No let-up from resilient Nats during bounce-back weekend
With back-to-back lopsided wins over the Mariners, the Nationals once again proved they aren't going to easily fold.
The 2026 Nationals have a lot to offer: Youth, talent, speed, consistent offensive production, positional versatility. What they can’t offer is perspective. How are you supposed to be able to put anything into context when you have exactly one player on the roster over 30, not to mention a 33-year-old rookie manager and 36-year-old rookie president of baseball operations?
There is, however, Miles Mikolas. At 37, he’s been seeing and experiencing things in this game since half of his teammates were in middle school.
While everyone else inside that clubhouse may not fully appreciate what’s going on right now, the wily old right-hander sure does. He sees a team that easily could’ve folded in recent weeks following a handful of embarrassing losses to supposedly inferior opponents. And in seeing that team continue to bounce back and play even better on the heels of those losses, he senses something special brewing on South Capitol Street.
“There’s a lot of young guys in here, but their ability to bounce back and have a short memory … it can take players a long time to develop something like that,” Mikolas said. “To see that in these guys is special. To be able to put your emotions aside – we’re sad because we lost, or I’m upset because I had a bad game – to put that all aside and go out there and let your talent speak for itself, I think, is something they do really well.”
Yes, reports of the Nationals’ demise following their historic collapse Wednesday in San Francisco may have been greatly exaggerated.
