Story by
Washington Nationals Need to Unleash Andrew Alvarez
- Story by
- Washington Nationals Need to Unleash Andrew Alvarez
It has been a long road to the bigs for Andrew Alvarez.
The Washington Nationals selected the 6'3", 215 lb, 27-year-old lefty hurler in the 12th round of the 2021 draft. Alvarez made it to the bigs as a September call-up last season, and he made quite an impression once he arrived.
Advertisement
Across five starts and 23.1 innings pitched, Alvarez held a more than respectable 2.31 ERA, and his 20 strikeouts doubled his walks.
But that was last season.
During the offseason, the Nats hired Paul Toboni as their new president of baseball operations and Blake Butera as the team's manager. While the team kept Sean Doolittle as an assistant pitching coach, they added Simon Mathews as the pitching coach.
So the plan, at least to start the season, was a bit different for Alvarez.
The Nats used the rookie starter as a long relief pitcher out of the bullpen.
Alvarez's first five appearances all came out of the pen.
Advertisement
The results were mostly positive early on, so when he returned to being a starter against the Marlins on June 3, it seemed like a logical progression. Alvarez allowed just one earned run in that game. In fact, he's only allowed one run in three of his starts. He's allowed two earned runs in each of the other two games.
Sounds great, but there's a catch. The Nationals are being extra cautious with the pitcher, despite some elite metrics.
Nats need to take reins off Andrew Alvarez
While the early returns have been mostly positive, the Nats still have the training wheels on Alvarez.
He hasn't made it to the fifth inning as a starter this season, with his deepest outing being 4.2 innings in that Marlins debut.
Advertisement
Right now, it looks like the Nats are limiting him to about two times through the order, not allowing batters to get a third look at his formidable curveball, slider, four-seamer, sinker combination.
He's fooling a lot of batters with it, as his 26.8 K% (78th percentile) and 28.4 whiff% (74th percentile) suggest, according to Baseball Savant .
But even better than his swing-and-miss stuff are his ground ball pitches. Alvarez is inducing a ground ball on a whopping 54% of the batters he faces. He's only allowed two home runs across his 10 appearances and 157 batters faced this year.
The 15 batters he has walked this year give him a nearly 10% walk rate, which isn't great, but he sort of makes up for it by striking out 42 batters across 36.2 innings.
Advertisement
He's overcome a rough May that saw him post a 5.56 ERA to the 3.00 ERA he sports in June, but still, the Nats need more from him.
The Nationals have tried what they are doing with Alvarez before.
Mitchell Parker is a great example of a player they thought may be a starter, but who has settled into a role as a key long reliever. The injured DJ Herz is another young pitcher who they have in between being a starter and a long reliever.
And they all happen to be lefties.
It's time to figure out if Alvarez can be what they need him to be. The Nationals' pitching rotation will be in a much better position for it, and he could be key to them winning the wild-card race this year.
Advertisement
Related: Washington Nationals: Who Needs to Step Up in the Second Half?
This story was originally published by Lindys Sports on Jun 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the MLB section. Add Lindys Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
