Stone Garrett finds himself back in the Nationals lineup today, the 27-year-old slugger given an opportunity to start in left field after spending the last five games on the bench in the wake of back-to-back impressive performances in Colorado.

Garrett is starting in place of Alex Call, who had been in Davey Martinez’s lineup 11 consecutive games, the last eight as leadoff hitter.

Garrett went 6-for-10 with two doubles, a homer and five RBIs during his back-to-back starts last weekend against the Rockies. Martinez said he hadn’t been back in the lineup since due to matchups, pointing out the Nationals hadn’t faced many left-handers since. Shane Bieber, who starts today for the Guardians, is a right-hander, but Martinez still views this as an advantageous matchup for Garrett.

“This guy throws a lot of off-speed stuff, keeps the ball out over the plate. So I thought it would be a good matchup,” the manager said. “Alex has been playing every day, so give him a day (off). Let’s get him out there. Like I said before, I’ve been wanting to get him out there. I think today is a good day.”

Call had taken over the everyday job in left field after Corey Dickerson suffered a calf strain in the season’s second game. He leads the team with nine walks and sported a .415 on-base percentage six days ago. But he’s just 1 for his last 17 with one walk, and has seen his batting average drop to .208, with his on-base percentage down to .322.

DENVER – The runs would come, the Nationals insisted. As would the power, so long as they continued to have good at-bats. They just needed to start hitting the ball in the air and hitting the ball with authority in the right moments.

And then Alex Call and Jeimer Candelario backed up the sentiment with back-to-back homers to open tonight’s game at Coors Field, setting the tone for the Nats’ best offensive game of the young season, a 10-5 victory over the Rockies.

Call and Candelario set the tone with their early blasts. CJ Abrams provided the real punch later on with a three-hit, two-triple, three-RBI night. Everyone in the Nationals lineup recorded at least one hit by the sixth inning, with the team totaling 19 by night’s end.

"I think it's only a matter of time before we can open up like that," Call said. "I don't know if we're going to get 19 hits every night, but we have a great team in here and we're confident in all our guys. It was great to see everybody swing the bat really well."

Oh, and MacKenzie Gore pitched well again, allowing just two runs over six innings to improve to 2-0 with a 2.38 ERA in the first two starts of his Nats career. The left-hander is the only pitcher on the staff with a win to date.

DENVER – In this, their eighth game of the season, the Nationals will use their third different leadoff hitter.

Alex Call gets the call tonight against the Rockies, batting first after Lane Thomas (five games) and Luis García (two games) previously handled the responsibility.

Why Call, particularly against José Ureña, a right-handed starter? His .400 on-base percentage so far this season makes a good case for him. So does this particular matchup with Ureña, who struggled with command in his season debut last week.

“The matchup with this guy, I like Alex up there,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He walks some guys. Alex does a great job of being that pesky hitter. We’ll see if we can get him on base.”

Call has performed well since being thrust into a semi-regular job as the starting left fielder while Corey Dickerson is on the injured list with a calf strain. The 28-year-old is batting just .214 (3-for-14) but he’s drawn a team-high five walks, elevating his on-base percentage. He’s also tied with Thomas for the team lead with four RBIs.

The Nationals out-hit the Rays all night long, entering the top of the ninth tonight with more than three times as many base hits as their opponents. So why was there a sense of unease as Kyle Finnegan took the mound trying to close out a victory?

Because the Nats didn't make the most of their hits. Yes, they totaled 16 of them, but 13 were singles and the other three were doubles.

The Rays, on the other hand, most definitely made the most of their hits in this game. That's because seven of their 10 went for extra bases, four of those clearing the fence.

And when Luke Raley, Josh Lowe and Yandy Díaz all took Finnegan deep in a disastrous ninth, what should have been an uplifting Nationals victory instead flipped to their most agonizing loss of the young season, a 10-6 defeat that left the home team and a crowd of 15,272 stunned.

"We did what we needed to do to win, and I came up short tonight," Finnegan said. "That's what hurts the most. You want to win the game. I've got to be better."

The MRI of Corey Dickerson’s left calf showed only a “mild strain,” according to Davey Martinez, and the Nationals manager is hopeful his veteran left fielder’s stint on the 10-day injured list won’t be a long one. History, though, suggests it may be as quick a stint as the club hopes.

Dickerson missed a full month with a calf strain last summer while playing for the Cardinals. That doesn’t necessarily mean this one will take the same amount of time to heal, but the Nats do have a potential road map for his rehab based on what happened last year.

“When I talked to him yesterday, he said he was pretty sore,” Martinez said. “We’ll take it day to day. He’s already started the rehab process, so we’ll see how it goes.”

Signed to a $2.25 million contract over the winter, Dickerson was supposed to be the Nationals’ primary left fielder entering the season. But when Alex Call started Opening Day against Braves ace Max Fried, Martinez revealed he planned to platoon the duo, with Dickerson only playing against right-handers.

The 33-year-old wound up starting only one game before his calf tightened up on him in the seventh inning Saturday afternoon.

Bryce Harper was the first to coin the phrase, way back on Sept. 23, 2012 when the then-rookie outfielder lost a fly ball in the sun during an afternoon game at Nationals Park.

“You can’t catch what you can’t see, you know?” Harper said that day. “Nothing you can do about it. Sun Monster got me.”

And for the last decade, anyone who has closely watched the Nationals has known to beware the Sun Monster every September. He comes out like clockwork, just as the summer humidity dissipates and the afternoon sun moves into a lower position above the upper deck at the ballpark.

In Thursday’s season opener, though, the Sun Monster made an extremely rare, late-March appearance, wreaking as much havoc on players in the field for both the Nats and Braves as perhaps it ever has.

It happened during the Nationals’ very first plate appearance of the season. Lane Thomas’ top-of-the-first popup into shallow center field appeared to make for an easy catch for either shortstop Orlando Arcia or center fielder Michael Harris II. But when Arcia called off his teammate and reached up to make the play, he recoiled in horror when he couldn’t locate the ball, which landed harmlessly on the grass for a cheap single.

JUPITER, Fla. – The Nationals made three more cuts this morning, narrowing their options for the final spot on the bench to three players and the competition for four available spots in the bullpen to eight healthy arms.

Outfielder Stone Garrett and left-hander Jose Ferrer were optioned to Triple-A Rochester, with infielder Leonel Valera reassigned to minor league camp.

Those moves leave 32 healthy players in major league camp, so six more must be cut before the Opening Day roster is set next week.

Garrett’s demotion to Rochester finalized what already had become clear over the course of the spring: Alex Call will make the club as the fourth outfielder. The 28-year-old has been the Nationals’ most consistent hitter in Grapefruit League play, entering today’s game batting .333 (13-for-39) with four doubles, four RBI and six walks.

“He’s done really well,” manager Davey Martinez said. “I like him. He’s a pesky guy, and he put together some good at-bats this spring. I know he can do that. When we got him last year, that’s something we liked about him. He’ll accept his walks. He has long ABs. And he puts the ball in play.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals aren’t going to hit for much power this season, that seems pretty safe to say.

Only three players projected to make the Opening Day roster hit double-digit home runs in the majors last year: Lane Thomas, Joey Meneses and Jeimer Candelario. Only Thomas hit more than 13 homers.

If the Nationals are going to score runs this season, they’re going to have to manufacture them. Davey Martinez acknowledges his hitters are going to have to show they can deliver in situational at-bats, whether moving a runner up with less than two outs, driving him home from third with a flyball or coming through with a two-out RBI single.

They’d also benefit from drawing a few more walks. Actually, make that a lot more walks.

The Nats didn’t do that enough last season. Their 442 walks (an average of 2.7 per game) ranked 26th in the majors. And though they’ve been a bit better this spring, they still rank 25th with only 69 walks (an average of 3.3 per game).

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Two weeks from today, the Nationals will be taking the field in D.C. to face the Braves in the 2023 season opener.

That means there’s still two weeks for things to happen, two weeks for things to change and two weeks for club officials to make decisions on which 26 players will take the field March 30.

But with a full month of spring training now complete, some matters have begun to come into focus. Between the cuts that have already taken place and a few unfortunate injuries that have occurred, we have some clarity at some positions.

With a night game on tap this evening against the Mets, let’s take the opportunity this morning to look at who’s still in big league camp, with a position-by-position breakdown of the players who appear to be locks to make the team, those who are unlikely to head north and those whose fates are still up in the air. …

CATCHERS
Locks: Keibert Ruiz, Riley Adams
Unlikely: Israel Pineda
Comment: This one is pretty much locked up, barring some kind of late-camp injury. Pineda actually is dealing with an injury, still recovering from getting hit by a pitch on his right hand two weeks ago. Ruiz is the established No. 1 catcher with the big contract to match now. Adams is the established backup, though he’ll need to start hitting a little more consistently to hold that job long-term.

JUPITER, Fla. – Alex Call probably reported to spring training with a bit of a leg up for a spot on the Nationals’ bench, based if nothing else on the six weeks he spent with them to close out the 2022 season. The Nats liked his ability to play all three outfield positions and were impressed with the surprising pop he displayed (a .441 slugging percentage) in 115 plate appearances.

That Call has proceeded to perform well this spring has only bolstered his case to make the Opening Day roster. He enters today’s game against the Cardinals with a robust .417 batting average (10-for-24), four doubles and two stolen bases in Grapefruit League play.

“He’s staying on the ball really well,” manager Davey Martinez said. “What I like about Alex right now: He’s on time. His swing looks really easy, really smooth. But he’s getting himself on time every pitch, and I love that.”

Call ostensibly entered camp in competition with two newcomers, Stone Garrett and Derek Hill, for the fourth outfielder’s job. Hill pulled his hamstring earlier this month and will likely open the season on the injured list. Garrett showed off his power stroke Friday night when he launched his first homer of the spring, but overall he’s 5-for-23 with eight strikeouts.

Call, meanwhile, has done just about everything in his power to make the decision an easy one. He added to the ledger Saturday night with two hits, a walk and a run scored in the Nationals’ 10-7 win over the Mets.

TAMPA – Davey Martinez has another four weeks before he has to decide who he wants to keep as his fourth outfielder to begin the season, but the evaluation process is already underway. And this afternoon, the Nationals manager has the opportunity to watch all three candidates for that job at the same time.

Alex Call, Derek Hill and Stone Garrett are all in the lineup for today’s game against the Yankees, manning the three outfield positions from left to right. All have some, but not extensive, big league experience. All bring a specific skill or two to the table. In all likelihood, only one will make the Opening Day roster.

If anyone has a leg up from the outset, it might be Call, strictly because he already played for the Nationals last season. The 28-year-old became a semi-regular in left field down the stretch, producing a .772 OPS with five homers in 115 plate appearances and playing the outfield with energy.

Garrett was claimed off waivers from the Diamondbacks, for whom he delivered an .848 OPS and four homers in 84 plate appearances. A physical specimen at 6-foot-2, 224 pounds, he’s got an all-or-nothing swing that led to 27 strikeouts and only three walks in Arizona.

“I’ve seen Alex play last year,” Martinez said. “This is our first year of Stone. I know he’s got a lot of power. I hope that comes out this spring and we see some of that. But they’re very different. They both can do things really well.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals open exhibition play Saturday, which means we’ll see the very first version of Davey Martinez’s 2023 lineup in action.

Don’t pay too much attention to the names in that lineup, though, or where they’re lined up.

Martinez said he plans to use these early Grapefruit League games as an opportunity to get certain players as many at-bats as possible before they depart. That’s why CJ Abrams will lead off Saturday against the Cardinals, with Luis García second and Joey Meneses third.

That’s not Martinez’s lineup plan for Opening Day, at least not at this point. He believes both Abrams and García could become top-of-the-order hitters in time, but that time isn’t yet. He wants to make sure both get comfortable with swing and approach changes they’ve been working on before moving up in the lineup.

“For me, it’s tricky,” Martinez said. “I don’t want to put them in a situation right away where they feel like they’ve got to get on base, they’ve got to rush. I might just let them hit at the bottom of the order first until they get going, and then we’ll see what happens.”

NEW YORK – The worst season in Nationals history ended tonight with another rain delay, another disastrous performance by a starting pitcher and another lopsided loss to a division opponent.

A 9-2 loss to the Mets in Game 162, which began 1 hour and 51 minutes late due to rain, almost felt too appropriate to be true.

It was a fitting conclusion to a miserable season for the Nationals, who finish with a 55-107 record, worst since the franchise arrived in D.C. in 2005.

That includes an abysmal 17-59 record against NL East opponents, a .224 winning percentage that is now the lowest for any major league franchise since divisional play began in 1969, a mark previously held by the 1987 Orioles, who went 18-60 in the AL East for a .231 winning percentage. They were a far more respectable 38-48 against everyone outside the division.

"Our season's over right now, for the players," manager Davey Martinez said. "But the work is just beginning for myself, (general manager Mike Rizzo) and the front office. We've got a lot of work to do. I'm looking forward to this winter, getting things done, and then getting ready for spring training."

MIAMI – If they had the ability to vote for this year’s National League Cy Young Award winner – and they most certainly do not – the Nationals would unanimously select Sandy Alcantara. With all due respect to anybody else they’ve faced this year, how could they go with anyone other than the Marlins ace, who has dominated everyone around the league but has saved some of this best performances for them.

And you can add tonight’s gem to the list. With power and efficiency, Alcantara toppled the Nationals, 4-1, and nearly tossed his second complete game against them this week.

The lanky right-hander struck out 11 and saw his pitch count climb a bit (99) compared to his 103-pitch complete game Sunday at Nationals Park. That prompted manager Don Mattingly to lift him after he struck out the side in the eighth and turn to closer Dylan Floro to finish it off.

That didn’t diminish Alcantara’s performance tonight, in which he allowed only five batters to reach base, with Alex Call reaching three times on his own and everybody else combining to reach twice. Call somehow managed to reach base in six of his seven plate appearances against Alcantara this week, cracking a code nobody else in the Nats lineup could figure out.

There’s no shame, of course, in getting beat by Alcantara, now 14-8 with a 2.32 ERA for the season. But he’s been remarkably dominant against the Nationals, who in five starts went 4-0 with an 0.90 ERA, averaging eight innings per outing.

The Nationals have seen Sandy Alcantara enough to know there isn’t a particularly good way to try to beat him. The Marlins ace has a 100-mph sinker, a 90-mph slider, a 94-mph changeup, command of everything and a rubber arm that allows him to keep on pitching all day and all night.

So when formulating a gameplan for today’s series finale, manager Davey Martinez decided there wasn’t much sense trying to wait out Alcantara and drive his pitch count up. Better to attack him early and hope for the best.

"The big thing about Sandy is, we know he's going to be around the strike zone," Martinez said this morning. "You can't sit there and wait, because you know he's going to pound strikes. So, be aggressive early, and get a ball that you can hit. You don't have to swing overly hard. Just try to make good, solid contact."

That’s all well and good, but if that approach doesn’t produce runs, all it does is keep Alcantara’s pitch count low enough to allow him to go the distance.

Which is previously what happened this afternoon during the Nationals’ 3-1 loss to Miami. Despite getting another quality start out of Aníbal Sánchez and keeping the game within reach, they could not push across more than one run off Alcantara, who was so efficient he took the mound for the bottom of the ninth with a modest pitch count of 90.

The Nationals’ offensive issues this season really can be boiled down to a simple disparity in their production at the plate: Plenty of contact, not nearly enough power.

Entering the day, the Nats actually led the National League with 853 singles, which would be meaningful if not for the major-league-leading 130 double plays they had grounded into. And it’s not like they’ve made up for that with extra-base hits; they ranked 13th in the NL (25th in the majors) with 367 of them.

So consider what they did today during a 5-3 victory over the Marlins within the context of the season as a whole. The Nationals launched four home runs (all solo), then added a pair of doubles. They wound up, remarkably, with zero singles in this game, yet proved it’s still possible to win without them for only the fifth time in club history.

"Don't get me wrong; I like homers," manager Davey Martinez said. "But I also like homers the right way. These guys swung the bats well today. We hit some balls hard. We hit some balls that went out of the ballpark, which is really nice."

It certainly helped matters that four relievers combined to toss five scoreless innings after Erick Fedde labored through four long innings. Without the work of Hunter Harvey, Erasmo Ramirez, Carl Edwards Jr. and Kyle Finnegan, the Nats don’t pull off back-to-back wins over the Marlins after opening the season 1-12 against their division counterparts.

ST. LOUIS – Alex Call returned to his hotel room late Wednesday night and couldn’t help but think about it.

A short while earlier, Call had found himself right in the middle of the play that decided the Nationals’ game against the Cardinals. Having pinch-run for Riley Adams in the top of the eighth, he was now in left field during a harrowing bottom of the ninth that saw Kyle Finnegan turn a comfortable four-run lead into a one-run nailbiter with two outs. And when Tommy Edman smoked Finnegan’s 31st pitch of the inning on a straight line over Call’s head, the rookie outfielder realized he was the Nats’ last hope to win the game.

Call ran back towards the fence, and as the ball was beginning to come down past him, he leaped and stuck his glove out in an attempt to make what would’ve been the Nationals’ greatest game-ending catch since Steven Souza Jr. saved Jordan Zimmermann’s no-hitter on the final day of the 2014 regular season.

But though he got his glove on the ball, Call could not do anything more than deflect it to the ground, where it fell harmlessly as the tying and winning runs scored for the Cardinals.

Nobody was blaming Call for not making a highlight-reel catch afterward, but that doesn’t mean the 27-year-old was at peace with the outcome.

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."

SAN DIEGO – As he watched the chaos unfold before his eyes from his perch in the on-deck circle, Alex Call saw the Nationals take the lead against the Padres in the top of the ninth and saw his opportunity to expand on that lead with Lane Thomas now standing at third base after Josh Hader’s three-base throwing error changed the entire complexion of Friday night’s game at Petco Park.

“OK, time to drive this guy in,” Call thought to himself.

Davey Martinez had the same thought, and with the count 0-1 on Call, the Nats manager gave the safety squeeze sign, hoping the 27-year-old rookie could get the bunt down and get Thomas home to extend the lead to two runs.

Except Call proceeded to foul the squeeze attempt straight back into the backstop, leaving himself in an 0-2 count and taking the bunt out of the equation altogether.

“When I didn’t execute, there’s a lot of things that go through your mind,” he said. “So you’ve really got to step back, take a deep breath and then get into my normal two-strike mode, which is: ‘I believe I’m the best two-strike hitter there is. He’s got to bring a good pitch.’

SAN DIEGO – They went to the ninth all knotted up, for the second straight night. The Nationals’ bullpen kept holding the Padres’ supposedly superior lineup in check, just trying to give its lineup an opportunity to push across the go-ahead run.

And when the San Diego bullpen gate swung open and Josh Hader emerged, the Nats had themselves exactly the opportunity they needed.

For the second straight night, they took down the suddenly slumping All-Star closer. And for the second straight night, they emerged with an inspiring victory over a shell-shocked Padres team and its crowd, this time by the score of 6-3.

"We're battling. And we're actually finishing games," manager Davey Martinez said. "The last couple of days have been really good. And even before then, we fell short, but we're playing a lot better."

Hader faced three batters in the top of the ninth in what had been a tie game. He walked the first one, Victor Robles. He uncorked a three-base throwing error on a tapper toward the mound by the second one, Lane Thomas. And then he served up a two-run homer to the third guy, Alex Call, whose first career major league blast was an especially memorable one.