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Blake Butera on Nationals Hot Start to 2026 Season: "It's Huge"
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- Blake Butera on Nationals Hot Start to 2026 Season: "It's Huge"
The Washington Nationals have opened the Blake Butera era in impressive fashion with Monday's 13-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies the latest in an encouraging start.
The win marked the second time in four games the Nationals registered both double digit hits and runs, enough to register the third-most hits and tie the Milwaukee Brewers for the most runs scored in baseball in a hot start for the offense . Joey Wiemer 's hot bat has been main storyline after tying Carlos Delgado for the league's longest streak to reach base to open a season, but Monday's win also featured some of the small ball highlights that fans expected out of Butera after Jose Tena capitalized with runners on the corners to steal home, making it a 9-2 game in the sixth inning.
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"Felt like a travel ball game a little bit," outfielder Daylen Lile told team reporter Alexa Datt after the win. "We're just playing team baseball. We're doing the little things. We're passing down the line and we're backing our pitches up and pitches are throwing strikes so nothing to it."
Of course, Washington is following the encouraging start to spring training after stacking wins through spring training despite Butera and the revamped front office focused on getting eyes on the full roster. After becoming the last undefeated team in the Grapefruit League, the Nationals eventually finished fifth as Brady House proved to be the spark, eventually passing the torch to Wimer.
While some of the bad has featured James Wood 's strikeouts resurfacing once again with already nine strikeouts in four games, Washington also sits top five in multiple offensive categories with Butera crediting new hitting coach Matt Borgschulte.
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"I just think the guys right now, their prep work has been awesome," said Butera following Monday's win. "Our hitting coaches have done an outstanding job making sure those guys are fully prepared and know exactly what they're walking into going into the game. Is it going to turn into 13 runs every night? Probably not. That'd be great if it did. But the end of the day, just our process has been really good and these guys feel comfortable, confident and dialed in."
Washington will look to extend it at least one more night as they look to take the second consecutive series to open the 2026 season with first pitch set for 6:40 PM against the Phillies.
"We know it's a long season. 162 of these, so just to get off to the start that we're off to now, it's huge," said Butera.
