{"id":734494,"date":"2026-06-24T17:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/734494\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T17:12:18","slug":"nationals-demote-paxton-schultz-call-up-in-season-trade-acquisition-as-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/734494\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Demote Paxton Schultz, Call Up In-Season Trade Acquisition as Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6w\">Following a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/nationals\/onsi\/nationals-historic-gut-wrenching-loss-against-phillies-highlights-biggest-weakness\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">huge meltdown by the Washington Nationals<\/a> bullpen on Tuesday, the organization decided to shuffle the relief staff once again.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">The team announced that right-hander Paxton Schultz had been optioned to Triple-A Rochester following Tuesday&#8217;s contest. It wasn&#8217;t known who would be the replacement at the time, but <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/GrantPaulsen\/status\/2069796488314556741\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Grant Paulsen of 106.7 The Fan<\/a> reported that left-handed reliever Carson Palmquist is set to be called up to make his Nationals debut after he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/nationals\/onsi\/nationals-acquire-top-30-prospect-from-rockies-they-boost-depth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquired from the Colorado Rockies on May 25<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">It&#8217;s clear that something had to be done when it came to Washington&#8217;s bullpen. They are treading water in June, as none of their full-time relievers have an ERA that&#8217;s below 4.50 during the month. Whether or not Palmquist can help right the ship isn&#8217;t clear, but he at least gives manager Blake Butera another multi-inning arm to utilize.<\/p>\n<p>Nationals Have Three Long Relievers on Their Roster<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/01kvx90pz4zysd8tvf2a.jpg\" alt=\"Colorado Rockies pitcher Carson Palmquist\" title=\"Colorado Rockies pitcher Carson Palmquist\" width=\"360\" height=\"203\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"7f\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Colorado Rockies pitcher Carson Palmquist | Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7j\">Palmquist joins Brad Lord and Mitchell Parker as long relievers the Nationals have in their bullpen. Schultz also operated in that role with 30 2\/3 frames pitched across 25 outings, so Washington really just traded out a right-handed multi-inning guy for a left-handed one.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7m\">However, Palmquist is an intriguing arm. While he&#8217;s struggled at the major league level with an ERA of 8.91, he is a former top 30 prospect. He also gives Butera the ability to stack the 25-year-old behind either Miles Mikolas or Zack Littell since he came up the ranks as a starting pitcher. During Palmquist&#8217;s lone experience in the bigs with the Rockies, seven of his nine appearances were as a starter. And down on the farm, 63 of his 92 outings were as the starting pitcher, with the last two years being the first time he was utilized out of the bullpen.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7p\">That aspect should help the Nationals save their relief staff in the short-term. No bullpen across the MLB has pitched more innings than Washington&#8217;s, so turning to Palmquist right now will hopefully help them reduce the mileage on that unit going forward.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a huge meltdown by the Washington Nationals bullpen on Tuesday, the organization decided to shuffle the relief&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,4,415,414,71,4222],"class_list":["post-734494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-washington-nationals","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-nationals","tag-washington","tag-washington-nationals","tag-washingtonnationals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116806205241319385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}