Addressing the bullpen has to be Nationals’ top priority this offseason

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The Nationals’ bullpen problems are well documented. The issues are only becoming more pronounced as the season nears its conclusion.

Fans let their displeasure be felt at Nationals Park after Will Dion allowed the game-tying and go-ahead runs in the ninth inning for the team’s 39th blown save of the season Saturday. Dion failed in protecting the lead, but that he was the No. 1 option to pitch the ninth says a lot about the state of the bullpen.

Addressing the bullpen has to be a focal point this offseason for Paul Toboni. The three-run eighth inning began with a walk, which isn’t a surprise. Most of the team’s collapses begin with a walk. Nationals relievers have the eighth-highest walks per nine innings in the majors this season (4.13) and the highest walks per nine innings in high-leverage moments (5.98).

A fielder’s choice and error in the 10th inning allowed CJ Abrams to score from third base and salvaged the day, leading to a 6-5 win over the Los Angeles Angels. Andrew Alvarez was spectacular, throwing seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and four walks.

“It’s always fun to win,” Abrams said. “Harry [Ford] hit the ball, just try to get home, and we won.”

Manager Blake Butera expressed pride in Alvarez’s outing, Abrams stealing third to set up the game-winning run and Jack Sinclair throwing 1 1/3 scoreless innings before expanding on the late-inning pitfalls.

“At the end of the day, winning should always feel good,” Butera said. “But we got to find ways to to protect four-run leads late in the game, and that starts with me. I got to do a better job of finding ways to make sure we win those games.”

Butera said he would spend time figuring out if he didn’t put players in the right situations to succeed — they deliberately gave Brad Lord a clean inning after his recent struggles. But the relievers have a propensity to issue walks. The Nationals allowed seven.

“We can’t expect to win the amount of games we want to win if we’re walking that many guys,” Butera said. “I’m going to look internally and try to figure out what I can do better to help us get through these games a little bit cleaner.”

The Angels’ comeback began in the eighth after a leadoff walk. Their success continued in the ninth after another leadoff walk. The Nationals don’t have many bat-missing options, and the ones who can do it struggle to throw strikes.

To that point, the Nationals optioned right-hander Clayton Beeter — who was emblematic of their dilemma — to Triple-A Rochester after Friday’s win and returned left-hander Richard Lovelady from a rehab assignment. Beeter was one of the team’s closers this season and pitched 16 high-leverage innings. But lately his propensity to walk batters was proving too detrimental — though he did record back-to-back scoreless outings without yielding a walk.

The decision to send Beeter back to Triple-A stemmed from the organization wanting to afford him the chance to reset. The Nationals still view him as a high-leverage arm, so pitching him in low-leverage moments didn’t make sense.

“He’s been here all year, and we had high expectations for him,” Butera said pregame. “He has high expectations for himself and, you know, we told him that we wanted him to go down there, kind of just to reset and get back to who he is, and he hadn’t been pitching the way that you know he thinks he is capable of pitching and nor the way that we expect him to pitch.”

Butera mentioned some mechanical tweaks that Beeter was going to work on, which is difficult to do at the major league level. Beeter regaining confidence is also a necessity because so much of a late-inning reliever’s job is to brush off poor outings. But stringing too many subpar games can wear on even the most mentally strong pitchers.

The bullpen is relying on inexperienced arms such as Jared Simpson, Erik Tolman and Sinclair in important spots. Lovelady, who has pitched parts of seven seasons in the big leagues, is the most experienced active reliever.

But adding more experience would behoove the team. Could Raisel Iglesias, who is posting a 2.78 ERA in his walk year for the rival Braves, be lured to Washington? His fastball isn’t anything special and he doesn’t induce ground balls, but the veteran limits walks and gets hitters to chase out of the zone.

But spending money would just be a short-term fix. The best organizations — Rays, Brewers and Guardians — thrive year after year because of their ability to develop pitching from within and identify arms that were undervalued elsewhere. Maximizing talent within the organization is critical to long-term sustainability.

“We do know the walks are something that need to be fixed,” Butera said. “In terms of how that’s going to be adjusted and where we want to sacrifice maybe some stuff in order to throw more strikes.”

This article has been updated.