Fifty-second name on a very short list
CJ Abrams did it in St. Louis, on a Friday night, in a game that stopped being competitive somewhere around the fourth inning. The Washington shortstop reached 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in the same season. Fifty-one players had managed that in the entire history of the sport. He is the fifty-second.
Washington won 9-1. The Cardinals barely showed up for their own homestand and the scoreline says so. The number attached to Abrams is the part that outlives the box score.
One other player has reached 30-30 this season: Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubs. For Washington, the last man to do it was Alfonso Soriano in 2006, who cleared 40 in both columns that year. Abrams is only the second in franchise history to get there at all.
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Cavalli picks the same night to hit 200
Cade Cavalli struck out the side in the first inning and never really let go. Five innings, four hits, six strikeouts, and the last of those six was his 200th of the season. It arrived on his final pitch of the night, which is timing nobody plans.
Four Nationals pitchers had reached 200 strikeouts in a season before him. Patrick Corbin, Gio Gonzalez, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg. Cavalli is the fifth, and he moved to 13-5 on the year.
He had signed a four-year extension worth $47 million guaranteed only hours earlier. The deal climbs to $70 million if the 2031 option gets picked up. Washington committed to him before the milestone, not after it.
A rebuild with two names on it
The Nationals are not playing for October. They are collecting evidence. A shortstop who hits for power and runs the bases with intent, plus a starter who just put together a 200-strikeout season on a contract the club controls into the next decade, is more than most rebuilding teams get out of a single evening.
Abrams still has games left to push both numbers higher.
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