Mets and Nationals Close Out 2025 With Nothing Left to Prove

Two teams well below .500 meet at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon for what amounts to a season-ending formality. No model read is available for this one — so the storylines on the field will have to carry the weight.

At 74-87, the Mets arrive in Washington having endured a rough 2025 campaign, and the Nationals at 76-85 aren't in much better shape. This is a late-September game between two clubs that fell short of contention, but that doesn't mean there's nothing worth watching. Sean Manaea is expected to take the mound for New York, while DJ Herz is set to start for Washington. Both pitchers will be working in front of lineups that have shown genuine individual talent even if the team results haven't followed.

On the Washington side, CJ Abrams has been the unambiguous standout. His 33 home runs and 105 RBI represent the kind of breakout season that reframes a player's trajectory entirely — those are legitimate star-caliber numbers, and Abrams has earned every bit of attention heading into the offseason. James Wood has also been a name to track, hitting .267 and flashing the tools that made him one of the more anticipated young hitters in the organization. For New York, Juan Soto's 27 home runs keep him in the conversation as one of the game's premier power threats, Bo Bichette has driven in 78 runs, and Carson Benge has quietly hit .280 — a respectable mark that suggests he's made the most of his opportunities.

Without a validated model read, there's no clean analytical edge to lean on here. What we do know is that Abrams' power advantage is real and documented, and Washington's lineup has more proven run-production at the top. Manaea versus Herz is a legitimate pitching matchup worth watching on its own merits, and late-season games like this one sometimes produce surprisingly clean baseball — no pressure, no stakes, just execution. If Abrams gets into one today, nobody should be shocked.