ARLINGTON, Texas – One-run games aren’t for the faint of heart. And by one-run games, we’re not talking about games with a one-run margin of victory. We’re talking about 1-0 games, where every moment is magnified, every pitch is crucial and any one mistake can spell doom.

That the Nationals somehow found a way to pull off a 1-0 win tonight over the Rangers was nothing short of remarkable. It required another highly effective performance from Trevor Williams, who twice stranded the bases loaded. It required the scratching across of a single run by a lineup that has done next to nothing in two nights at Globe Life Park. And it required some electric work from a bullpen that knew it had zero margin for error.

But that all somehow came together beautifully over the course of 2 hours, 11 minutes this evening, leaving Davey Martinez’s heart pounding but happy at the end of a taut ballgame.

"You know what," Martinez said, "it gets interesting at the end there. ... As I often say, we try to get one more than the other guys. And today, it came true."

The Nats are a .500 club once again, opening the month of May with a win over the defending World Series champs and now giving themselves another opportunity to get over the elusive hump in Thursday’s series finale.

The Nationals return to action tonight as the Dodgers come to town looking for revenge from last week’s series in Los Angeles.

The Nats will have the opportunity to do something this week they haven’t done since 2014: Win the season series against the Dodgers.

That’s right, since going 4-2 against the Dodgers 10 years ago, the Nats are 0-6-2 in season series against their West Coast foes. The teams split the season series 3-3 in 2017 and 2022, and didn’t play each other in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, in which teams only played their division rivals and the same division in the other league. Overall, the Nats are 15-35 against the Dodgers since 2014.

Also, did you know this week marks Shohei Ohtani’s first trip to D.C.? He has hit .300 with a .697 OPS in eight games against the Nats, all of which came in Los Angeles as a member of either the Angels or Dodgers. And he made one start as a pitcher against the Nats last year in Anaheim, tossing seven shutout innings with one hit, five walks and six strikeouts.

But enough about these upcoming games. Let’s make some observations from the first month of the season …

LOS ANGELES – Jake Irvin walked to the dugout after striking out Will Smith to end the bottom of the sixth this afternoon at Dodger Stadium. The scoreboard showed six zeros for the home team, and it showed only 73 pitches for the visiting starter.

In another world, Irvin would have received a slap on the back and encouragement to get ready to head back out for the seventh. In this world, he was given a round of high fives and hugs from everyone in the Nationals dugout, manager Davey Martinez informing the right-hander his day was done.

Love it or hate it, this is the state of baseball in 2024. Teams aren’t letting their young starters go deep anymore, certainly not early in the season. So all Irvin could do today was join everyone else and watch the final three innings, hoping his teammates could finish the job.

They did, with three relievers combining to hold the Dodgers lineup in check in the seventh, eighth and ninth and ultimately rewarding Irvin with a 2-0 victory in a captivating finale to this series and this West Coast trip.

"He's been unbelievable. He's been outstanding, actually," said Martinez, who received a beer shower from his coaches and players after notching his 400th managerial win. "He just keeps getting better and better. The confidence keeps growing."

LOS ANGELES – Far more highly touted pitchers have made their major league debuts for the Nationals in the last 14 years than Mitchell Parker. There were first-round picks (Lucas Giolito, Erick Fedde, Cade Cavalli, Jackson Rutledge) and there were high-profile trade acquisitions (Joe Ross).

But none of them – plus a host of others in between – was able to do what Parker did tonight. Not since Stephen Strasburg’s historic performance on June 8, 2010, had a rookie starter made his big league debut for the Nationals and been credited with a win.

That Parker was the one to finally snap a streak that had reached 17 winless debuts was remarkable enough. That he did it by beating one of the most intimidating lineups he’s likely to ever see during the course of his career made this truly special.

With five strong innings of two-run ball, this previously unknown, 24-year-old left-hander led the Nats to a stirring, 6-4 victory over the Dodgers on Jackie Robinson Day and authored his name into club lore in the process.

"The kid has a very low heartbeat," manager Davey Martinez said. "I've known that for a while. Nothing seems to faze him. ... That's a tough team to face. And he did really, really well."

SAN FRANCISCO – The 2024 Nationals aren’t constructed to win games with power. More often than not, they’re going to need to manufacture runs when presented with the opportunity.

Of course, nobody said they can’t do both on the same night, and emerge victorious because of it.

Thanks to an early blast from CJ Abrams, some patented small ball late and then a major escape act from Kyle Finnegan in the ninth, the Nats pulled off a 5-3 win over the Giants tonight at Oracle Park, taking the first two games of this series and securing their first three-game winning streak of the young season.

"I just think that's kind of the way we're built," said rookie center fielder Jacob Young, who became the third member of the team already this year to steal three bases in a game. "We have a bunch of guys who can do a lot of different things. ... We have a lot of ways we can hurt you."

Abrams’ two-run homer in the third – a 423-foot missile to deep right-center that nearly cleared the bleachers to reach McCovey Cove – gave the Nationals an early lead and served as a hearty welcome back for the young shortstop, who missed the previous three games with a bone bruise on his left pinky finger.

CINCINNATI – The stage was set for another uplifting victory. Trey Lipscomb would be the hero. Other key young building blocks would have contributed. The Nationals just needed one more pitch from Kyle Finnegan.

And then, in what felt like a matter of seconds, it all collapsed.

One strike away from locking up the save, Finnegan instead surrendered a two-out double to Jonathan India, then back-to-back homers to Will Benson and Christian Encarnacion-Strand to deal the Nats a crushing 6-5 loss in the finale of their season-opening series.

"That's tough," manager Davey Martinez said. "Three-two, two outs. And then double, homer, homer. That's how the game ended. That's tough."

Handed a two-run lead for the bottom of the ninth, Finnegan seemed to be in complete control. He retired the first two batters he faced, then just needed to retire India to end it. But the Reds leadoff man kept battling, fouling off five straight fastballs before lining the 10th pitch of his at-bat into the left-field corner for a double.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Trevor Williams walked from the Nationals dugout to a pitching mound seven different times Thursday afternoon. He threw a total of 90 pitches during that time.

So why does the official box score from the Nats’ 9-8 win over the Twins show Williams having only pitched five innings? Let’s attempt to explain …

Williams completed his first four innings in rapid fashion, facing only a batter over the minimum, with a scant pitch count of 44. The plan was to get him up to 90 pitches in his final Grapefruit League start of the spring.

But with a host of Nationals relievers also needing work, the innings were going to run out. So manager Davey Martinez and pitching coach Jim Hickey told Williams he would be pulled at some point during the top of the fifth. By the time that point came, the right-hander had already allowed four runs on four hits.

In came Matt Barnes, who induced a double play grounder to end the inning. But when the top of the sixth arrived, there was Williams re-taking the mound, taking advantage of a special spring training rule allowing a pitcher to depart mid-inning if his pitch count gets high and then re-enter the game the following inning.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Zach Davies has been doing this long enough to have real perspective. The 31-year-old right-hander is one of the most introspective players in Nationals camp this spring, understanding that the big picture matters but so does his most recent performance.

And his most recent performance was hard to ignore. For all the wrong reasons.

In his last scheduled start of the spring, Davies was roughed up by the Cardinals during a 13-4 trouncing, unable to get himself out of a seven-run top of the fourth that required 40 pitches on his part.

If this happened any of the previous springs, when Davies was assured a spot in his team’s Opening Day rotation, it wouldn’t have carried much weight. But in this spring, with Davies attempting to make the club off a minor league contract, it stood out like a sore thumb.

“I was extremely pleased with everything, except for the last inning that I pitched,” he said. “It’s unfortunate being in this position. Your last start of spring you don’t really have any more chances to show them what you have. All I can do is be prepared for whatever’s next.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Kyle Finnegan was back on a mound today, albeit a bullpen mound outside CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches as opposed to one inside the stadium.

Finnegan, who hasn’t pitched in a game in six days due to a back tightness, took his first step toward a return this afternoon when he threw a bullpen session. Barring any setbacks, the Nationals closer will appear in Wednesday night’s Grapefruit League game.

“It was something I wanted to keep going through, keep pitching,” said Finnegan, whose back tightened up on him after a weight room workout. “I don’t like to get off-schedule. But we thought it would be a better idea to let it heal completely, feel 100 percent. … I feel 100 percent right now. Just took a few days to let it calm down.”

A creature of routine, Finnegan normally would’ve made several game appearances over the last week. As he learned, though, a little break at this point of spring training isn’t the worst thing.

“I’ve been doing a lot of hot tub, which I’ve enjoyed,” he said. “It’s been pretty nice. They told me don’t do much of anything for a few days.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Spring training pitching lines can be deceptive. What really matters in March: How many runs somebody allowed or how many batters he struck out?

MacKenzie Gore and the Nationals were left asking themselves that question today after a Grapefruit League start the left-hander referred to as “a little weird.”

What made it weird?

“Well,” Gore said, “we struck out 10 and gave up eight runs.”

Yeah, that qualifies. Over the course of  4 2/3 innings against the Mets in what wound up a 9-8 victory, Gore experienced the full gamut of results. He opened his afternoon in dominant fashion, striking out seven of the first 11 batters he faced, effectively locating all of his pitches. Then he closed his afternoon by allowing 10 of the last 15 batters he faced to reach base, eight via hit.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Four years into his big league career, Kyle Finnegan has established himself as good late-inning reliever. And he’s done so with a fairly simple repertoire of pitches. He throws a high-90s fastball most of the time (70 percent on average). And he mixes in a slider to right-handed batters and a splitter to hitters from both sides of the plate, both of those pitches registering around 90 mph with movement in opposite directions.

It’s a formula that has worked well for the Nationals closer. But as he thought about things this winter, he couldn’t help but come back to a certain conclusion.

“I think I’ve performed well, but I’ve always felt like I left something on the table and felt like I could do better than I’ve done,” he said. “And I think something I’ve been missing is a slower breaking ball.”

Indeed, with almost every pitch Finnegan throws clearing the 90-mph mark, there isn’t much reason for hitters to worry about anything throwing off their timing when they dig in against him.

So Finnegan went about trying to address that winter by developing a new pitch. And on Wednesday afternoon, he tried it out for the first time in a game: Say hello to the latest major leaguer to add a sweeper to his repertoire.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Neither of Jackson Rutledge’s two innings today was particularly strong. He walked three batters in the top of the first. Then he surrendered four hits in the second, two of those Red Sox batters eventually coming around to score.

As poor as the results were, Davey Martinez much preferred Rutledge’s second inning to his first one.

“I’d rather see him throw strikes like he did,” the Nationals manager said following a 4-3 exhibition victory. “He just fell behind a little more than he did the last time. Last time, he was strike one. The key for him is to work ahead. The secondary pitches just weren’t effective today.”

Getting a chance to start four days after he tossed two crisp innings of relief, Rutledge looked like a wholly different pitcher. He walked three of the game’s first five batters, and though he escaped that inning with no runs across the plate, he was already behind the eight-ball with a pitch count of 27.

The rookie right-hander was much more around the strike zone in the second inning, throwing 17 of his 23 pitches for strikes. That did contribute to four singles, but he also managed to close out his afternoon with back-to-back strikeouts, something of a silver lining for him.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – When Hunter Harvey landed on the injured list for a month last summer with a right elbow strain, the Nationals had plenty of reason to be concerned. Concerned not only for the well-being of Harvey, whose lengthy injury history is too well known. But concerned also for Kyle Finnegan, who suddenly was the only late-inning reliever Davey Martinez knew he could rely on.

Turns out Finnegan delivered his best stretch of the season while Harvey was out, making 14 consecutive scoreless appearances from mid-July through mid-August, notching the save or the win in 10 of those games and allowing only eight total batters to reach base.

Finnegan’s downfall came not while Harvey was out, but rather after Harvey returned. Over his final 16 appearances of the year, he surrendered 15 runs, allowing nearly two batters per inning to reach base.

The reasonable takeaway from all that: All the work asked of Finnegan earlier in the summer caught up to him by September.

“Yeah, they were a little worn down,” Martinez said, referencing both Finnegan and Harvey, who was scored upon in three of his final seven appearances. “They did a lot. Especially Finnegan, we really pushed him. But he’s a horse, and he wants the ball and doesn’t ever complain. To keep these guys healthy and fresh, we’d like to maybe stay away from them some days. And now we have an opportunity to do that.”

We are now inside of two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, so the offseason is nearly finished.

And what an offseason it’s been for the Nationals, who have … acquired a total of four major league players, not even totaling $10 million spent on those players.

OK, so it’s been an awfully quiet winter on South Capitol Street. There’s still time for Mike Rizzo and Co. to make more moves, though. And given the swath of still-unsigned free agents out there, we may see teams continue to add significant players after spring training has already commenced.

But since we’re getting close to the finish line now, it’s probably a good time to take an updated look at the state of the Nationals’ organization depth chart. We did this way back on Nov. 8, at the outset of the offseason. How does it look today compared to then?

(Note: Players listed below are on the 40-man roster, except for those with an asterisk next to their names.)

We’re not quite there yet, but spring training is drawing near. Pitchers and catchers report to West Palm Beach in a mere 19 days, and at long last the 2024 Nationals will begin to take shape.

There will be more optimism surrounding this year’s team than there was a year ago, with the organization hoping to take another step forward after improving from 55 to 71 wins. But how much better should we believe the Nats actually are?

Nobody’s going to try to claim this roster stacks up with the best rosters in the National League. The key question is: How does it stack up to last season’s roster?

Over the next few days, we’ll attempt to answer that question, position by position. We’ll start today with the pitching staff. So, do the 2024 Nationals look better, worse or the same?

NO. 1 STARTER: Slightly better
Though Patrick Corbin started Opening Day yet again, by season’s end it was clear Josiah Gray was the team’s best starter. Not that Gray resembled a true ace, far from it. He finished 8-13 with 3.91 ERA and 1.459 WHIP. But he cut down dramatically on his home run rate from the previous year and increased his strikeout rate. He also showed an ability to finish strong after a rough stretch during the second half. What can we expect from the 26-year-old this season? More progress should be expected. Gray is learning who he is and who he isn’t as a big-league pitcher. He set out to reduce his homer rate last winter and was successful. If he can be successful reducing his walk rate in 2024, he’ll wind up having a better season.

It’s easy to look at the Nationals right now, silent for more than a month, and stress over what they still need to acquire this winter.

The Nats still need a left fielder. They still need a designated hitter. They may need another starting pitcher. And though several other positions are filled, there are still major question marks about several of those, with few sure things to put your mind at ease.

There’s a lot the Nationals don’t have yet, and it’s certainly fair to worry about that. It’s also fair to look at what they do have in place and take some comfort there.

The cupboard isn’t entirely bare. It’s most definitely better stocked now than it was a year or two ago when the rebuild was still in its early stages.

This is especially true at some of the most important positions on the field, starting with shortstop. CJ Abrams was a big question mark entering 2023, and halfway through the season there remained some real questions about him. But his performance over the second half of the year, at the plate, in the field and on the bases, erased a lot of those questions. Abrams looks like a keeper, and there are few positions around the diamond you’d rather say that about than the one he plays.

It took the entire day, but the Nationals did sign all four of their arbitration-eligible players to 2024 contracts Thursday, with Lane Thomas ($5.45 million) and Luis García ($1.95 million) agreeing to their deals prior to Major League Baseball’s 1 p.m. deadline, then Kyle Finnegan ($5.1 million) and Hunter Harvey ($2.325 million) agreeing to their deals before the 8 p.m. deadline to file arbitration offers.

With that, the Nats avoided any awkwardness – or even nastiness – that could have come from an arbitration hearing next month. The best takeaway from the day: The team and the players appear to have been on the same page on those players’ value to the club. That’s always better than the alternative.

The other notable takeaway from the day: The team’s Opening Day payroll is starting to come into clearer focus.

The Nationals now have 13 players signed for the 2024 season. The list is top-heavy, with both Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin set to earn $35 million this year (though each is deferring at least $10 million until a later date, so their actual income will be closer to $25 million.

Four other players are signed for $5 million to $7 million: Thomas, Finnegan, Keibert Ruiz ($6.875 million) and Trevor Williams ($7 million). Everyone else makes less than $3 million, that list including Harvey, García, Victor Robles, Dylan Floro, Nick Senzel, Tanner Rainey and Ildemaro Vargas.

For the first time in a long time, there will be Nationals news today. Not news about the signing of a prominent free agent (unless Mike Rizzo has a surprise up his sleeve). But news about the status of four players who must either agree to 2024 salaries today or file for arbitration.

The four players on the clock today: Lane Thomas, Kyle Finnegan, Luis García and Hunter Harvey.

What’s actually happening today? Major League Baseball requires all players who are arbitration-eligible (between three and six years of big-league service time, plus a percentage of the most experienced players with less than three years) to negotiate and ultimately agree to their one-year salary figures. Anyone who doesn’t real a deal on their own must then submit a formal salary request, with the team also submitting its formal contract offer, and then an arbitration hearing is scheduled for February before a three-person panel which decides which offer wins.

The all-important caveat: Even if players and teams file for arbitration today, they’re still free to negotiate a deal on their own over the next month. And more often than not, those cases are settled before ever reaching the arbitration panel.

The Nationals actually entered the offseason with eight arbitration-eligible players. But Dominic Smith and Michael Chavis each was cut loose months ago, and Victor Robles ($2.65 million) and Tanner Rainey ($1.5 million) already agreed to their 2024 salaries back in November.

We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2023. We begin the series today with the team’s approach to this season’s trade deadline …

Some of the most significant days of the 2021 and 2022 calendar years for the Nationals came at the trade deadline, when Mike Rizzo made franchise-altering decisions by dealing away stars Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Juan Soto (plus a bunch of other veterans) and kick-started a roster overhaul with the acquisition of a host of prospects.

When it came time for the 2023 trade deadline, the Nats knew things would be different. The question was how different.

There was no superstar to be dealt this time. There was one obvious veteran on an expiring contract who had value to contending clubs: Jeimer Candelario. They hoped there would be others in the form of Corey Dickerson, Dominic Smith and Carl Edwards Jr., but the first two were ineffective and the latter was injured.

So the real dilemma at this deadline involved players who weren’t veterans and weren’t on expiring contracts but might still be coveted by contenders. The two names who stood out in that regard: Lane Thomas and Kyle Finnegan.

The high point of the 2023 season for the Nationals undoubtedly came in August. Specifically, a 22-game stretch from Aug. 2-26 that saw the team go 16-6 and start catching the attention of the rest of the league, which had all but ignored this organization the entire season to that point.

The remarkable thing about that stretch? The Nats didn’t dominate the opposition. The combined score of those games was 106-104. They just found a way to win the late innings, whether rallying to score the go-ahead run or preventing the other team from doing so. The result: They went 8-1 in one-run games during that period.

It requires outstanding bullpen work to do that, and the Nationals got outstanding work from four relievers in particular who were trusted by manager Davey Martinez to pitch the final innings of close games: Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey, Jordan Weems and Andres Machado.

Collectively, those four guys made 43 appearances in those 22 games, totaling 40 2/3 innings. They delivered a 1.55 ERA, 1.057 WHIP and 10 saves (nine from Finnegan, one from Harvey).

The Nationals won all 13 games Finnegan pitched. They won 11-of-12 games Weems pitched and 6-of-7 games Harvey pitched after returning from the injured list mid-month.