It’s New Year’s Day, and you won’t find anybody associated with the Nationals not named Meneses who was disappointed to see 2022 come to an end.

It was a miserable year, arguably the most miserable year in club history.

But like Mark McGwire once tried to do in front of a congressional panel, let’s not talk about the past anymore. Let’s look ahead to the future.

What does 2023 have in store for the Nats? Optimism, obviously, isn’t going to be sky-high, but there are plenty of reasons to believe it will at least be better than the just-completed year was.

Here are some reasonable outcomes various members of the team should be hoping to achieve in 2023 …

The Nationals’ offseason moves to date have been, well, less than inspired.

They signed Jeimer Candelario for one year and $5 million, then Trevor Williams for two years and $13 million. They acquired, via the Rule 5 draft and the waiver wire, unproven players named Thad Ward, Stone Garrett and A.J. Alexy. They brought back sentimental favorites Sean Doolittle and Matt Adams on minor league deals. And they’re now on the verge of bringing back Erasmo Ramirez for one year and perhaps as much as $2 million if he hits all his incentives.

Not exactly a rousing Hot Stove League to date. Certainly not compared to the rest of the National League East, which has seen the Mets, Phillies and Braves continue to bolster what already were playoff rosters with even more talent and even more dollars devoted to payroll.

It’s frustrating, for fans and team employees alike who were hoping for a bit more financial commitment from ownership on the heels of a 107-loss season.

Are the 2023 Nationals as currently constructed any better than the 2022 Nationals were? It sure doesn’t look like it on paper. They might even be worse, hard as that is to believe.

Though there’s been a bit of movement on the free agent market elsewhere, we’re still in the preliminary stages of the offseason around here. The Nationals have yet to add anybody to the fold, focusing instead on which players to add to their 40-man roster and which players to remove from the equation.

But now that they’ve completed those tasks, it’s fair to wonder when they’ll start moving onto free agency and addressing a handful of significant needs. (It’s also fair to wonder if they’ll be able to address any of those needs while the club is still for sale, but we’ve already raised that question and there’s not much more to say about that for now.)

So let’s proceed as if Mark Lerner has given Mike Rizzo the green light to spend some money this winter. Not gobs of money, but enough money to fill roster holes with actual free agents, not just bargain-basement pickups.

The Nationals have multiple needs. We’ll focus today on a particularly important one: starting pitching.

The 2022 rotation ranked dead-last in the majors in ERA (5.97) by a longshot, last in WHIP (1.563), last in walks per nine innings (3.76), last in strikeouts per walk (1.97), last in homers allowed (161). It’s hard to believe they finished with the majors’ worst record as well, isn’t it?

PLAYER REVIEW: JOSIAH GRAY

Age on opening day 2023: 25

How acquired: Traded with Keibert Ruiz, Donovan Casey and Gerardo Carrillo from Dodgers for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, July 2021

MLB service time: 1 year, 75 days

2022 salary: $703,500

The Nationals, Phillies and Major League Baseball had multiple meetings this morning to discuss the situation and forecast surrounding today’s series finale.

This game is important to the Phillies, who currently own a one-game lead over the Brewers for the final National League wild card. The Brewers are wrapping up a home series against the Marlins today before welcoming the Diamondbacks for three games. The Phillies head to Houston to play the Astros for three games after finishing here, whenever that is.

With rain forecasted all day, there was talk of possibly moving the start time of this game up to 12:30 p.m. and then 1:05 p.m. from the scheduled 1:35 p.m. start, hoping to find a window to play in before the weather gets worse.

There was a light rain at Nationals Park earlier this morning that they could have played through. But then steady rain and strong winds made conditions unplayable on South Capitol Street for a while.

The tarp is being rolled up and players are starting to loosen up in the outfield, so it looks like they are going to try to start on time. Davey Martinez did not speak with the media before the game as he was still in discussions with the Phillies and the league office.

The Nationals have any number of reasons to want to finish this 100-plus-loss season on positive notes, both on a team level and an individual level.

On a team level, the 3-2 10-inning win they pulled off tonight over the Braves thanks to CJ Abrams’ walk-off single most definitely qualifies as a positive note.

On an individual level, the six standout innings Josiah Gray pitched tonight most definitely does as well.

With his best start in more than a month, Gray nearly shut down the Braves’ potent lineup altogether, allowing Matt Olson’s solo homer in the second but hardly anything else during an 85-pitch gem during what might wind up being his final start of an up-and-down year.

That decision is still to come from Davey Martinez, who has repeatedly mentioned a desire to limit the 24-year-old’s innings and potentially shut him down early, but to date has continued to let him take the mound up to the season’s final week.

It hasn’t been a pleasant experience for the Nationals to face the Braves this season. (Not that it’s been much more pleasant to face anybody else in the NL East this season.) Tonight, they get one final shot at beating the defending World Series champions and perhaps dealing them a blow in their attempt to surpass the Mets to win the division this year.

It’s Josiah Gray back on the mound for what again could be his final start of 2022, though there still remains a need for somebody to pitch next week’s final series in New York, so don’t just assume this is the end of the road. Regardless, the 24-year-old right-hander would love to wrap things up on a positive note, because it’s been a difficult September for him (18 earned runs, 25 hits, 11 walks, five homers in 19 1/3 innings).

Gray has actually faced the Braves only once this season, way back on April 13 at Truist Park. He tossed five scoreless innings, allowing only one hit. A lot, of course, has changed since then.

Jake Odorizzi starts for Atlanta. The Nats saw him this spring when he was with the Astros, but this is the first time they’ve faced him since he was acquired by the Braves. Davey Martinez goes with a lineup that again includes CJ Abrams as No. 2 hitter, with Luis García returning to play second base after sitting out Tuesday’s game and Riley Adams back behind the plate.

ATLANTA BRAVES at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 66 degrees, wins 9 mph left field to right field

MIAMI – Despite plenty of consideration over the last few weeks, the Nationals will not shut Josiah Gray down yet, giving the right-hander at least one more start this season.

Gray will pitch Wednesday against the Braves in D.C., the club decided today.

That decision was made both with consideration about the state of Gray’s arm at the end of his first full big league season, as well as the uncertain status of Patrick Corbin, who had to depart his last start in Atlanta after tweaking his back and will miss at least one turn through the rotation as a result.

“One, he’s still strong. He’s still throwing the ball well,” manager Davey Martinez said of Gray. “And two, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Corbin yet. But I like the way he threw the ball (Friday). The big thing is, he threw a lot more changeups; we want to continue to see him develop his changeup. So we’re going to give him another start and go from there.”

Gray had some encouraging moments during Friday night’s loss to the Marlins, in which he went six innings and began to rely more on his emerging sinker and changeup in addition to his slider and curveball, while throwing fewer four-seam fastballs. A potential quality start, though, fell apart during a three-run bottom of the sixth that left the 24-year-old upset at himself afterward.

MIAMI – There are 12 games remaining on the Nationals’ schedule, 12 games that need to be played in 12 days (with one off-day still on tap but a day-night doubleheader also on the slate). Which means Davey Martinez and Jim Hickey have 12 more starting pitchers to name, which is becoming a more daunting challenge than either man anticipated.

In a perfect world, the Nationals would’ve had more starters than dates that needed to be filled. They would have Cade Cavalli and MacKenzie Gore ready to finish strong and perhaps allow Josiah Gray to shut down early. They would have the ability to prevent Patrick Corbin from making a run at 20 losses. They would have kids they could summon from their farm system to take over at the end for veterans who just don’t need the work at this point.

But this is not a perfect world, and so Martinez and Hickey may be forced to do some things with their rotation they’d rather not.

Consider Gray, for example. The Nationals have been talking for months about their preference not to let the 24-year-old’s workload get too heavy in his first full professional season. The intention was always going to be to shut him down at some point in late September.

But following Friday night’s 5-2 loss to the Marlins – in which Gray looked really sharp for five innings before faltering in the sixth – Martinez admitted this decision has gotten tougher in the wake of Corbin’s recent back injury. (The left-hander, who was removed from his last start after only 12 pitches, played catch Friday and reported improvement, but there’s still no guarantee he returns to pitch before season’s end.)

MIAMI – As he’s done throughout his first full big league season, Josiah Gray did some things tonight that could only leave the Nationals encouraged about his prospects for long-term success.

Gray didn’t surrender a home run for the first time since June 18. And he didn’t walk a batter through his first five innings of work against the Marlins, keeping his pitch count much lower than he has throughout most of the summer.

But just as he’s done throughout his first full big league season, Gray also did just enough to turn what could’ve been a strong start into something much less satisfying. With a ragged, three-run bottom of the sixth, the Nats right-hander lost his shot at a quality start and left his team in a position to eventually lose 5-2.

Gray’s 10th loss of the season sent the Nationals to their 98th loss of the season. With presumptive Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara set to start for Miami on Saturday, they very well may take the field Sunday afternoon trying to avoid reaching the 100-loss mark for the first time in 13 years.

A lack of offense beyond Lane Thomas’ leadoff homer in the first and Joey Meneses’ RBI double in the eighth didn’t help matters. But in the end, Gray proved to be the story of the night, for both encouraging and discouraging reasons.

MIAMI – Fresh off what I’m sure was a relaxing day off here in Miami, the Nationals open a three-game weekend series with the Marlins, their last chance to face a team that isn’t in the pennant race before the season ends.

The Nats took two of three from Miami last weekend in D.C. in one of their better performances during an improved September stretch. Their only loss came to Sandy Alcantara, and unfortunately they’ll have to face the presumptive National League Cy Young Award winner again Saturday. So that perhaps puts some added pressure to win tonight’s opener.

That means Josiah Gray needs to put together a solid outing, something he hasn’t done in a while. In three September starts so far, the right-hander has a 9.45 ERA, with 10 walks and five home runs allowed over only 13 1/3 innings. He hasn’t earned a win in any of his last 15 starts.

You would hope the spacious outfield here at loanDepot Park would help Gray keep the ball in the yard. So the key to success, then, may well be his ability to limit the walks that have so often plagued him this year.

The Nationals go up against Braxton Garrett, the rookie left-hander who enters with a 3.68 ERA in 14 big league starts. He faced them once before, on July 4 in D.C., where he allowed only one run on four hits over 7 1/3 impressive innings.

Lane Thomas has become one of the Nationals’ hottest hitters down the stretch of this season, owner of a .357 batting average, .419 on-base percentage and .991 OPS over his last 13 games. And his leadoff homer Saturday helped set the tone for his team’s 5-3 win over the Marlins.

So why isn’t Thomas in the Nats’ lineup for today’s series finale? Consider the numbers against Miami’s starter this afternoon: Thomas is 0-for-11 with six strikeouts in his career against Sandy Alcantara.

Not that anybody has particularly good numbers against Alcantara, who could be on his way to the first Cy Young Award of his career. But in this case, the numbers are so striking, manager Davey Martinez didn’t want to risk Thomas falling into a slump via one bad game at the plate against an ace.

“He’s been swinging the bat well. And I want him to continue to swing the bat well,” Martinez said with a laugh. “I saw the numbers as well, and I thought he’s been playing every day. He’s been playing a lot. I know we’ve had some days off, but I thought give him a day, a little breather, and keep him going.”

Indeed, Thomas has started 30 consecutive games, so he certainly has earned a day off at this point. But he’s also been quite productive during this stretch. Over his last 28 games, he’s batting .310 with seven doubles, a triple, six homers, 14 RBIs and a .913 OPS.

First came Joey Meneses’ inside-the-park homer, a huffing-and-puffing adventure around the bases to add the latest improbable chapter to the 30-year-old rookie’s out-of-nowhere arrival.

Then came CJ Abrams’ two-out, two-run triple, an explosive sprint from the plate to third base by the dynamic 21-year-old shortstop.

And when Ildemaro Vargas drove the go-ahead double to left-center in the bottom of the eighth, the Nationals had finally pulled off something they’d done only once in 13 previous tries this season: They beat the Marlins.

Storming back to score five runs in their final two offensive innings, the Nats emerged with a 5-4 victory over Miami, only their second win over their division counterparts this season, certainly the most uplifting to date.

"I look back, and I think about when we play good defense, good things happen," said manager Davey Martinez, whose team indeed sparkled in the field again tonight. "We're playing good defense, we're staying in some of these games. And the hits are going to come, the runs are going to come. Continue to get the defense, get good pitching, and we'll win some games."

The Nationals have been dreadful within the NL East this season, going an inconceivable 11-46 against division opponents to date. But would you have guessed their biggest struggles have come not against the division’s three playoff contenders but the only other sub-.500 team? Somehow, the Nats have gone 1-12 against the Marlins, a shocking head-to-head record when you think about it.

Which brings us to the season’s remaining schedule: 19 games, all against NL East foes, including six against Miami. That’s still a significant 25 percent of their overall intradivision games to go, which could either makes a miserable season even worse or perhaps offer a tiny sliver of good vibes heading into the winter.

Josiah Gray gets the start for tonight’s series opener, his first appearance in eight days. These are important outings for the young right-hander, who has run up a higher innings count than he ever has in his professional career and is in danger of being shut down if he doesn’t show some encouraging signs here soon. Tonight would be a good time to begin that process.

The Nationals go up against Jesús Luzardo, their former prospect who was dealt to the Athletics way back in 2017 for Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson and has experienced some ups and downs since then. The 24-year-old lefty is 12-18 with a 4.87 ERA overall in 57 career big league games, 3-7 with a 3.81 ERA in 14 starts this season. Luzardo is facing the Nats for the first time this year, but he went up against them three times in 2021 and gave up 14 runs in 13 innings.

MIAMI MARLINS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 76 degrees, wind 4 mph out to left field

About an hour north up I-295, a rival organization provides a blueprint for the Nationals and their rebuild.

A few years ago, the Orioles began the process of rebuilding their own organization. Now they are starting to turn the tide into contention, finding themselves unexpectedly four games out of an American League wild card berth.

That path back to contention is a similar one the Nationals want to follow now that they have fully embraced their own rebuild. And perhaps reach that turning point sooner.

This week’s two-game series against the Orioles was a good chance for the Nats to measure their young players against some of the best prospects in baseball.

Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Kyle Stowers and DL Hall were all at one time ranked in multiple publications’ top 100 prospects lists. They also headlined an Orioles farm system that has been one of if not the best in the sport since executive vice president and general manager MIke Elias took over in 2018.

PHILADELPHIA – News and notes before the Nationals (hopefully) take the field for their series finale against the Phillies (provided the weather holds up) …

* Luis García is out of the lineup for the second straight day. Manager Davey Martinez said on Saturday the young second baseman was simply getting a breather and would be back for today’s game. But it turns out while taking swings in the cage Saturday, García didn’t feel right.

“He actually hit yesterday after we spoke, and he came up to the trainer and said his right side was sore,” Martinez said this morning. “So he got evaluated. They worked on him. I want to be extra careful, so we’ll give him today off. Then we’ve got a scheduled day off tomorrow. So we’ll see how he feels today and then tomorrow.”

With García out, the Nationals interestingly enough are having Ildemaro Vargas start at second base this afternoon, with César Hernández at third base. That’s the opposite alignment they used Saturday night, when both players were charged with throwing errors and Hernández made several other poor throws from second base.

“They’ve both played both positions,” Martinez said. “Give Vargas a day or two over at second base as well, just to see what that looks like. We’ve talked a lot about being versatile, so I want to get him over there. And César’s been playing third base well, so we just decided today we’ll switch it up.”

PHILADELPHIA – Some news and notes before the Nationals take on the Phillies in the second game of this weekend’s series at Citizens Bank Park …

* MacKenzie Gore is set to make a rehab start Sunday for Triple-A Rochester at Syracuse, his first game action since his acquisition from the Padres at the trade deadline.

Gore, who has been on the 15-day injured list with left elbow inflammation, is scheduled to throw three innings for the Red Wings, perhaps building up his pitch count to 45.

The Nationals are attempting to build Gore up enough to come off the IL before season’s end. Manager Davey Martinez said they’d ideally like for him to get up to five innings and 75 pitches, so that would suggest three minor league rehab starts and then at most two starts for the Nats in the season’s final days.

“The most exciting thing is that he’s throwing off the mound again. The ball’s coming out, and he looks like he’s good,” Martinez said. “Now it’s just a matter of facing hitters. We saw him do that a little bit, but now he gets to compete. I’m looking forward to watching him do that. My big thing is to make sure that when he leaves here this year, he’s healthy and he can go into the winter. And then we’ll build him up and get him ready for spring training.”

ST. LOUIS – When a familiar situation presented itself this afternoon at Busch Stadium, his team holding a late lead against the Cardinals, Davey Martinez opted to once again entrust that lead to Kyle Finnegan.

The only difference: This time, Finnegan got the ball for the bottom of the eighth, not the bottom of the ninth.

Actually, there was another difference: This time, Finnegan retired the side, then watched as his teammates blew the game wide open in the top of the ninth en route to a most impressive 11-6 victory for the Nationals less than 24 hours removed from a heart-wrenching loss in which Finnegan blew a four-run lead in the ninth.

There was no drama this time. (Well, the Cardinals did score two runs in the bottom of the ninth off Jake McGee and threaten to make this interesting before Carl Edwards Jr. cleaned up the mess.) Instead, there was a clean inning of setup work for Finnegan, and a whole lot of offense from the Nationals, who left town with heads held high after earning a four-game series split against the NL Central-leading Cardinals.

"I can't say enough about how these guys are playing," Martinez said. "I said these guys play hard for 27 outs. Today's the perfect example of them getting after it again, scoring a bunch of runs and playing good baseball."

ST LOUIS – The Nationals were one out away Wednesday night of victory, of securing at least a four-game split here at Busch Stadium and of clinching a winning road trip against two division leaders. And then … well, you know what happened in the bottom of the ninth.

They still have an opportunity today, however, to achieve all of the above and head home 4-3 against the Mets and Cardinals, which would be no small achievement. They’ll attempt to do so in an early matinee, with a 12:15 p.m. local first pitch on a bright, warm September afternoon here.

Josiah Gray gets the start, and he’ll need to be better than he was in New York, when he allowed six runs to the Mets. These final starts of Gray’s season are important. He really wants to finish on a high note and go into 2023 feeling good about his place near the top of the Nats rotation. To do that, he’s going to have to pitch well against some good lineups still on the schedule, including the Cardinals lineup he’ll face today.

The Nationals, who were completely shut down by left-hander Jordan Montgomery until the seventh inning Wednesday night, now go up against the wily old veteran right-hander, Adam Wainwright, who today pairs up with Yadier Molina for the 324th time as a major league battery, tying the all-time record. Notable switch to Davey Martinez’s lineup: Nelson Cruz has been bumped down to the No. 6 spot after struggling out of the cleanup position.

Update: The Nats have a late lineup change: Victor Robles was scratched with a stiff neck. Alex Call replaces him batting ninth and playing left field. Lane Thomas is now in center field.

NEW YORK – The Nationals are still determining when and how much they intend to keep pitching Josiah Gray through the season’s final month, acknowledging the 24-year-old right-hander is fast approaching a workload beyond any he’s handled before.

For now, the club is trying to manage Gray’s innings by giving him extra time between some starts, in this most recent case skipping his last turn in the rotation altogether. The Nats, though, do want to make sure he gets more opportunities to pitch in meaningful games, particularly games against teams playing in a pennant race down the stretch.

All of that brought more significance to tonight’s game at Citi Field than it might otherwise have held. Making his first start in 13 days, in his hometown with friends and family members in attendance, Gray went up against a tough Mets lineup that’s trying to lead its team to a division title and then more come October.

The end result? Despite some encouraging moments along the way, Gray nonetheless was charged with six runs in five-plus innings, turning what was shaping up to be a competitive game into a comfortable 7-3 Mets victory that left the Nats with a 9-43 record against division opponents this year.

"Obviously, I enjoyed pitching back here in New York and getting a little bit of rest," he said. "The results didn't go my way, but I felt really good. It was a lot of fun to pitch here in New York."