This is a list of seasons completed by the

Washington Nationals The Washington Nationals are an American professional baseball team based in Washington, D.C. The Nationals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. They play their home games at Na ...

, originally known as the

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos () were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League (baseball), National League ...

, professional baseball franchise; they have played in the

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

from their inception in 1969. They are an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

team that has been based in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

since . The Nationals are a member of both the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

's (MLB) National League Eastern Division. Since the 2008 season, the Nationals have played in

Nationals Park Nationals Park is a baseball stadium along the Anacostia River in the Navy Yard (Washington, D.C.), Navy Yard neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals. Since its completion in 2008, it wa ...

; from 2005 through , the team played in

Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, commonly known as RFK Stadium and originally known as District of Columbia Stadium, is a defunct multi-purpose stadium in Washington, D.C. located on East Capitol Street near the Anacostia River. Opened in 1 ...

. The Nationals are the successors to the

, who played in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada, from their inception as an

expansion team An expansion team is a new team in a sports league, usually from a city that has not hosted a team in that league before, formed with the intention of satisfying the demand for a local team from a population in a new area. Sporting leagues also ...

in through , with the majority of that time (1977–2004) spent in Montreal's

Olympic Stadium ''Olympic Stadium'' is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports ...

. The following takes into account both teams, as all Montreal records were carried with the franchise when it moved to Washington.

Table Key

Season-by-season results

All-time records

Record by decade

The following table describes the Expos′ (1969–2004) and Nationals′ (2005–2024) combined regular-season won–lost record by decade. These statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com's ''Washington Nationals History & Encyclopedia'', and are current as of September 29, 2024.

Postseason appearances

Post-season record by year

The Nationals have made the postseason six times in their history, with their first being in 1981 (as the Expos) and the most recent being in 2019.

Footnotes

*The

1972 Major League Baseball strike The 1972 Major League Baseball strike was the first players' Strike action, strike in Major League Baseball history. The strike occurred from April 1 to 13, 1972. Baseball resumed when the owners and players agreed on a $500,000 increase in pens ...

forced the cancellation of the first seven games (thirteen game-days) of the season. *The

1981 Major League Baseball strike The 1981 Major League Baseball strike was the first work stoppage in Major League Baseball since the 1972 Major League Baseball strike that resulted in regular season games being cancelled. Overall, it was the fourth work stoppage since 1972, bu ...

caused the season to split into two halves. This caused Major League Baseball to hold the Divisional Series so that the first- and second-half champions could play each other to determine playoff spots for the NLCS and World Series. As such, the Expos finished one-half game ahead of the second-place

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Centra ...

in the second half of the 1981 season. *The

1994–95 Major League Baseball strike The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike was the eighth and longest work stoppage in Major League Baseball (MLB) history, as well as the fourth in-season work stoppage in 22 years. The strike began on August 12, 1994, and resulted in the remai ...

ended the season on August 11, as well as cancelling the entire postseason. While Montreal was leading by six games ahead of the second-place

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Eas ...

at the beginning of the strike, no team was officially awarded any division titles. *PCA-PI stands for Players' Choice Award for Outstanding Pitcher in the

. *RMA stands for the

Rolaids Relief Man Award The Rolaids Relief Man Award was an annual Major League Baseball (MLB) award given from 1976 to 2012 to the top relief pitchers of the regular season, one in the American League (AL) and one in the National League (NL). Relief pitchers enter th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Washington Nationals Seasons

Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

Events in Washington, D.C.