CJ Abrams has turned late July into his personal highlight reel. The Nationals shortstop has gone deep in 7 consecutive games, a stretch that's got Barstool Baseball asking a very simple, very loaded question: how many shortstops in this league are actually better than him right now?
The scoreboard graphic from the streak showed the exit velo and distance on one of Abrams' bombs during a Nationals win over Atlanta.
That clip wasn't just vibes — the in-stadium graphic had the receipts, a 399-foot shot leaving the bat at 103.6 mph, part of a game Washington won 6-4. A ball landed in the outfield stands with fans scrambling for it, and yeah, a dad-and-kid combo in the crowd looked about as happy as you'd expect. This is the kind of stuff that makes a mid-July Nats game appointment viewing, which hasn't exactly been the norm in D.C. lately.
Per MLB.com, Abrams has been on an absolute tear since the All-Star break, and he's already blown past Ian Desmond's Nationals franchise record for homers in a season by a shortstop — cranking his 26th in the third inning of a recent game and following it up with his 27th two innings later. That's not a hot week, that's a full-on breakout.
Barstool Gambling put a number on the streak, with the dugout celebrating another homer during a win over Arizona.
The streak itself lines up with a stretch that's included a win over the Diamondbacks, with the celebration in that dugout looking like it belongs to a team that knows it's got something special cooking at shortstop. Abrams is only 25, still just over a year removed from being a change-of-scenery prospect the Padres shipped to Washington in the Josh Bell/Juan Soto blockbuster, and now he's the best reason to tune into a last-place club.
The money conversation is starting to catch up to the production, too. Abrams is playing this season on a one-year, $4.2 million deal he agreed to in January to avoid arbitration, and he's still 2 more arbitration trips away from free agency, which doesn't kick in until 2029. That's exactly the kind of value window that gets front offices either scrambling to extend a guy or fielding calls about him — and a 7-game homer streak from your shortstop tends to speed up that decision.
For now, the only debate that matters is the one Barstool Baseball kicked off: where does Abrams rank among shortstops right now. Whether he's top 5, top 3, or arguing for No. 1, the Nationals suddenly have a legitimate building block hitting bombs on a nightly basis — and if this pace holds even a little, that extension conversation in D.C. is about to get a lot louder.