Foster Griffin isn't a household name outside DC, but at this point he probably should be. The Nationals left-hander has quietly turned into one of the best stories in baseball this season, and now he's got the numbers to back up the hype: 8 consecutive starts allowing exactly 1 run each, a stretch nobody in MLB history has ever put together.
CodifyBaseball laid out the historic streak in black and white.
That's not a typo or some cherry-picked endpoint stat, either. Griffin has been in the 9-2, sub-3.00 ERA range for months now, and this run-prevention streak is the through-line of his entire season. Eight straight starts giving up one run apiece is the kind of consistency that shows up more in video games than box scores.
The backstory makes it even wilder. Griffin was a first-round pick who got hit with Tommy John surgery, bounced around, and then spent 2023 through 2025 pitching for the Yomiuri Giants in Japan's NPB, where he put up an 18-10 record and a 2.57 ERA. Washington brought him back stateside in December on a one-year, prove-it deal worth $5.5 million with incentives, betting that whatever he figured out overseas would translate. It has, in a big way — Griffin made the 2026 NL All-Star team as a reward for the best season of his career.
What makes this run so weird isn't just the ERA, it's the exactness of it. Not zero runs, not two, but precisely 1 run in 8 outings in a row, across guys running seven-pitch arsenals with modest velocity. That kind of repeatable outcome is what's got the analytics crowd and prop bettors buzzing, because it's basically an anomaly wrapped inside an already excellent season.
The real question now is how long Griffin can keep this going, and what it means for a Nationals team that hasn't had a lot to celebrate lately. A finesse lefty who came back from Japan and immediately became the most consistent run-preventer in the sport is the kind of story that writes its own headlines the rest of the way, especially with October relevance and trade-deadline buzz both riding on his arm.