PHILADELPHIA – The Nationals need a win tonight to avoid losing their third straight series and fourth since the All-Star break.

With all the negatives surrounding Patrick Corbin over the past couple of seasons, the one thing you can say about him is that he takes the ball every fifth day. The results of those outings haven’t always been great, but he’s available and that’s what Davey Martinez needs from his veteran starter right now.

Over his first 22 starts, Corbin is 4-15 with a 6.57 ERA, the most losses and highest qualified earned run average in the majors. In his lone start against the Phillies this year, the left-hander was tagged for nine runs (only two earned) on eight hits, one walk and two homers in 3 ⅓ innings on June 16. Corbin is 6-6 with a 3.88 ERA in 16 starts against Philadelphia in his career.

In a matchup of lefty starting pitchers, Ranger Suárez takes the mound for the Phillies with a 7-5 record and 3.60 ERA. He earned the win in the first game of the June 17 doubleheader to kick off Ryan Zimmerman Weekend at Nats Park by giving up three runs and striking out five in 5 ⅔ innings. Suárez is 3-0 with a 2.45 ERA in nine games (two starts) against the Nats over his five-year career.

Nelson Cruz is back in the lineup as the designated hitter after missing the last three games with a stiff neck. Luis García gets the day off against a left-hander.

There’s no doubt today was a sad day for the Nationals. What most people thought would happen came to fruition in the form of an unprecedented trade of Juan Soto and Josh Bell the Padres for six players, five of whom are prospects.

Plenty more will be written and said about the franchise-altering decision to trade one of the best players to wear a Nationals jersey before the prime of his career.

But lost in the background of today’s news and the subsequent reactions was the reality that the Nationals still had to play a baseball game tonight. And not only were they suddenly without their two best players, they were facing Jacob deGrom, one of the best pitchers in the sport, in his season debut.

“I was relieved," manager Davey Martinez said of the passing of the trade deadline at 6 p.m. ET. "Yeah, I really was. I mean, I felt a different breath of fresh air. And for me, it was about regrouping and saying, 'All right, this is what we need to do moving forward.' So like I said, we're going to go out there and we're gonna compete and we're gonna play hard and we're gonna do some different things. And like I said, I was proud of the boys going out there today and doing what they did.”

After deGrom didn’t play a deciding role in the game while departing a tied game after five innings, the boys were able to take a late lead to win tonight’s game 5-1 in front of 29,878 mostly Mets fans at Nats Park. A small victory on a tough day.

LOS ANGELES – As the eighth inning became the ninth inning Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, the Nationals suddenly holding a 4-3 lead following Luis García’s dramatic home run, Hunter Harvey looked around the bullpen and tried to figure out who was about to be told to start warming up.

With Kyle Finnegan and Carl Edwards Jr. both unavailable after pitching the previous two nights, Harvey’s attention immediately turned to Steve Cishek, the 36-year-old veteran with 133 saves on his big league resume.

“I was about 100 percent sure it was going to be Cishek,” Harvey said this morning. “That was my guess. He’s been around for 11 years. He’s got a bunch of saves. I was sure he was going to be the guy. So when they called down and said it was going to be me … it’s kind of crazy to even think I’m even getting this opportunity.”

Harvey indeed was manager Davey Martinez’s choice to close the game. The 27-year-old right-hander’s heart started racing at the thought of entering for his first major league save opportunity, before a sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium, of all places.

And though the Nationals lineup actually took the save opportunity away by tacking on four runs in the top of the ninth to extend the lead to 8-3, Harvey’s experience wasn’t diminished in the least. He retired the side, getting Mookie Betts to ground to third for the final out of one the team’s biggest wins of this otherwise dismal season.

LOS ANGELES – Luis García stepped into Dodger Stadium for the first time Monday night, and like many of his young teammates, was struck more than anything by the bass-thumping sound system at this venerable ballpark.

By the time he found himself rounding the bases in the top of the eighth tonight, the primary sound the Nationals shortstop heard was the chorus of boos from a sellout throng of 53,302, the largest crowd to watch a major league game this season.

García’s two-run homer, a no-doubt blast to right off left-hander Garrett Cleavinger, lifted the Nats to another improbable victory over the Dodgers, this one by the eventual count of 8-3 thanks to four tack-on runs in the ninth. Winners of three in a row, a team that had just lost 17 of 19 will return here Wednesday afternoon with a chance to sweep their first series of the year, no matter the opponent.

"You know what? I've always said this: If our starting pitchers can keep us in the game, we'll score some runs, and our bullpen's been pretty good," said manager Davey Martinez, who earned his 300th career win. "They're playing well right now, and I'm proud of the guys. Because all year long we've fallen short, but they don't quit. And I love that about them." 

It’s been impossible to watch these games the last two nights, complete with lockdown relief pitching and score-flipping homers, and not hearken back to games played between these same franchises in this same ballpark two Octobers ago. García’s homer tonight (one of the 22-year-old’s three hits in the game) certainly resembled the one Juan Soto mashed off Clayton Kershaw in Game 5 of the 2019 NLDS.

PHOENIX – As he made his way back from a left shoulder impingement, Josh Rogers probably figured he’d be back on the Nationals roster as soon as he was deemed healthy, whether in their rotation or their bullpen.

Instead, a healthy Rogers now finds himself in the rotation at Triple-A Rochester. Though they formally activated him off the 15-day injured list Friday, the Nats also optioned Rogers to the minors, deciding not to put him in the big leagues for now.

That decision, manager Davey Martinez said, was made because the club both wants Rogers to work on some specific things but also wants to make sure he gets regular work as a starter in case a need does arise at the major league level.

“I know he wanted to develop a changeup. He’s working on a different breaking ball,” Martinez said. “But more so than anything, it’s to keep him stretched out. I think we’ve got to keep him stretched out. The more starters we can have in the minor leagues, the better we’re going to be here in the long run. We’ve got to keep an eye on innings with some of our guys. You just don’t know what’s going to happen down the road. So we want to keep him stretched out.”

The Nationals rotation, at the moment, consists of veterans Patrick Corbin, Aníbal Sánchez and Paolo Espino, plus Erick Fedde and Josiah Gray. In Gray’s case, there is the possibility the organization shuts him down at some point out of concern for his workload in his first full big league season. That could open the door for Rogers to return.

Look down upon the first half of the Nationals’ season from 30,000 feet in the air, and you can’t find much of anything to gloat about. How can you try to put a positive spin on a worst-in-baseball 31-63 record, a roster filled with ineffective stopgaps and all kinds of uncertainty at every level of the organization?

You can’t.

Look at the last 3 1/2 months under a microscope, though, and you can find individual reasons for optimism, not to mention more than a few reasons for pessimism. The Nats as a whole are a disaster, but some of the parts are worth appreciating.

So as we take one last look back at what’s taken place so far in 2022 before turning our attention to what’s still to come after the All-Star break, let’s focus not on the big picture but a bunch of little pictures, both good and bad …

GOOD: JUAN SOTO’S PERFORMANCE
All that concern about Soto’s first-half struggles, his lack of power and his low batting average? Yeah, he’s going to be just fine, thank you very much. Back on June 17, he was batting .220, slugging .440 and owning an .807 OPS that would be really good for anyone else but not for his lofty standards. Then he began a streak of 26 consecutive games reaching base, best in his career, during which he has hit .338/.505/.663 with seven homers and 27 walks. That surge allowed the 23-year-old to enter the All-Star break with a .901 OPS. (And perhaps helped him win the Home Run Derby.)

Even in what everyone acknowledged from the beginning was a rebuilding year, the Nationals were supposed to have a competent lineup. Any group that featured the trio of Juan Soto, Josh Bell and Nelson Cruz, plus a couple experienced bats and a couple intriguing young guys, figured to score a decent number of runs.

Here, though, as the season’s first half winds down, is the harsh truth: This lineup has become one of the weakest in the majors. Soto may be starting to look like the best version of himself, and Bell may have produced at a level worthy of an All-Star selection, but the overall story is one of meek power, squandered opportunities and a whole lot of ground balls.

It was all on display tonight during a 2-1 loss that capped a dismal doubleheader sweep to an upstart Mariners club that has now won 10 in a row to thrust itself into the thick of the American League wild card race.

The Nationals? They’ve now lost 12 of their last 13, scoring an average of 2.75 runs per game along the way. They’ve now lost twice as many games (60) as they’ve won (30) for the season, limping into the All-Star break in meager fashion.

"We're not scoring runs," manager Davey Martinez said. "We've got to try to create something. We've got to mix things up."

At his best, Josiah Gray is really good. And last week’s dominating, 11-strikeout showing in Philadelphia was evidence of that.

At his worst, though, Gray really struggles. And today’s 6-4 loss to the Mariners, in which the young right-hander displayed virtually no semblance of fastball command and dug the Nationals into an early hole, was evidence of that.

Starting the front end of a day-night doubleheader, Gray served up three homers to Seattle batters, the most damaging of them Eugenio Suárez’s three-run blast in the top of the first, this coming shortly after he walked two batters while struggling with obvious fastball mechanics issues.

Combine that poor pitching performance with another weak offensive performance – at least until Juan Soto made things interesting with two outs in the bottom of the ninth – and the Nats lost for the 11th time in 12 games while the Mariners extended their winning streak to nine games.

The lack of offensive punch has been painful to watch, even with Soto's three-run, opposite-field homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth today. That blast did prevent the Nationals from being held to three or fewer runs for the 10th time in 11 games. But it still wasn't enough to overcome earlier woes at the plate (or on the bases, from Soto himself, as he fully acknowledged after the game).

Let’s give this another try, shall we?

After their interleague series opener was rained out Tuesday night, the Nationals and Mariners are now set to play two today. The postponed game will be made up at 6:05 p.m., but first is the originally scheduled 12:05 p.m. matinee.

Both managers stuck with their Tuesday night starters for today’s opener. So it’s Josiah Gray for the Nats, trying to pick up where he left off seven days ago in Philadelphia when he struck out a career-high 11 batters. And it’s Chris Flexen for the Mariners, trying for his ninth consecutive start allowing three or fewer runs.

Davey Martinez’s lineup Tuesday had Luis García in the leadoff spot for the second straight game. García may not necessarily profile as a top-of-the-order hitter over the course of his career, but for now it makes sense to have him get the extra at-bats instead of the struggling César Hernández or Lane Thomas.

SEATTLE MARINERS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 12:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 85 degrees, wind 7 mph out to right field

ATLANTA – When it rains, it pours. An ironic use of that phrase on a beautiful day just outside downtown Atlanta.

But it’s true for the Nationals, who dropped their fourth straight game and were swept by the Braves with today’s 4-3 loss in 12 innings in front of 32,053 at Truist Park.

Jordan Weems, who pitched two impressive scoreless innings Friday night, was charged with the bottom of the 12th. The Nats intentionally walked Matt Olson to put two runners on for the right-hander. Austin Riley, who hit the tying home run in the eighth inning, stepped up to the plate and delivered the game-winning RBI single.

Tanner Rainey put up two zeros in the 10th and 11th innings, not without some tense moments, though.

Going back to the seventh, Davey Martinez brought in Kyle Finnegan to face the top of the Braves order and protect a 3-2 lead. Finnegan struck out the side easily, and since he last pitched Wednesday, he was plenty rested to go back out for a second inning.

ATLANTA – Hunter Harvey was seen in the Nationals clubhouse this morning before the series finale against the Braves at Truist Park. His hair is hard to miss.

That meant a roster move was coming. When it became official about 30 minutes later, the Nats had reinstated Harvey, optioned Joan Adon to Triple-A Rochester and transferred Jackson Tetreault to the 60-day injured list.

“I've been feeling a lot better since the last time, so that's always a plus,” Harvey said at his locker of his recovery from a right pronator strain. 

The Nationals placed him on the injured list on April 21 after he pitched only 2 ⅔ scoreless innings over four appearances. Now after missing 71 games, he’s finally back.

“It took a little bit longer than we wanted to,” Harvey said of his rehab. “I had a couple of setbacks, but we took a little bit extra time and made sure everything was OK, and now I feel a lot better than I did before.”

ATLANTA – Less than 24 hours after exiting Thursday’s series finale in Philadelphia, Luis García is back in the Nationals lineup for the series opener in Atlanta. A sigh of relief can be heard throughout the organization.

Ehire Adrianza replaced García at shortstop in the bottom of the seventh inning of the 5-3 loss to the Phillies after García grounded out to lead off the top of the sixth, clearly grimacing and holding his right side as he jogged back to the dugout. Manager Davey Martinez said after the game that the young shortstop was dealing with a "stomach issue.”

It must have been a quick bug, similar to what Nelson Cruz dealt with when Martinez scratched him from the lineup late Tuesday with an illness. García is feeling well enough to play tonight.

“He had an upset stomach yesterday,” Martinez said during his pregame session with the media. “He said he woke up, he felt a lot better. So I told him to make sure he drinks a lot of fluid. It's hot. So we'll keep an eye on him. He said he feels good.”

García felt something coming on before yesterday’s game, but told his manager he was good enough to play. He ended up getting worse as the game went on.

ATLANTA – Greetings from just outside downtown Atlanta, where the Nationals are making their second visit to Truist Park this year.

I can confirm the Nats won’t have to face Kyle Schwarber over this three-game series, but alas, another National League East opponent awaits in the Braves. The Nats are a woeful 7-30 on the season within the division and have won just two out of their last 21 games against their rivals. Although the Nats have played the Braves the least so far, they’ve had the most success against Atlanta, winning a three-game set here in early April despite getting swept at home over three games last month. 

Erick Fedde will look to continue a strong stretch in which he’s pitched to a 2.82 ERA over his last four starts. That stretch started when he allowed three runs in 5 ⅓ innings against these Braves on June 15. The key for Fedde will be to, once again, get quick outs and not get himself into deep counts so as to keep his pitch count down and get deeper in the game.

Charlie Morton will take the mound for the Braves in tonight’s opener. The veteran right-hander is 4-3 with a 4.34 ERA over his first 16 starts, but like Fedde, he’s been pitching really well as of late. Over his last four starts, Morton has a 1.35 ERA with 35 strikeouts to just four walks. This will be his first time facing the Nats this season after having gone 4-6 with a 5.23 ERA over 13 career starts against Washington. 

Luis García is in tonight’s lineup after leaving yesterday’s game in Philadelphia with a stomach illness.

PHILADELPHIA – Joan Adon found himself on the mound pitching another game for the Nationals this afternoon, the struggling rookie with a league-leading 11 losses and an ERA approaching 7.00 pressed into service again when his club needed a fill-in starter.

The assignment, against a tough Phillies lineup, wasn’t advantageous for the young right-hander, but the Nats had little choice but to put him out there and hope for the best.

The end result was rather predictable. Adon labored through four innings and was charged with four runs, sending the Nationals on their way to a lackluster 5-3 loss in the series finale at Citizens Bank Park.

A game that saw Adon struggle on the mound and Juan Soto struggle in the field also saw Luis García depart with an apparent injury. The young shortstop was pulled after the sixth inning, replaced by utility man Ehire Adrianza due to what manager Davey Martinez termed a "stomach issue," even though García could be seen wincing and grabbing his right side after grounding out to second in his final at-bat.

"No, he started feeling real sick," Martinez said.

PHILADELPHIA – Whatever happened in the final innings of tonight’s game at Citizens Bank Park, whether the Nationals hung on to beat the Phillies or suffered yet another loss in soul-crushing fashion, they knew they could walk off the field having seen two of their most important young building blocks thrive on a big stage.

What Josiah Gray did on the mound over six dominant innings and Luis García did at the plate in the top of the seventh mattered more in the big picture to this franchise than the outcome of the 84th game of this miserable season.

That the Nationals did proceed to hang on for a 3-2 win behind a strong bullpen performance only sweetened the deal.

In this season of development, Gray’s career-high 11 strikeouts over six innings of two-run ball were reason to celebrate. As was García’s clutch, two-run double to center off Aaron Nola in the top of the seventh, which turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead and represented one of the most significant hits of the 22-year-old’s brief career.

"For us in the clubhouse, specifically, it's a lot of fun to see the younger guys contribute like that," Gray said. "It lets you know that brighter days are obviously ahead. And from the fan perspective, I'm sure they can bank on that was a really fun night of baseball for the young guys to contribute. ... For all of D.C. and Nats fan, I think it was a fun night of baseball."

They got another strong start from Patrick Corbin, making it two in a row for the beleaguered lefty. They once again struggled all day to generate any kind of offense against a Marlins starter pitching the game of his life. And they yet again managed to scratch together a late run to tie the game and ultimately send it into extra innings.

At which point an all-too-familiar result awaited.

Bryan De La Cruz’s towering two-run homer off Tanner Rainey in the top of the 10th was the eventual difference, lifting the Marlins to a 3-2 victory over the Nationals. And if any of that comes as a surprise, you haven’t been paying any attention to the 13 games played between these two division foes this season.

The Nats have now lost 12 of those 13 games against Miami, including four in a row this holiday weekend, the last two in 10 innings, each of them defined by a towering home run surrendered by Rainey.

It matters not how often they put themselves in position to beat the Marlins, the Nationals simply are not able to beat the Marlins in 2022. The silver lining: They won’t see each other again until September, with six final matchups between the two remaining on the schedule.

Davey Martinez has always liked the idea of a deep and talented bench, offering him opportunities to play matchups late in games. And the Nationals manager did it often en route to a World Series title in 2019, summoning a pinch-hitter off his bench 252 times, then even more last season, when pinch-hitters received 282 plate appearances.

The times, though, they are a changing. With the designated hitter now in the National League on a full-time basis, there simply hasn’t been much reason to turn to the bench late in games this season. To wit: The Nats have taken only 22 plate appearances as a pinch-hitter so far, third-fewest in the majors.

So consider what happened Tuesday night to be well outside the norm this season. Martinez didn’t just use one pinch-hitter in the bottom of the eighth of a 3-1 victory over the Pirates. He used two.

First it was Luis García, out of the lineup for the first time in 26 games since his promotion from Triple-A Rochester, batting for Maikel Franco. Then it was Yadiel Hernandez batting for Alcides Escobar and coming through with the two-run double that broke a tie game. And then to set up his best defensive alignment for the ninth, Martinez brought in Ehire Adrianza to play third instead of Franco, with García playing shortstop. 

Was that how Martinez planned for it to all work out?

Davey Martinez knew Luis García wasn’t going to play every day. Though the Nationals manager made it clear the 22-year-old would be his starting shortstop upon his promotion from Triple-A Rochester at the beginning of the month, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t get a day off at some point.

And that day is today, with García on the bench for the second game of this series against the Pirates, with Alcides Escobar getting the nod at shortstop for the first time in four weeks.

García had started all 25 of the Nationals’ games since his June 1 promotion, and he’s performed quite well at the plate, batting .337 with eight doubles, a triple, two homers, 11 RBIs and an .847 OPS across 101 plate appearances.

On the heels of a 3-for-4, two-double showing Monday night, it might sound illogical for García to get tonight’s game off. But Martinez had this planned for a while, a product of the Nats’ schedule, which includes Wednesday’s 1:05 p.m. series finale before the team’s off-day Thursday.

“So it gives him a few days (of rest), even though he’s available today if we need him,” the manager said. “He’s been playing well. He’s been playing a lot. And we’ve got to remember, he played every day at Triple-A as well before he got here. So I thought today would be a good day, and get Escobar some at-bats.”

Entering the eighth inning of tonight’s game, the Nationals offense had yet to take advantage of the opportunity provided by starter Erick Fedde and the bullpen. In a low-scoring game, the only offense to that point had come in the sixth inning when Luis García came around to score after a leadoff double to the right-center gap. Back-to-back groundouts to the right side of the infield allowed García to advance and eventually cross home plate with Yadiel Hernandez getting credit for the RBI.

But García delivered another leadoff double in the eighth, setting up Maikel Franco’s late-inning heroics in the Nationals’ 3-2 win over the Pirates in front of 18,213 fans at Nationals Park.

With García standing on second base, two outs and the Nats down 2-1 to the Bucs, Franco sent a first-pitch slider from right-hander Chris Stratton 105.5 mph off his bat and 418 feet to left-center field. The Nats third baseman gave an emphatic high-five to first base coach Eric Young Jr. as he rounded the bases as what would prove to be the game-winning run.

“I know we were just down for one run," Franco said after the game. "Obviously, I just think about see the ball and drive the ball, just get a hit to try to tie the ballgame. And I got better results. He threw me a slider first pitch and I was able to put good contact on it. And I got the success.”

That success sent Nats Park into a frenzy as the home team celebrated energetically in front of the dugout.

ARLINGTON, Texas – There’s a lot to like about Luis García’s offensive performance this month, and maybe the thing to like the most is that there is so much to like.

García has excelled in just about every significant situation since the Nationals called him up from Triple-A Rochester on June 1. He enters today’s game against the Rangers batting .326 with six doubles, two homers and 11 RBIs. He’s batting .312 vs. righties, .360 vs. lefties. He’s batting .357 with two outs. He’s batting .347 with runners in scoring position. He’s batting .500 (6-for-12) with two outs and runners in scoring position. He’s batting .227 with two strikes, which is significantly better than the leaguewide average of .169.

Pick your situation, chances are García is thriving in it right now.

“It’s very important, because those situations are big to helping the team win,” the 22-year-old shortstop said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “It just comes down to whatever you can do to help the team win.”

García has been helping the Nationals win, delivering one of their two run-scoring hits during Friday night’s 2-1 victory over Texas. He did so while batting fifth for the third time this season, manager Davey Martinez having slowly moved him up from the bottom of the lineup over the course of the last week.