May 20, 2024

The Phillies have owned the Nationals since Washington's infamous tweet about the rivalry

Since the beginning of the 2021 season, the Phillies are 41-16 against the Washington Nationals.

By Shamus Clancy
PhillyVoice Staff

Eric Hartline/USA Today

The Phillies crushed the Nationals over the weekend, including many big moments from Kody Clemens.

It feels a lot longer than four years ago, but the 2020 Phillies collapsed hard down the stretch and missed an easy chance at the postseason. Before an Aug. 25 game against the Nationals, Washington's official (then) Twitter account posted the following graphic with statistics about how the Nats had owned the Phillies:

Naturally, the Phillies went on to beat the Nationals that day and the following one, too.

Since that infamous post, which is now filled with Phils fans dunking on the regrettable social media manager in the replies and quotes, the Phillies are 48-19 against Washington. That's a .716 winning percentage. Over an entire 162-game season, that's a 116-win pace. The MLB record for wins in a season so happens to be 116, which both the 1906 Cubs and the 2001 Mariners accomplished. Essentially, the Phillies have been the greatest team of all time when they've matched up with Washington since that clown post.

The Phillies sweeping Washington this past weekend only heightens the way the Phils have thoroughly thrashed them. Just take a look at Kody Clemens' heroics on Saturday night:

Everybody hits against the Nats!

The Phillies have a couple former Nationals All-Stars on their roster, too.

Since 2022, when he joined the Fightins, Kyle Schwarber is hitting .289 with 17 home runs in 37 games against Washington (via StatMuse). That's an average of 0.46 homers per game. The highest average for HRs/game ever is a tie between Mark McGwire and Aaron Judge at 0.31 (minimum 500 games played, via StatMuse). So, Schwarber turns into an all-time legendary power hitter when matched up with Washington. He makes the likes of Shohei Ohtani and Jim Thome look like Juan Pierre and Ben Revere.

Since signing with the Phillies in 2019, Bryce Harper is hitting .309 with 20 doubles, 17 home runs and a .984 OPS in 75 games against the Nats (via baseball-reference). Harper's career OPS is .911, so he's even better than his future Hall of Famer self vs. his old squad.

Everyone wants to crush the lowly Nationals. The Phillies do it like no other.