The History of the Washington Nationals: Every Era, from the First Season to Today
The Montreal Expos and Washington Nationals as one franchise, 1969 to 2025: expansion, the 1981 and 1994 near misses, the move to Washington, four division titles and the 2019 World Series.
The Washington Nationals are a franchise with two lives. For 36 seasons, from 1969 through 2004, the club was the Montreal Expos, the first major-league team to play outside the United States. Since 2005 it has been the Nationals, based in Washington, D.C. The records, the pennant count and the Hall of Famers all belong to one continuous organization, and the historical record lists them together: 57 seasons through 2025, with 4,331 wins and 4,665 losses, a .481 winning percentage.
The franchise has won one pennant and one World Series, both in 2019, and five division titles, in 1981, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017. For most of those 57 years the story was about the almost: a 1981 club that lost the pennant series in a fifth game, a team that held the best record in baseball in August 1994 and never played another game, and a Washington club that won four division titles in six years and lost every one of those series. Then came a title, and then a fast descent.
What follows tells the history in eras, with the managers, the stars and the numbers that define each stretch.
Montreal arrives: the first expansion years, 1969 to 1976
The Expos were awarded to Montreal in 1968 and played their first season in 1969, one of four clubs added to the majors that year. The record of that first team was 52-110, last in the NL East, and the early years were a long climb. The club played its home games at Jarry Park from 1969 to 1976, a small park in the city. Gene Mauch managed from 1969 to 1975, with a record of 499 wins and 627 losses.
There were bright spots. Carl Morton won the 1970 Rookie of the Year award. Bill Stoneman threw 15 shutouts for the club between 1969 and 1973, still the second-highest total in franchise history. And the first players of the later core arrived: Steve Rogers first pitched for the club in 1973 and would become the franchise's all-time leader in wins with 158, and Gary Carter (1974) and Andre Dawson (1976) followed within a few years. But the club's records tell the plain story. It finished fifth or sixth in the division in six of its first eight seasons, bottoming out at 55-107 in 1976.
The Big O and the contenders of 1979 to 1984
In 1977 the Expos moved into Stade Olympique, the stadium built for the 1976 Summer Olympics, and played there through the club's final Montreal season in 2004. The Big O was a huge, unlovely place, but it brought bigger crowds, and the team that played in it became good. Andre Dawson won the 1977 Rookie of the Year award, and the Expos won 95 games in 1979 and 90 in 1980, finishing second in the division both years. Dick Williams managed from 1977 to 1981 and won 380 games for the club.
In 1981, a players' strike split the season in two, and the Expos won the second-half title with a 60-48 overall record. They beat the Philadelphia Phillies in a division series, three games to two, then faced the Los Angeles Dodgers for the pennant. The series went to a fifth game, and the Expos lost it when Rick Monday hit a ninth-inning home run. It remains the closest the franchise has come to the World Series as the Expos.
From 1979 through 1983 the club had winning records every year, with attendance of 2.3 million in 1982 and 1983, a figure that the Expos would not match again. The names on the franchise leaderboards from this period tell you who they were: Gary Carter (220 home runs, 823 RBI), Andre Dawson (225 home runs, 253 steals), Tim Raines (635 steals, still the franchise record) and Tim Wallach (1,694 hits, second on the club list). Carter, Dawson and Raines are all in the Hall of Fame, spending 12, 11 and 13 seasons respectively with the franchise.
Close calls and a dismantled contender, 1985 to 1998
The late 1980s and early 1990s were the most consistent stretch in Montreal. Buck Rodgers managed from 1985 to 1991 and won 520 games, and the 1987 team went 91-71 for third place. Dennis Martinez joined in 1986 and won 100 games for the club, and in 1991 he pitched a perfect game. Felipe Alou took over in 1992 and managed until 2001, the longest tenure of any manager in franchise history, with 691 wins and 717 losses. The 1992 team went 87-75 and the 1993 team 94-68, both second in the division, with a young group that included Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields, Larry Walker and Moises Alou.
Then came 1994. When a players' strike stopped the season in August, the Expos were 74-40, the best record in baseball. No postseason was played that year. The historical record lists the 1994 team as first in the division, but with no division title, because no title was awarded. That is the single most painful season in franchise history.
The roster did not stay together: stars left through trades and free agency, and the team that followed went 66-78 in 1995. Pedro Martinez won the Cy Young Award in 1997, with the Expos finishing 78-84, and he was traded afterward. The 1998 season brought a 65-97 record, and after 1996 the club did not finish above .500 again until 2002. Attendance, which topped 1.6 million in 1996, fell to 914,909 in 1998.
Contraction talk, league ownership and San Juan, 1999 to 2004
The last six years in Montreal were the hardest. The club lost 94 or 95 games in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2004, drew 642,745 fans in 2001, and was widely reported as one of two candidates when owners voted in the fall of 2001 to try to eliminate clubs. The plan was not carried out, but the uncertainty hung over the franchise. In 2002, Major League Baseball took over ownership of the Expos, and the previous owner went on to buy a different club. For three seasons the team was run by the league itself.
Frank Robinson, who had been a Hall of Fame outfielder and a pioneering manager, took over the club in 2002 and stayed through 2006, winning 385 games. The 2002 Expos finished 83-79 in second place, and the 2003 team also finished 83-79. In 2003 and 2004 the Expos played part of their home schedule at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico, while the league looked for a permanent answer. In 2004 the team went 67-95 and drew 749,550 fans over the season. Late that September, the league announced the club would move to Washington.
Vladimir Guerrero, who hit .323 for the franchise, the highest average among players with 3,000 at-bats, and 234 home runs, left as a free agent after 2003. He and Larry Walker, a Hall of Famer, are reminders that Montreal produced stars and could not keep them.
Washington, 2005 to 2011: RFK, a new park and a deep hole
The Washington Nationals began play in 2005 at R.F.K. Stadium, an older multipurpose stadium, and drew 2,731,993 fans in the first season, a number the club has never topped. The team finished 81-81 in 2005, then 71-91 in 2006 and 73-89 in 2007. The nickname was a nod to a long Washington baseball tradition, since the city's earlier clubs, the Senators, left for Minnesota in 1961 and the expansion Senators left for Texas after 1971.
Nationals Park opened in 2008, and the first seasons in it were grim: 59-102 in 2008 and 59-103 in 2009. The one lasting positive was Ryan Zimmerman, who debuted in the first season and would play through 2021, becoming the franchise's career leader in home runs with 284, hits with 1,846, RBI with 1,061, and runs with 963. Manny Acta managed from 2007 to 2009 and went 158-252.
The losing had one upside, high draft picks. The Nationals chose Stephen Strasburg first overall in 2009 and Bryce Harper first overall in 2010, and both arrived within a few years. Strasburg, who would finish with 113 wins and 1,723 strikeouts for the club, the franchise's career leader in strikeouts, made his major-league debut in June 2010, striking out 14 batters. The club went 69-93 in 2010 and 80-81 in 2011, close enough to .500 that a turn felt near.
Four division titles and four series losses, 2012 to 2017
The turn came in 2012. The Nationals went 98-64, the best record in baseball, behind Davey Johnson and a roster of Zimmerman, Harper, who won the Rookie of the Year award, and Strasburg, whom the club shut down late in the year to protect his arm in the first season after elbow surgery. The Nationals faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the division series and lost in five games, 2-3. The Cardinals rallied in the ninth inning of Game 5 after trailing by multiple runs.
The next five seasons brought three more division titles and three more first-round exits. The 2014 team won 96 games, then lost the division series to the San Francisco Giants, 1-3, with a famous 18-inning loss in Game 2. Dusty Baker managed in 2016 and 2017, winning 95 and 97 games and the division in both years, and lost to the Dodgers 2-3 in 2016 and to the Cubs 2-3 in 2017. In 2015, Harper won the MVP award, but the team finished 83-79 and second. Max Scherzer, who signed in 2015, won the Cy Young Award in 2016 and 2017, and his 2.80 ERA is the best of any Nationals pitcher with at least 1,000 innings.
| Year | Record | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 98-64 | Division title; lost division series to St. Louis, 2-3 |
| 2014 | 96-66 | Division title; lost division series to San Francisco, 1-3 |
| 2016 | 95-67 | Division title; lost division series to Los Angeles, 2-3 |
| 2017 | 97-65 | Division title; lost division series to Chicago, 2-3 |
2019: the wild card, the long October and the title
The 2018 team went 82-80, and Harper left as a free agent. The 2019 team went 93-69 and finished second in the division, qualifying as a wild card, and then won everything. It beat Milwaukee in the wild-card game, beat the Dodgers in a five-game division series, swept the St. Louis Cardinals 4-0 in the pennant series, and defeated the Houston Astros 4-3 in the World Series. In that World Series the road team won all seven games, and the Nationals won four of them in Houston, including Games 6 and 7. Strasburg was the World Series MVP.
It was the franchise's first pennant and first title. The 2019 Nationals were the first Washington team to win the World Series since the Senators did it in 1924. Dave Martinez, who managed from 2018 through 2025, won 500 games for the club and led it through the title. Anthony Rendon, who left for another club as a free agent after the season, has 136 home runs and a .290 average for the franchise.
The decline after the title, 2020 to 2025
The team has not been back to the postseason since. The 2020 season, shortened to 60 games, ended 26-34. In 2021 the team traded Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers and went 65-97, and Juan Soto, who had 119 home runs and 464 walks for the club in five seasons from 2018 to 2022, was traded in 2022, a season in which the team went 55-107, its worst record in Washington. Its 2023 and 2024 teams went 71-91 each, and the 2025 team went 66-96, last in the division.
For current standings and rosters, use the Nationals team page and the standings.
The franchise leaders, and what they say about the eras
The career leaderboards show how the franchise changed. The batting lists mix Montreal and Washington names, and the pitching lists are split almost evenly between the two cities.
| Category | Leader | Total | Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home runs | Ryan Zimmerman | 284 | 2005-2021 |
| Hits | Ryan Zimmerman | 1,846 | 2005-2021 |
| Runs batted in | Ryan Zimmerman | 1,061 | 2005-2021 |
| Stolen bases | Tim Raines | 635 | 1979-2001 |
| Walks | Tim Raines | 793 | 1979-2001 |
| Batting average (3,000 AB) | Vladimir Guerrero | .323 | 1996-2003 |
| Wins | Steve Rogers | 158 | 1973-1985 |
| Strikeouts | Stephen Strasburg | 1,723 | 2010-2022 |
| Saves | Jeff Reardon | 152 | 1981-1986 |
| ERA (1,000 IP) | Max Scherzer | 2.80 | 2015-2021 |
Two patterns stand out. First, Zimmerman holds three major batting records partly because his span with one team runs 17 seasons, a length of service that none of the Expos stars matched with the franchise. Second, the Montreal pitching leaders, such as Rogers, won many games for clubs that contended in only a few seasons, while the Washington leaders, Strasburg and Scherzer, were part of a team that reached October five times in eight years.
Counting stats also hide the context of two ballparks. Jarry Park and the Big O were different environments, and the historical record does not adjust for park or era, so a 1970s Expos pitcher and a 2010s Nationals pitcher cannot be ranked from these numbers alone. The ERA list comes closest to a level comparison, and it mixes the cities: Scherzer is first at 2.80, followed by Dennis Martinez at 3.06 and Steve Rogers at 3.17, both from Montreal.
Common questions
Is Montreal's history the Nationals' history? Yes. The franchise is one continuous organization, and its records, Hall of Famers and statistics are counted together. Hall of Fame players with four or more seasons for the club include Tim Raines, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Vladimir Guerrero, Larry Walker and Pedro Martinez.
Why did the 1994 Expos not get a title? The players' strike ended the season on August 11, with the Expos at 74-40, and the postseason was cancelled. No pennants or World Series were awarded that year.
Who is the best player in franchise history? The leaderboards give different answers by era: Zimmerman for the Washington years, Carter, Dawson and Raines for Montreal. Harper has the MVP award and Scherzer the Cy Young Awards.
How many division titles does the club have? Five, in 1981, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
Where to go next
For a position-by-position look at the best Expos and Nationals, read the all-time Nationals team, the Nationals Park guide and the best seasons and October runs. The division rivals are covered in the Atlanta Braves history, the Miami Marlins history and the New York Mets history, and the 2019 title is part of the World Series history. See also the ballpark page.