The Washington Nationals enter the All-Star break 48-49 overall after dropping three straight games to the New York Yankees. 

Their success has come as a surprise to many, as they were constantly picked to be a bottom-three team in preseason rankings. But with All-Stars James Wood and CJ Abrams leading the offense, they finished the first half of the season tied for the highest-scoring offense. Still, glaring concerns loom despite the success.

The Nationals' biggest concern has been the bullpen. They entered the season with questions surrounding their bullpen depth, and it has come back to bite them. 

The bullpen has blown 27 saves, which is the most in the league. The bullpen can be blamed for a 9-run blown lead against the San Francisco Giants on June 10 and three straight blown leads against the New York Yankees before the All-Star break.

The Nationals have a bullpen ERA of 5.22, the second-lowest in the MLB. They have also relied on their bullpen for the second-most innings in the MLB. 

Brad Lord has been the main piece of the bullpen, pitching 58 innings this season. He has been reliable and held an ERA in the low 2.00s before two bad outings against the Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he blew two leads. His ERA has jumped to 3.88, and he has been put on the Injured List.

Outside of Lord, the Nationals bullpen has been a swinging door. Some consistent names include Clayton Beeter, Paxton Schultz, Orlando Ribalta, Gus Varland, PJ Poulin and Mitchell Parker. Only one of those names–PJ Poulin–has an ERA below 3.00.

The Nationals have 27 blown saves in the first half of the season. The MLB record is 37 blown saves in a season. 

Parker is the Nationals' second most used bullpen arm, and he has been struggling. He has an ERA of 6.58 and has a WAR of -1.0.

The team has had 21 different pitchers come out of the bullpen this season as they’ve been trying to find a solution to the problem.

They are also without a designated “closer,” with 21 different pitchers and players being used to finish a game.

But the starting pitching has hardly outshone the bullpen. The Nationals' starting pitching is among the worst in the league. Miles Mikolas and Zack Littell have both been in the starting rotation the entire season and have been among the worst starting pitchers in baseball.

Mikolas has an ERA of 5.53 throughout the first half of the season. He has been working that number down from a high of 14.46 after he allowed 11 earned runs against the Dodgers on April 3. 

Mikolas has been prone to many bad outings, while consistently pitching low innings. He has a pitching record of 3-7 in the first half of the season. 

Zack Littell is another pitcher prone to bad outings. Littell had a stretch of three games to end April where he allowed eight runs in each. He has put together some strong stretches where he has been a winning pitcher, winning five games in May. But Littell has not been a guy that the Nationals can rely on. He has an ERA of 4.90 on the season and has just one quality start. 

Both Mikolas and Littell have been relying on openers to cushion their starts for most of the season. 

Foster Griffin has been the only consistent pitcher for the Nationals through the first half of the season. He has an ERA of 2.77 and a WHIP of 1.02. He has recorded 10 quality starts on the season and has made working along the best offense in baseball look easy, recording a 10-2 pitching record. 

Griffin’s work this year poses the question of what this team could look like with more quality pitchers to even out the rotation. 

Cade Cavalli has been the only other positive piece to the starting rotation this season. The Nationals’ Opening Day starter has an ERA of 3.83 and has shown flashes, but hasn’t been consistent with his starts. 

He has shown brilliant performances like a seven-inning outing against the Boston Red Sox where he finished with just one hit and no earned runs. But he has allowed too many hits this season, which has accumulated to consistent earned runs and bad outings. He has allowed 101 hits in 98.2 innings pitched through the first half of the season.

Jake Irvin started the season in the third spot in the rotation. He has been an inconsistent pitcher throughout his career with the Nationals but has shown that he can be an explosive player. 

He had a slow start to the season, allowing a 5.11 ERA in April and a 5.73 ERA in May. He was in the midst of his best performance of the year, going five hitless innings against the Braves before getting injured on May 23.

He has been on the Injured List with a right shoulder strain ever since, but has begun pitching live batting practice and hopes to return in July. 

Andrew Alvarez has stepped in for Irvin and has been nothing to write home about. He has a 4.04 ERA in 49 innings pitched. His play has started to slip in July, having a 5.84 ERA in his three outings and recording losses in his last two. 

The Nationals' pitching has also been abysmal at home games compared to away games. The team's home pitching ERA is 5.41, while their away ERA is just 4.00. The offense doesn’t seem nearly as reliant on the environment, having a home OPS of .765 and an away OPS of .752. 

This has culminated in a horrific home performance in the first half of the season. The Nationals are 20-31 in Nationals Park this season. 

The Washington Nationals have won 17 series in the first half of the season but have only finished one of them in a sweep. Their last series sweep came against the Milwaukee Brewers from April 10-12. That was their fourth series of the season. 

It comes with the territory of having a poor bullpen and a lack of starting pitching depth that the Nationals find it hard to win three games in a row against the same team, but the sheer lack of series sweeps in possible positions has been a hindrance to the Nationals' first-half performance. The Nationals are just 1-7 in sweep opportunities this season.

The Nationals have also fallen victim to just outright bad series. The Nationals have been swept three times this season and have lost three games of a four-game series against both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves. 

The Nationals will need to work on more consistent play and emphasize closing series, especially against lower-tiered opponents that they haven’t been able to take advantage of so far. 

The Nationals will be back in action on the road against the Oakland Athletics on Friday, July 17 at 9:40 p.m. 

In the meantime, you can catch James Wood and CJ Abrams in the All-Star Game on Tuesday, July 14. Foster Griffin was named as a reserve for the game. 

Nationals Roundtable also offers a fan community. We’d love to have you join us to talk all things Nationals. Create an account, click the “Join” button at the top of the page to join our free community and follow for all of our coverage, analysis and more!