Plate discipline key to García Jr.'s success as he homers twice more vs. O's

BALTIMORE -- Whether he earns monthly honors, Luis García Jr. will be remembered as the Nats’ own “player of the month” for June.

Blasting a pair of long balls for his third multi-homer game of the year (and home runs No. 10 and 11 of the month) in Washington’s 6-4 win over Baltimore on Sunday at Camden Yards, García became the first Nationals player to hit double-digit homers since Kyle Schwarber hit 16 in June 2012, and the seventh in Nats history (since 2005).

Sunday’s performance, which saw the 26-year-old go 3-for-5 with five RBIs to boost his season total to 55 and his monthly total to 25, also powered the Nats to a series win, a big boost for the club before it heads to Boston. It’s a far cry from the García who finished 2025 with a .701 OPS and 16 homers in 139 games -- just one home run more than his 2026 total so far, and in 61 fewer games.

“He’s been unreal,” manager Blake Butera said postgame. “Offspeed, fastballs, he’s doing damage on both right now. He just seems to be seeing the ball extremely well, and he looks totally confident and patient at the plate right now.”

“I mean, I can’t describe it right now,” García said via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. “But everybody sees that my confidence right now is just at another level, and I think that’s something every batter wants to have.”

A big reason García has been having such success lately has to do with his approach at the plate. As Butera explained pregame Sunday, García is a player who “has a knack for feeling like he can hit everything, because he kind of can.” The Nats, however, have pushed García to be more selective, to take pitches where he can, to work counts and wait on a pitch he can do damage on.

While that message has been passed down from the coaching staff, part of why it’s working for García -- and what has helped him hone in his approach at the plate -- is thanks to some friendly competition.

“It’s work that we put in every day and in the cage,” García said. “And right now, Keibert [Ruiz] and I have a competition going for the most walks, so I think that’s also kind of motivation to work on that.

“... I think it started like three weeks ago during a hitters meeting. They were going over who had the least amount of walks and most contact, so that was the two of us. So the hitting coaches came up with the competition.”

The approach -- and the competition, which García (11 walks) is winning over Ruiz (six) -- is paying off big time, clearly. On Saturday, while tallying his second four-hit game of the season, García hit his hardest home run of the season, a 114-mph blast, in a 3-0 count. Saturday and Sunday marked the fourth time in García’s career that he’s had back-to-back games with three-plus hits. And Sunday’s pair of long balls came in an 0-1 count and a 2-2 count, respectively, further proof of García’s growth as a hitter.

Butera first noticed something click for García early in June -- likely around García’s prior multi-homer game on June 5 in Arizona, when he launched a two-run homer and a grand slam.

“I think a little switch went off, where it’s like, ‘All right, this is what happens when I get a good pitch to hit, and when I trust it,’” Butera said. “And I think he’s just rolled with that for now.”

Since that two-homer showing, García has 18 RBIs and nine home runs, including homers in five of his past six games. Those 11 home runs since the start of June? They trail just the Rockies’ Hunter Goodman (12) for the most in the Majors in that stretch.

García’s hot streak not only goes a long way in-game, but it also lends further credibility to his veteran presence in the clubhouse.

“I’ve been here in this organization for a long time,” García said. “But just being here, present, being here for my teammates that is really important. And I mean, this year, yes, it’s a young team, but everybody is really excited.”

“He’s one of the longer-standing members of this team,” Butera said, “and when he’s playing well like this and he’s able to be a voice -- especially with what we’ve gone through these last couple of weeks -- to give us a sense of calmness and confidence, and then go out there and perform like that, it goes a long way.”

García, despite his youth, is the longest-tenured player in the Nats’ system, signing with the club as a 16-year-old in July 2016. A decade later, he’s turned himself into a force to be reckoned with.