Nationals primed to make jump from rebuild to contention sooner than expected

The Nationals entered the season with low expectations and stumbled through the campaign’s first half at the bottom of the NL East at 36-53. However, something changed following the All-Star break. Washington started to win series after series and has now posted a 28-25 record in the second half.

A young core led by CJ Abrams, Keibert Ruiz, Lane Thomas, MacKenzie Gore, and Josiah Gray has helped turn a corner following a 107-loss campaign last year. The building blocks of the next good Nationals team are starting to show.

“We’re having much more of a fun summer covering this team than I thought we were going to,” longtime Nationals broadcaster Bob Carpenter told theScore in August. “I thought we were going to have to be making excuses every night like, ‘This guy is young, and this is happening.’”