MIAMI – It’s been all or nothing at all lately for the Nationals. They won by five-run and seven-run margins in their two victories over the last week. They then failed to score more than two runs in any of their four losses.

On Sunday, they ran into a red-hot Justin Verlander, who held them scoreless over five innings in an eventual 8-0 loss. On Monday night, it was the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara who kept the Nationals bats quiet while handing down an 8-2 loss in front of 6,601 at loanDepot Park.

So now that makes no more than two runs scored in each of their last five losses.

The evening actually started off well for the visiting side. César Hernández greeted Alcantara with a leadoff single in the top of the first and would eventually come all the way around to score on an RBI single from Yadiel Hernandez (filling the designated hitter role after Nelson Cruz was scratched from the lineup with an illness) for a quick 1-0 lead.

That would be all the Nats could muster off Alcantara.

MIAMI – The Nationals will be without designated hitter Nelson Cruz for Monday’s series opener against the Marlins.

Originally slated to bat fourth in his usual DH role, Cruz was scratched just under two hours before the scheduled first pitch to start this three-game set in Miami. Yadiel Hernandez will now bat cleanup as the designated hitter, with Lane Thomas sliding into left field and batting seventh.

Cruz was seen earlier today in the Nationals clubhouse before the team took the field for pregame warmups. He was wearing a mask as he gathered his things and left the clubhouse shortly before the media spoke to manager Davey Martinez.

“Yeah, we might have a lineup change,” Martinez said when asked about Cruz’s sudden departure. “He didn't feel too good. I didn't want him around the other boys. So I'm going to talk to our trainers after this and we'll figure out what's going on.”

Whether Cruz was wearing a mask for precautionary reasons or it was deemed that he had to remains unclear. No other players, coaches or staff members were seen wearing masks.

MIAMI – ¡Bienvenidos a Miami! After finishing up a six-game homestand by going 2-4 against the Mets and Astros, the Nationals now embark on a six-game road trip starting with tonight’s series opener against the Marlins.

Interestingly enough, the Nats have fared much better away from their home ballpark so far in 2022. They’re 7-9 (.438) in their 16 road games and have outscored their opponents 94-86. They are 5-15 (.250) and have been outscored 100-56 in 20 home games.

Aaron Sanchez will look to build off one of his strongest outings as a National, when he held the Mets to three runs on six hits with no walks over 5 1/3 innings Wednesday. For the season, Sanchez is 2-2 with a 7.58 ERA and 1.421 WHIP over four starts.

Sanchez made two starts against the Marlins last year as a member of the Giants, holding the Fish to just one run over a combined 9 2/3 innings.

Sandy Alcantara will take the bump for Don Mattingly’s club while looking to continue his strong start to the season. The right-hander is 2-2 with a 2.74 ERA that ranks ninth in the National League. He held the Nats to just one run over six innings in an April 26 win at Nationals Park.

This is my first solo road trip covering the Nats, so I’m excited to bring you coverage this week from South Beach. Mark Zuckerman will rejoin the team in Milwaukee on Friday.

Update: Nelson Cruz was scratched from tonight's lineup. Manager Davey Martinez said the slugger wasn't feeling well. Yadiel Hernandez is now the designated hitter and batting fourth, and Lane Thomas is now in left field and batting seventh.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot Park
Gametime: 6:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

NATIONALS
2B César Hernández
RF Juan Soto
1B Josh Bell
DH Nelson Cruz Yadiel Hernandez
C Keibert Ruiz
3B Maikel Franco
LF Lane Thomas
SS Dee Strange-Gordon
CF Victor Robles

RHP Aaron Sanchez

MARLINS
2B Jazz Chisholm
DH Jesús Aguilar
LF Jorge Soler
1B Garrett Cooper
RF Avasaíl García
3B Brian Anderson
CF Bryan De La Cruz
SS Erik González
C Jacob Stallings

RHP Sandy Alcantara

As the Nationals look to win their first home series of the 2022 season, they will once again be without shortstop Alcides Escobar, who will miss his third straight game.

Escobar was a late scratch from the starting lineup before Tuesday’s series opener against the Mets. After the game it was revealed he was dealing with an infection under the nail of his left index finger.

The timing of the infection was unfortunate for the veteran infielder. After a slow start to the season in which he was batting only .127 over his first 17 games, Escobar has slashed .440/.482/.560 with a 1.042 OPS over his last seven outings, going 11-for-25 with three runs scored, a double, a triple, a walk and a hit-by-pitch. However, his struggles in the field continued as he committed four errors over that seven-game span.

The 35-year-old tried to convince manager Davey Martinez he could swing the bat without using the affected finger (a la Trea Turner from a couple of years ago), but the skipper didn’t want to risk it.

Doctors removed fluid from the finger on Wednesday, but it remained sore, keeping Escobar out of the lineup for the Nats’ 8-3 win. He then woke up Thursday morning feeling a lot better, with Martinez expecting the shortstop to return for Friday’s series opener against the Astros after one more off-day.

SAN FRANCISCO – Under no circumstances would a major league manager ever openly admit he’d rather hit the road for a week and a half and leave the comforts of home behind. And let’s be clear, Davey Martinez did no such thing this afternoon when asked (somewhat sarcastically, for the record) if he was actually glad the Nationals got out of D.C. and could now embark on a nine-game West Coast stretch against the Giants, Rockies and Angels.

“Hey, believe me, I love playing at home, I really do. And I know the guys do, too,” said Martinez, whose team had just lost eight consecutive games at home. “We like playing in front of our fans. The week there wasn’t good, but like I said, we saw some good things, and I think we’re really close. We’ve got to hit, though. We all know that, right?”

Yes, it’s tough to win when you don’t hit. But when you do? Oh, man, is it a breath of fresh air. And boy were the Nationals able to breathe in all the cool Bay Area air tonight while beating up on the Giants 14-4 to put an emphatic end to the losing streak and begin this daunting trip in as encouraging a fashion as they could’ve conjured up.

"We showed off what we have in the lineup," said Juan Soto, who homered, singled home another run and drew a walk. "At the end of the day, we're even missing two hitters and we still scored 14 runs. That means we have a lot in our lineup. I think we can do a lot more damage."

That’s right, the same Nationals lineup that totaled 16 runs and 52 hits during those eight consecutive losses while playing on South Capitol Street busted out for a season-high 14 runs and 22 hits tonight at Oracle Park. They didn’t do it by launching the ball into warm, humid air that helped carry it over the fence. No, they did it the old-fashioned way, delivering clutch RBI singles and doubles in sustained fashion for the first time in weeks, just as their manager hoped they would all along.

SAN FRANCISCO – Nobody’s ever going to say they prefer a nine-game road trip to a 10-game homestand, but this might just be the exception to the rule. After a dismal 2-8 stretch capped with eight consecutive losses in D.C., the Nationals now embark on a three-city West Coast trip against the Giants, Rockies and Angels. It’s a daunting stretch, to be sure, but at this point it can’t be any worse than what just happened, right? (He says cringing.)

The Nats were swept by the Giants last weekend, but San Francisco’s roster will look a little different this time. Joc Pederson, who had a huge series at Nationals Park, is out with an adductor strain. Also there appears to be concern about a COVID-19 outbreak in the home clubhouse, with at least three players impacted so far.

Aaron Sanchez makes his second start for the Nats, each of them coincidentally against the team he pitched for last season. The veteran right-hander was OK in his debut, allowing one run through four innings before hitting a wall in the fifth and ultimately taking a 5-2 loss. Sanchez’s arm should be built up for more than the 64 pitches he threw in that one, so hopefully he can at least complete five innings tonight.

It’s really about the lineup, though, a group that has scored a grand total of 16 runs during this eight-game losing streak. (And even the last game the Nationals won came by the score of 1-0.) Manager Davey Martinez continues to look for some combination that gets things going, but let’s be honest. Nothing’s going to happen until the triumvirate of Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz and Josh Bell are all hitting in sync. Soto and Bell have had their moments so far, but Soto has struggled of late. And Cruz continues to search at the plate, hitting a ton of balls into the ground instead of elevating them. He’ll hope to get on track tonight against Giants lefty Alex Wood, who faced Sanchez last weekend and allowed two runs in five innings (one of them on a homer by Riley Adams).

If you didn’t already know, tonight’s game is only on Apple TV+. Here's a link to watch directly on the device you're currently using …

After the Nationals wrap up a 10-game homestand with today’s afternoon finale against the Marlins, they will board a plane to embark on a nine-game road trip out west.

First stop: San Francisco, to face a familiar foe in the Giants.

The Giants just swept a three-game series in D.C. last weekend, so the Nats will look to start their three-city road trip with some revenge by the Bay.

Manager Davey Martinez announced this morning he will be sticking with his regular rotation from the past week to lead his club on the mound this weekend, with Aaron Sanchez, Joan Adon and Josiah Gray scheduled to start the three games against the Giants.

As Martinez mentioned last week, Sanchez will get another chance to start after making his Nationals debut Saturday, also against the Giants, in which he gave up four runs and six hits over 4 1/3 innings. While that line doesn’t jump off the page, Sanchez did retire nine straight between the second and fourth innings. 

It’s a tough ask for any pitcher to come up to the big leagues and make a spot start. You’re usually facing an unfamiliar lineup and have done little preparation.

But Aaron Sanchez has been around the block a few times over his seven-year major league career. He had pitched in 159 games while making 103 starts with the Blue Jays, Astros and Giants before making his Nationals debut this afternoon.

And he’s familiar with his opponent, the Giants, who he pitched for last season, while also being on one extra day of rest from his last start with Triple-A Rochester on Sunday. So Nationals manager Davey Martinez liked the matchup for Sanchez to make a spot start.

Sanchez pitched admirably in this opportunity, but was done in by the bookends of his outing that only lasted 4 ⅓ innings en route to a 5-2 loss in front of 27,799 fans on a beautiful 73 degree day in the District.

"I thought I threw the ball well," Sanchez said in front of his new locker at Nationals Park after the game. "Early, they got a couple of hits that found holes. Mostly throughout most of the game, I felt like they found holes. Maybe two to three hard hit balls. But that's baseball. I felt like maybe in the fifth pitch selection could have been a little different now going back and looking at it. But I thought, for the most part, I threw the ball well."

While the Nationals enjoyed the off-day due to Monday’s rainout to break up a scheduled 18-day stretch of games to start the season, and while they enjoyed watching budding stars Josiah Gray and Joan Adon lead them to a doubleheader sweep of the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, this week’s schedule crunch created a dilemma for Saturday’s game against the Giants.

With the spot in the rotation open for this afternoon, manager Davey Martinez would have loved to use his secret weapon in Paolo Espino for the start. The right-hander had been stretched out as a starter in spring training and had pitched multiple innings in each of his first two outings of the season.

But after last night’s debacle in which Patrick Corbin only went 1 2/3 innings, Espino was needed to cover the last two innings of the game, taking him out of consideration to start Saturday.

With no other available arms, the Nationals needed to make a roster move. They selected the contract of right-hander Aaron Sanchez and officially announced him as today’s starting pitcher. In order to add Sanchez, the Nats also had to remove someone from the 40-man roster.

That someone was right-handed reliever Patrick Murphy, who was designated for assignment to clear space for Sanchez.

Hope you slept fast because we’re right back at Nationals Park for a rare early Saturday afternoon game. The Nationals are looking to bounce back after last night’s 7-1 series-opening loss to the Giants in which Patrick Corbin gave up seven runs in just 1 2/3 innings. 

The Nationals needed to make some changes to their roster this morning in order to bring up a pitcher for today’s start. Although Monday’s rainout gave the staff a needed break, Tuesday’s doubleheader against the Diamondbacks created a conundrum for today. And after Paolo Espino’s two innings of work last night, the Nats needed reinforcements for their second game against the Giants.

Aaron Sanchez, who made his way to D.C. from Triple-A Rochester last night, is set to make his Nationals debut against his former team. The 29-year-old right-hander is 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA in three starts with the Red Wings. He has a 3.93 ERA over his seven-year major league career, including a 1-1 record and 3.06 ERA over nine appearances (seven starts) with the Giants last year.

In order to select Sanchez's contract and make room on the 40-man roster, the Nats designated right-hander Patrick Murphy for assignment.

Manager Davey Martinez has made a significant change to the top of his lineup this afternoon. Lane Thomas is in the leadoff spot with César Hernández moving down to the sixth spot. After posting a .364 on-base percentage in 45 games with the Nats last year, Thomas gets his first chance to lead off this season.