Luis García Jr. Won’t Stop Homering

Luis García Jr. is 26 years old now. If you’re a Nationals fan of a certain age, that probably makes you feel some kind of way, especially if you’re also the type of fan who buys emotional stock in teenaged prospects.

García was 15 when the Nats signed him out of the Dominican Republic in 2016. He made his first big league camp in ’19, which was the same year the team won the World Series (which, in other words, was forever ago). In 2020, he became the first player born in the 2000s to homer in the majors. Earlier that year, I wrote that, in Dave Martinez’s wildest daydreams, he imagined an infield of García at second, Trea Turner at shortstop and Carter Kieboom at third.

And then … well …

The Nationals traded Turner in the summer of 2021, in their first deadline yard sale, and he’s since played for the Dodgers and Phillies. Kieboom, once the club’s top prospect, never clicked before he was quietly released in 2024. Martinez lasted a bit longer, though he was fired as manager a year ago next week, when an entire era of Nats baseball split into before and after.

So only García is still here, which was especially important this past weekend, when the Nationals needed someone — literally anyone — to perform CPR on their season. By Saturday, they were having a no good, extremely bad time, almost solely because of a bullpen that was breaking everything it touches. Then García, playing first and batting second, finished with four hits, including a homer, in a 4-3 win over the Orioles in Baltimore. Then on Sunday, he had three hits, including two more homers, in a 6-4 victory. The Nats took the series. García drove in five of those six runs. The afternoon ended with him soaked by a Gatorade cooler’s worth of water.

“We’re working a lot in the cage right now, being consistent,” García told Nationals reporter Alexa Datt in an interview after Sunday’s game. “I think seeing the ball up. When I see the ball up and I don’t chase it too much, I hit the ball well.”

It’s impossible to think (or write) about the Nationals right now without broad strokes and hyperbole. The bullpen is a dumpster fire, which makes it hard not to feel like something’s being wasted, like maybe all of this would feel different had ownership invested even a tad more in the team over the winter. Because if every season is a chapter book, most of last week felt like an end tucked in the middle, when the relievers blew a huge lead, then a small one, then a mid-sized one, good for three brutal losses in three straight nights. And then it sort of felt like García saved this whole charmed year on his own (at least until the next bullpen meltdown).

But the reality is much smaller than any of that. It’s still late June, a point of the calendar at which no team has ever lost or won anything of real significance. The Nats, at 43-42, are both exceeding expectations and falling short of what they could be with a better pitching staff, which is common for teams that are not built to win and then win at a decent clip anyway. So the present has been exciting, even with — or, rather, in spite of — a bullpen on pace to set the record for most blown saves in a season (25 and counting). And yet the future is where the front office is mostly focused, seeing that their ultimate goal is to build something sustainable, not chase lighting in a bottle so soon.

You don’t have to agree with that approach from your couch or seat in the ballpark. You’re also free to pray that the team goes on a little run in the next few weeks, which would further complicate its trade deadline decisions. It can be dizzying to hold two truths at once as a fan, let alone three or four or five. So for a quick dose of sanity, here are a few facts at ground level, typed to be enjoyed without reaching for the bigger picture:

Luis García Jr., a player who had seemed close to maxed out in recent years, has 11 homers this month.

- His 16 homers for the season, 14 of which have been off righties, are only two short of his career high.

- Since mid-May, advanced numbers, like the popular weighted runs created plus, have him as one of the top hitters in the sport.

- In June, if you like wRC+, two of his statistical peers are dudes named Shohei Ohtani and Pete Crow-Armstrong.

Okay, maybe I lied about the bigger picture thing. The Nationals have control of García for the rest of this year and then 2027. Should they wind up selling at this trade deadline, he could be attractive for a contender in need of a left-handed platoon bat, which could net the Nats a decent return. Yes, he’s hitting for a ton of power at the moment, which has spiked his on-base-plus-slugging percentage (OPS) to an impressive .850. But with some obvious flaws — his tendency to chase pitches out of the zone, the fact that he rarely walks, his numbers against changeups — it’s hard to imagine ESPN’s Jeff Passan posting BREAKING in front of any trade involving him. Plain old Breaking is likely García’s ceiling if the Nationals go that route, which would still be a victory if they don’t view him as a long-term piece.

The best case there is he brings in a prospect who contributes down the line. But no matter what, even if a coin-flip prospect didn’t pan out, a move could create chances for Yohandy Morales and/or Abimelec Ortiz, two Nats minor leaguers with offensive upside. It makes sense on two levels, then, in that the Nats could extract more value from found money or learn whether there’s additional production in-house. They also, in theory, could do both at the same time. And then there’s the element that is totally detached from what the roster looks like in August or next spring.

When I caught up with García in early June, he told me that the new coaching staff, which includes three hitting coaches, has completely changed how he prepares for opposing pitchers. He then said that’s given him a much clearer plan at the plate, which in its simplest form is to mash high fastballs whenever possible (and limit limp swings at everything else).

That staff, led by first-year manager Blake Butera, is getting a lot out of fringe players already, including García, infielder Curtis Mead and starter Foster Griffin. It’s a fun narrative that, when the team needed a savior this weekend, it wasn’t James Wood or CJ Abrams who came to the rescue, but a player who’s now shared a clubhouse with Max Scherzer and Zack Littell in D.C. But it’s more a strong endorsement of the behind-the-scenes changes in motion. That’s the part that could echo beyond García, well beyond this year.