Unfortunately for the Nationals, Joe Ross' season-ending injury is another blow to an already depleted rotation, one that bears no resemblance to what the club expected to have at the beginning of the season. Fortunately, the two off-days this week surrounding this two-game set with the Blue Jays allow those who are available to pitch to do so on normal rest, not requiring manager Davey Martinez to do much shuffling. This afternoon we'll get another look at Josiah Gray, who has become a...

It had been the one constant around these parts for the better part of the decade. When you thought of the Nationals, you thought first and foremost of one thing: a dominant rotation. Max Scherzer. Stephen Strasburg. Patrick Corbin. Jordan Zimmermann. Doug Fister. Gio González. Aníbal Sánchez. Those are the starters who defined the Nats' consistent pitching success over a prolonged stretch of winning baseball. And the correlation was legitimate. Take the Nationals rotation's six best...

On Sunday afternoon, Lane Thomas became the 54th player to appear in a game for the Nationals this season. That's an exceptionally high number, only three shy of the club record set way back in 2006. And with 44 games still to go, and more players likely to join the roster before this is over, it's quite possible this year's team will establish a new record. The pertinent question right now, though, isn't how many guys will play for the Nationals in 2021. It's how many of the guys...

There are things you find out about ballplayers at 10 p.m. in front of a sellout crowd, and then there are things you find out about them at midnight in front of a few thousand fans who were willing to wait out the longest rain delay of the season. They all matter in the end, and all of these experiences ultimately shape young ballplayers into the finished products they will become in due time. And they don't always have to produce positive results, as much as everyone wishes they...

The Nationals are back home again, having just suffered through a brutal 1-5 road trip to Atlanta and New York that included blown saves, rain delays, rainouts and other assorted calamities. All of that leaves this team in a prolonged funk unlike any they've experienced in a very long time. The Nats have lost 27 of their last 37 games. The only worse stretch in club history came near the end of the 2009 season, the last time this franchise lost 100 games. That's how bad things have...

Two weeks ago today, the Nationals completed six franchise-altering trades, admitting this season was a lost cause. They were able to move eight players (seven on expiring contracts) to net 12 prospects in return. Ten of those 12 are already in MLBPipeline.com's ranking of the top 30 Nats prospects. Six of those 12 are in the top 16. And three of those six are in the top 10, including Nos. 1 and 2, Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray (both acquired in the Max Scherzer-Trea Turner deal with the...

The past few days have not been easy on Nationals manager Davey Martinez and pitching coach Jim Hickey. A suspended game Tuesday night then a postponement last night has led to today's doubleheader against the Mets at Citi Field, while also throwing the Nats' pitching plans into chaos. Good thing they're in the city that never sleeps. After a confusing 40 hours or so, Martinez was able to lay out his pitching plans for today's two games: Sean Nolin will start the opener and Erick Fedde will...

These are the games that will be worth watching, no matter the outcome, no matter the Nationals' sinking place in the standings. When Josiah Gray takes the mound the rest of the season, it will amount to something close to must-see TV. And when another young prospect acquired in last week's trade deadline sell-off delivers a game-flipping homer with two outs in the ninth as Riley Adams did tonight to produce a stunning, 3-2 victory over the Braves? Well, the Nats couldn't draw up a scenario...

The Nationals aren't playing winning baseball right now, not anything close to winning baseball. They enter tonight's game in Atlanta having dropped five in a row and 23 of 32 overall. So the focus, of course, turns to individual performances, especially those who figure into the club's long-term plans. So tonight we get an opportunity to watch one of the key building blocks again: Josiah Gray. The 23-year-old right-hander, one of the key prospects acquired from the Dodgers for Max Scherzer...

There are going to be more nights like this at Nationals Park the rest of the season, nights that include legitimate reason for optimism and then legitimate reason for anguish. It's up to everyone - the players, the coaches, the front office, the fans - to decide what to care most about. On this unseasonably cool August Monday night, the optimists could look at Josiah Gray's Nationals debut and be thrilled with the young right-hander's five innings of one-run ball and long-term...

The debut of a promising young pitcher is always exciting. Perhaps the circumstances that preceded Josiah Gray's debut tonight at Nationals Park weren't cause for celebration, but now that it's happened it's worth embracing. This isn't Gray's major league debut; he pitched twice for the Dodgers in the last few weeks. But there's an entirely different kind of hype and pressure for this start than either of those. He's not just a prospect who was called up. He's now one of the prospects...

Josiah Gray, the top pitching prospect the Nationals acquired in this week's blockbuster trade with the Dodgers, will make his debut for the club Monday night, starting the series opener against the Phillies. The Nats officially added Gray to their active roster this morning, giving him a day to get acclimated before he takes the mound for the first of what they hope is many starts in the coming years after making him one of their centerpiece acquisitions in exchange for stars Max Scherzer and...

It will be years before anyone can know if the Nationals got enough legitimate prospects during their 36-hour trade deadline binge of 2021 to lift the franchise back into contention. As much as folks want to instantly grade a team's performance on trades, it simply can't be done until all involved players have a chance to prove who they are on the field. But this much we can say already about the 12 young players the Nats just acquired from six clubs in exchange for eight veterans: They have...

The Nationals aren't just trading Max Scherzer to a National League West contender. They're also including Trea Turner in the deal. A blockbuster trade that will send both Scherzer and Turner to Los Angeles for four young players, headlined by the Dodgers' two top-rated prospects (catcher Keibert Ruiz and right-hander Josiah Gray), is in the final stages of being approved by all affected parties, a source familiar with the discussions confirmed tonight. Also included in the trade are...