LOS ANGELES – At the end of a 10-day, three-city jaunt that included stops in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles, CJ Abrams was asked how long the Nationals’ just-completed road trip felt.

“It feels long,” the shortstop said. “We’re excited to get back home and beat some more people up.”

Abrams said this with his usual soft voice, no emphasis on that last phrase, so it was easy to gloss right over it. But in those few words, the brightest young star on the Nationals conveyed what many in the clubhouse are beginning to sense.

This team isn’t content with simply making progress anymore. This team is ready to start winning, no matter the level of competition it’s facing.

Overall, the Nationals head home with an 8-10 record that doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence. But dig deeper, and it’s not hard to see how this team is starting to come together, and how there’s reason to believe the results are going to keep getting better as this season plays out.

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 most surprising thing about the Nationals’ 7-1 loss to the Giants on Wednesday? Nobody on the team stole more than one base during the game.

This wouldn’t normally qualify as any kind of surprise. Except the 2024 Nationals have made such feats on the basepaths so commonplace, it’s suddenly shocking when it doesn’t happen on any particular day.

The season is only two weeks old as of today, so much could still change. But at this early juncture on the baseball calendar, the Nats lead the majors with 25 stolen bases. And they’ve been caught only twice, making for a 93 percent success rate that dwarfs anything they’ve done before.

“They’re playing with their hair on fire,” manager Davey Martinez said. “And I like it.”

This was a point of emphasis from Martinez and his coaches to their players throughout spring training. They knew this lineup’s shortcomings (power) and strengths (young athleticism). Instead of lamenting what they didn’t have, why not take full advantage of what they do have?

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.

SAN FRANCISCO – This was supposed to be a big outing for Josiah Gray, who would have been looking to bounce back from two ragged starts to begin his season. Instead, Gray is on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow/forearm flexor strain and Joan Adon instead will make this start against the Giants.

Adon is no stranger to the big leagues; this is his 26th career start. And he pitched here at Oracle Park two years ago, suffering a 9-3 loss. He made only one start for Triple-A Rochester, though, and that was 11 days ago when he gave up four runs (two earned) in only 2 1/3 innings. The challenge will be even tougher tonight.

The Nationals lineup does get a boost with CJ Abrams returning after three days off with a bone bruise in his left pinky finger. The shortstop took batting practice and fielded grounders prior to Monday’s game, so it appears he’s good to go. The Nats will happily welcome him back to the top of their lineup tonight as they face Giants lefty Kyle Harrison in his 10th career start.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
Where: Oracle Park
Gametime: 9:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 60 degrees, wind 11 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
DH Joey Gallo
1B Joey Meneses
LF Jesse Winker
C Riley Adams
2B Ildemaro Vargas
3B Trey Lipscomb
CF Jacob Young

SAN FRANCISCO – CJ Abrams is out of the lineup for the third straight day, but the Nationals shortstop appears to be progressing from an injured finger well enough to think he will be ready to return Tuesday night.

Abrams, who suffered a bone bruise in his left pinky sliding into second base Friday night, was due to take a full round of batting practice and fielding drills prior to tonight’s series opener against the Giants. Barring any setbacks, he could be available to come off the bench tonight and then return to the lineup Tuesday.

“He felt better today,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He’s going to go out and do all baseball activities. Hopefully he’ll be available to pinch-run, pinch-hit, whatever we need him for. But if he goes through everything well, he’ll probably be back in the lineup tomorrow.”

The bone bruise is on Abrams’ glove hand, so it doesn’t really impact him in the field. The larger issue is at the plate, but he’s made progress the last few days and should be able to play through it soon.

“Right now, it’s his swinging,” Martinez said. “He said he swung the bat better today in the cage. But it is his top hand. Every time he goes to turn like that, it kind of catches him. But they taped him up; he said the tape helped. Hopefully he’ll go out there today, take batting practice and get out in the field.”

For the second straight day, CJ Abrams remains out of the Nationals lineup for this afternoon’s series finale against the Phillies.

The young shortstop was a late scratch from the lineup yesterday with a bone bruise in his left pinky finger suffered while sliding into second base Friday night.

“He's still a bit sore. So it's still going to be day-to-day,” manager Davey Martinez said of Abrams before the finale. “We'll see how he feels throughout the day. He's getting treatment. And I'm hoping that he could pinch-hit for us today late in the game. I just don't want to push it too much. I don't want to aggravate it.”

Nasim Nuñez replaced Abrams at shortstop yesterday and went 0-for-2 before being subbed out for pinch-hitter Luis García Jr. late in the game. Ildemaro Vargas is playing short today and batting seventh.

Abrams was off to a strong start to the season before the injury, slashing .321/.387/.607 with a .994 OPS, one triple, two home runs, five RBIs, three walks and a perfect 3-for-3 in stolen bases without committing an error in the field.

The Nationals’ first homestand of the season comes to an end with this afternoon’s finale against the Phillies. The team will board a cross-country flight tonight to begin a nine-game West Coast road trip over the next 10 days.

The Nats will also try to avoid their first sweep of the season after dropping the first two games to their division rivals with MacKenzie Gore taking the mound for his second start of the regular season. The young left-hander struggled in his season debut in the Nats’ home opener on Monday, giving up three runs, five hits and two walks with six strikeouts in a loss to the Pirates.

Gore will look to be more efficient with his pitches against a dangerous Phillies lineup after needing 101 to complete 5 ⅓ innings his first time out.

CJ Abrams is out of the lineup again on Sunday. He was a late scratch before yesterday’s game with a bone bruise in his left pinky finger suffered while sliding into second base Friday night.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 60 degrees, wind 11 mph in from left field

CJ Abrams was scratched from the Nationals’ lineup about two hours prior to first pitch, most likely still feeling the effects of Friday night’s slide into second base in which he jammed his left hand into the bag.

Rookie infielder Nasim Nuñez will take Abrams’ place at shortstop today against the Phillies, marking the Rule 5 Draft pick’s first career start in the major leagues.

Abrams lined a one-out single to right in the bottom of the third Friday night, advancing Luis García Jr. from second to third. Apparently believing García was going to attempt to score on the hit, he rounded first and continued to second, only to be thrown out when Bryce Harper cut off Nick Castellanos’ throw and relayed it to Trea Turner, who applied the tag in time. (García never attempted to score on the play, held up by third base coach Ricky Gutierrez.)

Abrams stayed on the ground for several seconds after the play, looking at his left hand, though he remained in the game and continued to play the rest of the way. He lined out to right his next time up and was robbed of a possible hit by left fielder Brandon Marsh in his final at-bat.

A Nationals lineup that has scored only 27 runs through seven games this season will miss Abrams’ presence. The 23-year-old leadoff man is slashing .321/.387/.607 with a team-leading two homers, five RBIs and three stolen bases.

The Nationals know what Josiah Gray looks like at his best, slinging up any of seven different pitches to keep hitters off-balance and induce a host of swings and misses while escaping the occasional jam.

The Nationals also know what Gray looks like at his worst, unable to locate his fastball, unable to put away hitters, unable to extend outings due to high pitch counts.

And two starts into his 2024 campaign, the 26-year-old right-hander has resembled only the latter version of himself, not the former.

Hoping to bounce back from a disappointing Opening Day outing in Cincinnati last week, Gray instead regressed in some ways, getting roughed up by the Pirates early and often and failing to make it out of the fifth inning during what wound up a 7-4 loss in a rain-delayed series finale at Nationals Park.

One week after allowing seven runs on eight hits and two walks in four innings against the Reds, Gray was charged with six runs on seven hits and three walks in 4 1/3 innings today, digging his teammates into a big hole early that made the rest of the affair mostly moot.

They would’ve come home flying high, having just won the season’s opening series on the road against a team with October aspirations, and having done it on the backs of some of their most important young players.

They would’ve taken the field at Nationals Park to a thunderous roar from a large crowd excited to welcome them home for the first time in 2024, enthusiasm soaring after such an uplifting start to the year.

They would’ve been the proud owners of a winning record for the first time since – get this – July 1, 2021, a night that saw a Nationals team loaded with star power fall to 40-39 after a loss to the Dodgers in which emergency second baseman Alex Avila strained not one but both of his calves. By month’s end, they would trade Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and a host of other veterans in the first act of a long and painful roster rebuild.

The Nats won’t take the field with a winning record today, though. They’re 1-2, not 2-1, after Kyle Finnegan’s swift and painful, bottom-of-the-ninth meltdown late Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati sapped all the goodwill out of the clubhouse and left a dejected ballclub to quietly shower, dress and head to the airport.

But does that loss, agonizing as it was, really change the overall state of the Nationals on this date? Does a blown save on March 31, ghastly as it was, erase everything else that preceded it?

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.

CINCINNATI – The Nationals didn’t do a lot of things well in Thursday’s season-opening loss to the Reds, but high on the list was their lack of patience at the plate, leading to zero walks during the 8-2 loss.

They flipped the script Saturday, taking advantage of Hunter Greene’s wildness to draw four walks off the Cincinnati starter, then another two off closer Alexis Diaz during their ninth-inning rally to win 7-6.

Davey Martinez hopes the message sunk in for his players.

“If we accept our walks and not chase, we’ll hit the ball hard,” the manager said. “That’s what we’ve got to do always. We talked a lot about it this spring, we worked on it. These guys have to understand that taking your walks, good things happen. We saw that yesterday with CJ.”

Indeed, CJ Abrams was the biggest beneficiary of all of plate discipline. The 23-year-old shortstop drew three walks during the game, immediately stealing second base after each of them and ultimately scoring three runs.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – MacKenzie Gore isn’t quite established enough to ignore spring training results, but neither is he devoid of any track record and thus feels the need to make a statement when he takes the mound this time of year in Florida.

Gore is unquestionably part of the Nationals’ Opening Day rotation, perhaps someday in the near future the guy leading that rotation into a season. So these spring training outings are about two things: building his arm up and emerging healthy.

“I feel good, that’s the biggest thing,” the 25-year-old left-hander said this afternoon. “Not as sharp today, but it was good. We got into some situations and could see what we wanted to use. But I feel good, that’s really the most important thing.”

Oh, by the way, Gore was also successful in the results department, tossing three scoreless innings on 43 pitches during what became a 10-8 loss to the Astros.

Only two Houston batters reached base against Gore: Jake Meyers via a leadoff walk in the second, Grae Kessinger via a leadoff bloop single in the third. Neither advanced beyond first base, with Kessinger wiped out by an inning-ending double play in the third.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – If everything goes as planned, Jackson Rutledge probably isn’t going to make the Nationals’ Opening Day rotation. But if everything goes as the team hopes, Rutledge could join the rotation at some point this season and, ideally, pitch well enough to stay.

The 2019 first-round pick made his long-awaited debut last September, his path to the majors having been slowed by injuries and struggles on the mound. The tall right-hander had a rocky first start but then acquitted himself well after that and came to camp this spring feeling better about his long-term prospects.

Rutledge already showed well in a two-inning relief appearance here Saturday. Today, he’ll get a chance to start a Grapefruit League game for the first time, facing a lineup full of guys wearing Red Sox jerseys. Technically, these are the Boston Red Sox, but if you glance at that lineup, you’re not going to see a lot of guys who are going to open the season in Boston.

The Nationals’ lineup is a mixture of regulars, bench players and kids. Dylan Crews and Drew Millas are the two prospects starting today, though James Wood and Robert Hassell III are scheduled to come off the bench. Also scheduled to pitch in relief are Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey and DJ Herz.

And the best news of all: You can watch today’s game live on MASN at 1 p.m.!

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Inside the home clubhouse at Nationals Park back on March 30, 2023, a devasted CJ Abrams couldn’t believe the nightmare he had just endured.

In his first Opening Day as the Nats’ starting shortstop, the then-22-year-old committed three errors while also going 0-for-4, a disastrous game for anyone at any time, let alone the first day of the season.

“It killed him,” said Ricky Gutierrez, who served as the team’s defensive coordinator last season and was specifically charged with coaching the infielders. “He was crushed.”

Few games get dissected the way Opening Day games get dissected, every positive and every negative moment magnified as if the fate of the entire year depends on it. And for Abrams, the easy narrative was impossible to ignore: He was going to be a liability in the field, not to mention a weak hitter.

Abrams and Gutierrez can laugh a little about it now, some 11 months later, because they know how everything turned out. Abrams wasn’t a liability in the field. Over the course of the season, he developed into a stabilizing force in the field, not to mention one of the most dynamic leadoff hitters in baseball.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – On the final day of full-squad workouts before exhibition play commences, the Nationals turned their attention to some seemingly mundane – yet important – topics manager Davey Martinez felt needed to be addressed.

In addition to the usual defensive drills and live batting practice sessions, players worked on situational hitting and specific baserunning situations. They also got a crash course on a little-known rule change for the 2024 season.

Infielders for the first time are no longer allowed to block the base with a knee or other body part. Runners must be given a clear path to the base, just as they’re allowed at the plate.

So players today worked on proper form for receiving throws at the bases, and then proper form for tagging runners, all of this designed to prevent them from being called for obstruction.

“We can’t block the base,” Martinez said. “So we’re teaching these guys to get to the base as quick as they can, to straddle the base a little bit. Because it will be called obstruction. So we worked on that today. They all seemed to do well with it.”

The most significant moment of the Nationals’ 2023 spring training didn’t happen on the field. It happened in an office room at the team’s complex, when Keibert Ruiz grabbed a pen and signed a long-term extension with the club.

Whether Ruiz’s eight-year, $50 million deal was a good move for the organization or the player remains to be seen. He enjoyed an improved season at the plate but regressed behind the plate, calling into question his ability to stick as a franchise catcher for years to come.

But the significance of the move doesn’t change. After countless attempts to get other young cornerstone players to sign long-term extensions before reaching free agency fell flat, the Nats finally got this one done. And they got it done five years before Ruiz would’ve even been eligible for free agency, making him the first player in club history to agree to such an extension at such an early stage of his career.

That, of course, produced an obvious follow-up question: Can they do it with anyone else?

“This is the first one we’ve ever got done, yeah,” general manager Mike Rizzo said at the time. “But it wasn’t the first attempt at it.”

We’ve spent much of the winter discussing the Nationals’ offensive strengths and weaknesses, asking if the changes they’ve made will make a positive difference this season. We looked at the pitching staff and wondered where the improvement will come from in 2024.

But what about the Nats’ defense? Should it be improved from last season? Could it be worse? It’s about time we tackled that subject as we move within a week of the start of spring training.

For those who don’t remember, the Nationals were not a good defensive team in 2023. They were 26th in the majors (tied with the Phillies) with minus-30 Defensive Runs Saved. They were charged with 90 errors, ranking in the bottom half of the league. Their “Defensive Efficiency” – the percentage of balls in play they converted into outs – was 68.2 percent, ranked 24th. Their catchers threw out only 14 basestealers, tied for second-fewest in the majors.

Which isn’t to say everything was bad in the field.

CJ Abrams made major strides at shortstop, and by season’s end he was both making all the routine plays as well as a number of non-routine plays, looking every bit like a keeper there.