The entire weekend seemed to have been building up to this moment, with Kyle Schwarber stepping to the plate for the Phillies in a big spot in a close ballgame and Davey Martinez left to decide which of his Nationals pitchers to entrust against the veteran slugger.

Martinez’s options with two on and two out in the top of the sixth this afternoon were Trevor Williams, who had already thrown 101 pitches and was attempting to complete six innings for only the third time in 12 starts this year, or a member of his bullpen.

It should’ve been an easy call. Just walk toward the mound, stick out your left arm and tap it a couple times with your right hand.

The problem: The Nationals don’t have any left-handers in their eight-man bullpen. They haven’t had one since April 30, when Anthony Banda (owner of a 6.43 ERA) was designated for assignment.

Martinez has been left to tempt fate for the last five weeks, hoping his various right-handers can get the job done against the league’s best lefty sluggers. Sometimes, it’s worked out fine. Today, it turned into disaster.

The Nationals’ moves so far this winter have almost exclusively involved one-year deals. Only right-hander Trevor Williams (two years, $13 million) got more than a one-year commitment from the Nats, who signed Jeimer Candelario ($5 million), Corey Dickerson ($2.25 million) and Dominic Smith ($2 million) each to short-term contracts.

There are no bad one-year deals. So say many baseball executives, justifying even the high-salary contracts to players who don’t pan out as worthy because of the lack of the kind of long-term commitment that can hamper a franchise.

Some one-year deals, however, are better than others. Sometimes, a team can turn a minimal payout into quality production (and maybe even flip a player at the trade deadline for a prospect). And sometimes, a team can waste a large chunk of money on a guy who doesn’t live up to his potential and loses whatever trade value he might have had.

The Nationals have signed plenty of free agents to one-year deals in their history. Which were the best? Which were the worst? (Note: We’re only talking about free agents who played somewhere else the previous season and signed major league contracts with the Nats. No players who re-signed, and no players who signed minor league contracts included for these purposes.)

Here’s one humble reporter’s take …

When rosters were revealed last month for every team in the Arizona Fall League, Heston Kjerstad led a group of seven Orioles assigned to the Scottsdale Scorpions. He was the biggest name as the second-overall selection in the 2020 draft. He was the biggest deal because, quite simply, everything Kjerstad does warrants our attention.

The draft status, the myocarditis diagnosis, the hamstring injury in March that further delayed his professional debut. The questions about whether Kjerstad would be able to lead a normal, healthy life. Forget baseball for a moment.

But just for a moment.

It always comes back to the game when a player chosen in the first round threatens to be – cruel word alert – a “bust.” But the Orioles weren’t giving up on Kjerstad and he certainly didn’t give up on himself. His attitude remained remarkably positive, and he understood and appreciated the organization’s careful handling of him.

You don’t play around with inflammation of a heart muscle. And on a much smaller scale, you don’t rush the return from a hamstring strain.

PHILADELPHIA – The last time the Nationals set foot inside Citizens Bank Park, Max Scherzer was ready to take the mound for the opener of a doubleheader. Trea Turner was still a member of the team, though he had just been placed into quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. Kyle Schwarber also was still a member of the team, though he was rehabbing from a hamstring strain that derailed his early-summer power explosion.

It was July 29, 2021, and by night’s end, none of those three guys were a member of the Nationals organization anymore. Scherzer (after tossing six innings of one-run ball) and Turner were traded to the Dodgers for four prospects, and Schwarber was dealt to the Red Sox for one. Gone, too, that day were Daniel Hudson and Brad Hand.

Nearly a full calendar year later, the Nationals returned to Philadelphia tonight, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to that team that last appeared here. That much was obvious by the names on the backs of their jerseys, not to mention the final tally on the scoreboard.

During the course of a 11-0 whitewashing, the 2022 Nationals were once again exposed as the weakling of a National League East that has undergone a dramatic overall since the end of the 2019 season. The Phillies are trying to keep up with the contending Mets and Braves, and even the Marlins are hanging in there (in large part because of their dominance of the Nats).

The Nationals? They’ve now lost 18 of their last 19 division games, as ludicrous as that sounds, falling to 6-29 on the season against the NL East. (They’re 23-25 against everyone else.)

PHILADELPHIA – Would you believe we are more than halfway through the 2022 season, and the Nationals are just now making their first appearance at Citizens Bank Park? Actually, would you believe the last time the Nats played here, Max Scherzer was on the mound for them? Yep, it was the July 29, 2021 doubleheader. By the end of that night, Scherzer and Trea Turner were Dodgers, Kyle Schwarber was a Red Sox (Sock?), Daniel Hudson was a Padre and Brad Hand was a Blue Jay.

Just a few things have changed since then, most of them not in a good way for the Nats. They come to town fresh off a brutal four-game sweep at the hands of the Marlins, the last two in extra innings. Now they have to face a Phillies club that beat them four out of five times a couple weeks ago in D.C.

It’s Paolo Espino on the mound tonight, hoping for better results than his last start against Philadelphia. The right-hander gave up three runs (two earned) in five innings, most surprisingly issuing four walks. He’ll need to do a better job keeping the ball in the strike zone tonight, not to mention keeping the ball in the park against this powerful lineup.

A Nationals lineup that struggled mightily all weekend goes up tonight against Cristopher Sánchez. The young left-hander faced them twice last season but faced a total of only 10 batters, so there’s not a big book on him yet.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES
Where: Citizens Bank Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Chance of storms, 79 degrees, wind 12 mph out to left field

The Nationals woke up exactly one year ago feeling as good about themselves as they had, quite possibly, since they won the World Series.

On the morning of July 1, 2021, the Nats owned a mediocre 40-38 record but had just won 14 of their last 17 games to climb back over .500 and thrust themselves into the National League East race. Kyle Schwarber was on fire at the plate. Trea Turner had just hit for the cycle for the third time in his career. Max Scherzer was still the ace. Stephen Strasburg was supposed to return from the injured list within a matter of weeks. Mike Rizzo would probably be a buyer at the trade deadline.

And then over the course of that holiday weekend, which included a four-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers, injuries to Turner and Schwarber and Alex Avila starting a game at second base, the foundation began to crack. And by the end of a disastrous month that saw the franchise suffer all manner of calamity, the Nationals were well under .500 and Rizzo had traded away eight key veterans, signaling the end of an era of contention in D.C. and embarking on a massive franchise rebuild.

What has happened since hasn’t been pretty, at least not in terms of wins and losses on the field. The Nats have played exactly 162 games in the last 365 days, and their record is a woeful 54-108. That’s a .333 winning percentage, worst in the majors during that time frame. (Next worst are the Cubs at 59-98, a .376 winning percentage.)

One year ago, there was genuine optimism about the state of the franchise, reason to believe a run at another World Series title wasn’t far-fetched. At the very least, this organization would be in a position to try to win a title for several more years, between the big league talent already in place and the ability to spend on more to fill roster holes.

That the Nationals are losing games at this rate, though disappointing and frustrating, is not necessarily surprising. This week – with eight games in seven days against the red-hot Braves and Phillies – always loomed as a potential landmine for an overmatched home ballclub.

What is so striking about recent events here is not that the Nats are losing so much, but that they’re losing by so much. Tonight’s 10-1 trouncing at the hands of the Phillies should be an outlier, a rare lopsided game. Instead, it is the absolute norm for this team.

Over their last 17 games, a stretch that began May 30 in New York, the Nationals have trailed at some point by five or more runs a staggering 11 times. They’ve trailed by seven or more runs seven times. And with tonight added to the list, they’ve now trailed by nine or more runs four times.

They’re not just playing bad baseball. They’re playing uncompetitive baseball, facing deficits too large to contemplate overcoming before even reaching the fifth inning many nights.

"You usually try to stay mentally tough and locked in, no matter what the circumstance, if you fall behind early," second baseman Cesár Hernández said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "We have had a few games, but we have the talent to fight and get back in the games. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to lately. But the talent is on the field."