NEW YORK -- With the bases loaded, Brady House cleaned house against the Mets with one swing of the bat.
House, 22, crushed his first career grand slam in the fourth inning of the Nationals’ 14-2 win at Citi Field on Wednesday night.
"He smashed it,” said Curtis Mead, who scored. “It was fun.”
With Nasim Nuñez, James Wood and Mead on base, House jumped on a fastball from lefty Sean Manaea. He sent it a Statcast-projected 385 feet into left-center field at 106 mph.
“I just remember before the at-bat, whenever there’s a runner in scoring position, just trying to do anything to get that run across the board,” House said. “So I wasn’t trying to do too much, just trying to get those runs in somehow.”
House added a grand slam to his young 102-game Major League résumé. In doing so, he became only the third Nationals player in team history (2005-present) to hit a grand slam before his 23rd birthday. Ryan Zimmerman hit two in 2007, and CJ Abrams crushed one in 2023.
"I think sometimes we forget just how young Brady is,” said manager Blake Butera. “He doesn’t really have a ton of time at the Major League level, and even at professional baseball when you look at just the amount of at-bats and games played he has. He’s still learning as he’s going. He’s still getting his feet comfortable here in the big leagues. When he hits a home run like that, a grand slam, it hopefully reminds him how good he can be.”
House is the first Nationals player to hit a grand slam since Jacob Young on Aug. 25, 2025, against Mark Leiter Jr. and the Yankees.
And speaking of that Abrams grand slam, the shortstop had been the last Nats batter to hit one against the Mets. On April 27, 2023, Abrams belted one off Brooks Raley to drive in Lane Thomas, Stone Garrett and Victor Robles.
“I’ve been with a lot of these guys forever,” said House, the Nats' 11th overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft. “So it’s awesome to be here with them and do it at this level. I’m thankful, for sure.”
House was hitting above or around the .300 mark the first two weeks of the season. While he had hit his third home run of the season on Friday against the White Sox, he entered Wednesday with a .226 batting average having gone 2-for-14 on the two-city road trip through Chicago and New York. The grand slam at-bat exemplified his potential for power.
“I think whenever Brady doesn’t try to do too much, gets a good pitch to hit, stays in the middle of the field, he’s got so much bat speed and so much power, that he doesn’t need to generate more,” said Butera.
“When he just lets the pitch come to him, gets a good pitch to hit, puts a good swing on it, you see that type of result more often than not. It’s one of the most impressive BPs you’ll see, just how fast he moves the bat, how hard the ball comes off his bat. So it’s almost like, less is more for Brady.”
House drove the Nats’ season-high seven-run fourth inning to even the series behind a second consecutive 10-strikeout performance by Cade Cavalli. The right-hander became the first Nationals pitcher to strike out at least 10 in consecutive starts since Max Scherzer in 2020 -- and Scherzer actually did it in four straight regular-season outings from 2019-20.
“It was great to see,” Cavalli said of House’s grand slam. “He deserves it. He’s a pro, a great teammate. We love seeing that out of him.”