MacKenzie Gore has hit a wall; there is no need to sugarcoat it. He has a 7.63 ERA in his last seven starts and has seen his season go off the rails after Memorial Day for a third straight year. There are calls from the fanbase to shut down the 25-year-old left-hander, but unless he is hurt, that would be counterproductive. To be the front of the rotation arm he has the potential to be; Gore needs to be able to pitch deep into the dog days of summer.
Mackenzie Gore Needs To Pitch Through Struggles
The hot starts:
Mackenzie Gore’s three seasons in the MLB follow a similar pattern. He comes out of the gates looking like a potential ace before hitting a wall once June comes around. In 2022, Gore looked like a Rookie of the Year candidate after two months, posting a 1.71 ERA through his first 42 innings. However, things went sideways for Gore in June and July, finishing the season with a 4.50 ERA. After he got traded to the Nationals in the Juan Soto trade, he did not pitch for the rest of the season. In 2023, Gore also started strong, posting a 3.57 ERA in 58 innings entering June. Once the dog days of summer came, Gore faded, posting a 4.42 ERA by season’s end.
The drop-off has been just as extreme in 2024. When May ended, Gore’s ERA was 2.91 through 58 2/3 innings. Since then, he has collapsed, with his ERA ballooning to 4.51. Gore is laboring through starts, struggling to find a way to get outs consistently. This is a far cry from the pitcher who was carving through quality lineups the first two months of the season. The Nationals are in a difficult situation when it comes to handling Gore.
Let him pitch:
The best way for Gore to learn how to hold up in the dog days of summer is to pitch. This is a problem Gore will have to solve if he is to be relied on as a piece of the National’s long-term plans. Unless there is something physically wrong with Gore, shutting him down is not the right option. He has pitched 105 2/3 innings, far less than the 136 1/3 he threw last year. His arm should be able to handle the workload, but the results have not been there. Gore implied that something was off with his mechanics following his last start, but he did not look much better last night against the Cardinals. It is fair to say that the problem has not been fixed yet.
Gore will get more opportunities to figure things out at the Major League level, but if he keeps regressing, the Nationals must make a choice. They could either shut him down or send him to Triple-A. The optics of sending down the ‘ace of the future’ would not be good, but it is an interesting option. It would allow Gore to pitch in a lower-stress environment where he could iron out some kinks in his game. Triple-A would not be an insult to Gore; it would be an opportunity. If he continues to struggle, it should be an option the Nationals consider.
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