cause. Granted, those two have known each other a while now, but they’re not the same body type, they don’t throw with the same hand, and they have very different programs. There’s not some one-size-fits-all Dodger program that’s suddenly causing shoulder injuries; Snell hasn’t been in it that long if it existed. It’d actually be easier to go back and blame the Rays system than the Dodgers, though I remembered just as a typed this that Glasnow came up in the Pirates system!
Dave Roberts gave a clue, saying that Glasnow not only had the shoulder problem but “general body soreness.” This isn’t isolated and could be something out of sequence, a symptom rather than a shoulder-focused causation. Glasnow’s always had complex mechanics, but we’ve learned over the years that while mechanics are important, it’s more about repeatability, sequencing, and also effectiveness. Baseball will take effective but bad biomechanics every time. This goes back to Dr. Mike Marshall’s teachings - I have no doubt he was right about many things, but no one was able to become effective enough with his version of efficient mechanics to make it work.
We’ll have to see if Glasnow and Snell to some extent are short term injuries, hiccups in the long baseball season, or big problems for the Dodgers in the much longer term. Injuries haven’t derailed the Dodger machine over the last two seasons, but even money can only do so much if they can’t fix the issues.
PAUL DEJONG, SS WAS (fractured nose/orbital)
Paul DeJong now has a very hard head. It was known that he was going to have his nose fixed after being hit, but news that a titanium plate was inserted to fixate his orbital was new. It’s not uncommon as that bone needs to heal well to maintain eye function. That’s important not just for baseball players, but for quality of life after. The plate is small and may not stay in long term, but it can be taken out not just after healing, but after the season.
We don’t often see this kind of injury post C-flap adoption, but the face is still exposed and a quirky angle as happened with DeJong creates the opportunity for something like this to happen. Extending the flap would be difficult due to visibility concerns and strength, but a flap like that doesn’t have to completely block a ball, just slow it enough that the force is safer. That seems possible, given that I can’t remember the last time we had a facial injury to a hockey goalie.
DeJong shouldn’t have any consequences when he returns, but eye injuries and baseball can be very tricky. There’s some worry until he gets back from surgery, swelling goes down, and he starts tracking balls. Trajekt will be a big help with this and the Nats will know if there’s issues by next week. We’ll have to wait a bit longer to know.