C.J. Abrams turned on a 422-foot fastball Sunday for his 21st home run of the season, a new career high with 62 games still left to play. Two pitches later, Dylan Crews hit one of his own, and the Washington Nationals held off the Athletics 5-2 in West Sacramento, California.
Both swings trace back to a trade Washington made four years ago, when the front office gave up Juan Soto and bet the franchise’s future on a haul of prospects nobody outside Washington much wanted to defend at the time. Sunday’s game was a small, specific dividend on that bet.
Back-to-Back Blasts Settle a Series Finale
Foster Griffin held the Athletics to one run on eight hits over seven innings, and the Nationals’ offense did the rest. Curtis Mead’s RBI groundout in the third put Washington ahead 1-0, and Tyler Soderstrom answered with an RBI single to tie it. Harry Ford’s double in the fourth scored Crews and put Washington back in front, 2-1.
The game broke open in the fifth. With two outs, Abrams turned on a 422-foot, two-run shot off Athletics reliever Elvis Alvarado, a ball Statcast clocked at 105 mph off the bat, turning that 2-1 game into a 4-1 lead. Two pitches later, Crews followed with a 362-foot solo shot to left.
- Third inning: Curtis Mead’s RBI groundout gives Washington a 1-0 lead.
- Third inning: Tyler Soderstrom’s RBI single ties it at 1-1.
- Fourth inning: Harry Ford’s double scores Crews, Washington leads 2-1.
- Fifth inning: Abrams’ 422-foot, two-run homer off Elvis Alvarado makes it 4-1.
- Fifth inning: Crews’ 362-foot solo shot, two pitches later, makes it 5-1.
- Late innings: The Athletics scratch out a run against closer Clayton Beeter, final score 5-2.
It was Washington’s third set of back-to-back home runs this season, and its second in the last ten days. Beeter closed it out with 1 1/3 innings for his eighth save, and Griffin improved to 11-2, a mark that ties him for second in the National League in wins. A’s starter Jacob Lopez fell to 4-4 after allowing both homers over 4 1/3 innings.
Abrams’ blast pushed his season OPS to .869 and his RBI total to 70, tied for third in Major League Baseball and second in the National League. He started at shortstop for the National League in this month’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia, the first Nationals shortstop ever to start the Midsummer Classic.
Huge congrats to CJ. Couldn’t be more proud of him. A big home run for us, a big home run for him as well, breaking his career high this early in the season.
Nationals manager Blake Butera said that after the game, and Abrams did not disagree. “It’s fun to go back to back, for sure,” he said of the pair of homers. “We kind of jumped around in the dugout after.”
A 2022 Trade Deadline Bet
On Aug. 2, 2022, with the trade deadline hours from expiring, Washington sent Soto and Josh Bell to the San Diego Padres for six players headed the other way: shortstop C.J. Abrams, outfielders James Wood and Robert Hassell III, pitchers MacKenzie Gore and Jarlin Susana, and veteran first baseman Luke Voit. Soto was 23, a two-time All-Star and a core piece of the club’s 2019 World Series title. Getting equal value back for a player of that caliber almost never happens.
The trade came at the end of a brutal stretch. Since the 2019 championship, Washington had also lost Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon, and the roster cratered along with the exits. The Soto deal was the biggest swing of that teardown, and four years later it looks like the one that worked.
Three of the six players are now front-line big leaguers. One flamed out entirely. Here is where the return stands this month.
| Player | Acquired As | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| C.J. Abrams | 21-year-old shortstop, the deal’s headline piece | NL All-Star starter, .869 OPS, 70 RBIs |
| James Wood | 19-year-old outfield prospect, not yet in the majors | 2026 NL All-Star, among the league’s most feared hitters |
| MacKenzie Gore | Former No. 3 overall pick, injured at the time of the trade | Rotation left-hander, past All-Star honoree |
| Robert Hassell III | Top-10 pick, considered a can’t-miss outfield bat | Designated for assignment, traded to Pittsburgh on July 16 |
James Wood, an afterthought to some evaluators at the time, has become the best hitter of the group. But Sunday belonged to Abrams and to Crews, whose path to the batter’s box this year ran through a far rockier stretch than Abrams or Wood ever had to survive.
Demoted in March, Delivering in July
Crews arrived with a different kind of pedigree. Washington took him No. 2 overall in the 2023 draft, one pick after Pittsburgh took his LSU teammate Paul Skenes, and handed him a $9 million signing bonus as the reigning Golden Spikes Award winner off a national championship season. General manager Mike Rizzo compared his composure to Anthony Rendon’s, saying “the bigger the stage, the better he plays.”
The path since has not been smooth. Crews missed 77 games with an oblique injury during his rookie season. After Washington overhauled its front office, coaching staff and player development system for 2026, he struggled in spring training and was optioned to Triple-A Rochester to start the year. He hit .258 with five home runs and 20 RBIs over 41 games there before Washington recalled him on May 19.
Since then, Crews has turned into the hitter Washington drafted him to be. Sunday’s homer was his seventh of the year, part of a lineup that reached 144 home runs on the season with that swing, tied with the Yankees for the most in the majors pending New York’s game that night.
How Did Foster Griffin Become an All-Star?
Griffin spent three seasons rebuilding his career in Japan after Kansas City and Toronto gave up on him, then returned to Washington on a modest one-year deal and became one of the best stories in baseball. He is 30, in his first full season as a big league starter, and was named to the 2026 NL All-Star team as an injury replacement.
Kansas City drafted Griffin 28th overall out of high school in 2014. He debuted in 2020, then had Tommy John surgery weeks later. He pitched six innings total across two stints with the Royals, was designated for assignment in 2022 and traded to Toronto for a player named Jonatan Bernal. He threw two scoreless innings for the Blue Jays and did not appear in the majors again for three years.
Instead, he signed with the Yomiuri Giants and rebuilt his pitch mix. He arrived in Japan throwing four pitches and left with seven, adding a sinker, a sweeper and a splitter to his four-seamer, cutter, curveball and changeup. Over three seasons in Tokyo he went 18-10 with a 2.57 ERA across 315 2/3 innings, earned NPB All-Star honors in 2025, and even legged out a triple, the first foreign pitcher to manage that for the Giants since 1952.
Washington signed him to a one-year, $5.5 million contract in December. Griffin called it a chance to prove he belonged.
Weirdly enough, I felt much more prepared. I don’t know if that comes with three more years of starting experience in Japan. I felt like I really learned how to be a starter, and that goes all the way back to preparing a lineup, preparing a scouting report.
Griffin said that after his first Major League start in nearly six years, back in March. Four months later, he is tied for second in the National League in wins. His fastball averages about 91 mph, nothing special by modern standards, but his seven-pitch mix and precise command have made him one of the league’s more efficient starters, and Sunday’s line, one run over seven innings, was typical of his season.
The Return’s One Big Miss
Robert Hassell III was supposed to be part of this story too. San Diego’s No. 8 pick in the 2020 draft, he was seen as a safe bet with an advanced hit tool when he arrived in the Soto deal. He debuted with Washington in 2025 and drove in six runs in his first ten games.
The bat never developed further. Hassell spent all of 2026 at Triple-A Rochester, hitting .215 with a .593 OPS and just two home runs in 258 plate appearances. On July 16, three days before Sunday’s game, Washington designated the 24-year-old for assignment and later traded him to Pittsburgh for cash or a player to be named later.
It is a reminder that even a trade this lopsided did not turn every piece into gold. Susana, the sixth player in the deal, is still developing in the minors and has yet to make his major league debut.
Washington’s Road Trip Points Toward October
Sunday’s win improved Washington to 12-3-1 in series play on the road this season and gave the Nationals their 11th rubber game won in 2026. Their road record climbed to 30-19, tied for the second-best mark in the majors. Entering the series, Washington sat at 48-46 and 3.5 games behind Miami for the third and final National League wild card spot.
The Athletics have not won a series since taking two of three from Colorado in Las Vegas on June 12-14, and Sunday’s finale continued that pattern. Shea Langeliers and Alika Williams each had two hits for Oakland’s former club in a losing effort.
Washington opens a three-game series at Coors Field on Monday, with left-hander Andrew Alvarez (2-3, 4.04 ERA) facing Colorado’s Kyle Freeland (2-8, 7.36). The Athletics start a three-game set in Arizona the same day, with Jeffrey Springs (3-9, 6.08 ERA) opposing Mitch Bratt (0-0, 6.00).
