The Nationals just set the MLB record for blown saves in a single season, and it's only September 9

The Nationals just made history for all the wrong reasons at Petco Park

Nobody stayed up late on the West Coast for this one. Those who did regretted it.

Tuesday night in San Diego, the Washington Nationals carried a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning at Petco Park. Their offense had scratched together enough runs. Rookie right-hander Riley Cornelio had thrown three hitless innings to open a bullpen game, and three more relievers had kept the Padres quiet through seven. It looked, briefly, like Washington might actually win a game on this brutal West Coast trip.

Then the eighth inning happened, the way eighth innings keep happening for this team.

Jared Simpson, a September call-up who had made his big-league debut just eight days earlier, walked the bases loaded without recording an out. Erik Tolman came on to try to clean up the mess. He couldn't. Tolman allowed a sacrifice fly to the first batter he faced, then a two-run single to the next, tying the game at 4-4. A broken-bat single later in the inning dropped in between Jorbit Vivas, Dylan Crews, and James Wood to put San Diego up for good. Final score: 5-4, Padres.

The loss was their sixth straight. But the number that matters is 38.

A record no franchise wants

With that collapse, the Nationals set a single-season record for blown saves with 38, surpassing the Chicago White Sox, who blew 37 in 2024. The save statistic has been part of official MLB record-keeping since 1969. No team in 57 years has done what Washington's bullpen just did.

The Nationals have given up 537 walks this season, with a league-leading 287 of those belonging to the bullpen alone. Their relievers rank 29th in baseball with a 5.09 ERA. Before this series even started, Washington had already blown 35 saves with 20 games left on the schedule. They blew three more in the span of a week.

The math is grim. Washington entered Wednesday 9.5 games back in the Wild Card with 17 games to play, needing to finish 14-3 just to avoid a seventh straight losing season. Tuesday's loss also pushed the Nationals into last place in the NL East for the first time since April 11.

Everything else was working. That's the part that stings.

What makes the record particularly painful is the context around it. Washington has one of the sport's most exciting young lineups, featuring C.J. Abrams and James Wood, and the club entered the week with the third-highest OPS in all of MLB. Luis García Jr. is hitting .283 with 23 home runs and 76 RBI this year. Keibert Ruiz has been one of the better-hitting catchers in the league since early August.

The starting rotation has actually been respectable. Over their last 14 games entering this series, Washington starters led all of MLB with a .191 opponents' batting average and posted a 2.68 ERA as a group. Cade Cavalli is having a legitimate breakout year. The rotation is not the problem.

The problem is what comes after the sixth inning.

The Nationals lost all three games against the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers in late innings, with late-inning bullpen meltdowns and eight runners left on base in each game, before getting on a bus to San Diego and doing it again.

In the quiet Petco Park visitors' clubhouse afterward, Cornelio tried to put it into words. "We show up every day and we work really hard," he said. "The results obviously have been frustrating, but it's not from a lack of trying."

Nobody is questioning the effort. The outcomes speak for themselves.

Where this season goes from here

The trade of Foster Griffin, their best starting pitcher and an All-Star, to the Cleveland Guardians at the deadline didn't help the bullpen situation, and only the Athletics and Rockies carry worse team ERAs than Washington.

Years of post-2019 mediocrity have gifted the Nationals loads of top-end talent, but they lack major league-caliber depth, and that lack is now in the record books.

Washington faces another potential sweep Wednesday afternoon in San Diego before heading home Friday, where Cavalli is set to start against the Los Angeles Angels in what could be his final home appearance of the 2026 season.

Thirty-eight blown saves. Fifteen games left. The record belongs to Washington now.

Sources

• Newsweek: Nationals' Latest Bullpen Collapse Makes Unfortunate MLB History
• Sports Illustrated: Nationals Set MLB Record With Their Latest Collapse
• Yardbarker: Nationals bullpen makes unwanted history with latest meltdown
• WTOP: Nationals Notebook, Starting September sliding
• Washington Post: How can the Nationals fix their historically bad bullpen?
• BVM Sports: Nationals' bullpen game unravels in record-setting loss
• ESPN: Padres 5-4 Nationals, September 8, 2026 final score
• The Nats Report: Game Notes, Nationals vs. Padres, September 7, 2026