MILWAUKEE – The Nationals have found themselves in this position far too often this season, desperately needing to win a series finale to avoid a sweep. It’s happening today for the fifth time in 13 series to date, the second in a row after they found themselves in the same situation in Miami to begin this road trip. Without a win today here in Milwaukee, they’ll head home 1-5 on the trip and 13-29 overall on the season.

Given how much they’ve struggled to score runs, Davey Martinez has decided to try something different with his lineup. For the first time this season, Juan Soto will bat third instead of second. Rationally, it shouldn’t make any difference. Emotionally, maybe it will feel more comfortable for Soto to hit in his more traditional spot in the lineup, perhaps getting a chance to bat more with more runners on base.

The choice to take over the 2-spot for today is Keibert Ruiz, and that feels warranted given how productive the young catcher has been recently. Ruiz is batting a robust .370/.482/.522 this month, and he’s reached base in eight of his last nine plate appearances. Hopefully, he can keep the same mindset batting higher in the lineup for the first time.

The pressure’s also on Aaron Sanchez to try to contain the Brewers lineup, which scored five runs in five innings off Patrick Corbin Saturday night. Sanchez lasted only 3 2/3 innings in the first game of this road trip, allowing four runs on eight hits and three walks to the Marlins.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MILWAUKEE BREWERS
Where: American Family Field
Gametime: 2:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 59 degrees, wind 13 mph out to center field

MILWAUKEE – Much as they might want to convince themselves otherwise, the Nationals can’t win baseball games without scoring runs. Oh, they’ve put this theory to the test for more than a week now, and night after night they have been proven wrong.

Perhaps some teams have the pitching staff to win with one run of support. This team doesn’t.

Six times in their last nine games the Nats have either been shut out or scored one run. They have, unsurprisingly, lost all six of those games, including tonight’s 5-1 loss to the Brewers.

Not that they don’t have the ability on any random night to explode at the plate. In their 13 wins to date this season, the Nationals have averaged 7.7 runs.

Alas, in their 28 losses, they’ve now averaged 2.1 runs. That’s a tough way to live life in the big leagues.

MILWAUKEE – The Nationals intended all along for Ehire Adrianza to hold a key role on their opening day roster, serving as something of a super-utilityman for the club who could bounce around between multiple positions and give regulars some days off along the way.

But when Adrianza strained his left quadriceps during the final week of spring training, those plans had to be put on ice for a while. At last, though, the Nats have reason to believe he’s close to joining the active roster and making the difference they thought he would from the outset.

Adrianza has been playing in simulated games in Florida over the last week or so, and most recently played seven innings with no significant issues, manager Davey Martinez said before tonight’s game against the Brewers.

That means the 32-year-old is just about ready to go on a minor league rehab assignment, the final step before he’s activated off the injured list.

“He’s been playing three innings, four innings, five innings. We’ve built him up now to seven innings,” Martinez said. “Now he feels good, so we’re going to send him out shortly.”

MILWAUKEE – If you’re not excited about tonight’s tilt at Not Miller Park Anymore, perhaps the postgame concert will pique your interest: Vanilla Ice, Naughty by Nature and Rob Base. Hey, if the Nationals get shut out again, “Ice Ice Baby” might be an appropriate tune to blast in the clubhouse afterward.

The Nats need to score some runs, in case you haven’t been paying attention. Five times in their last eight games they’ve either been shut out or held to one run. That’s just not going to cut it. The crazy thing is, this lineup has been all-or-nothing so far this season. In their 13 wins to date, the Nationals have scored an average of 7.7 runs. In their 27 losses, they’ve scored an average of 2.1 runs.

The bad news is, they’re facing two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff tonight. The good news is, Woodruff enters with a 5.35 ERA and 1.336 WHIP. So perhaps he’s more hittable than he’s been in the past. (Either that, or he’s due to dominate for the first time this year.)

Patrick Corbin starts for the Nationals, looking to continue his recent improvements but actually emerge with his first win of the season. The lefty was great for four innings Sunday afternoon against the Astros, then served up three late homers to spoil the start. He’s got to find a way to sustain success, finish strong and give his team a chance.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MILWAUKEE BREWERS
Where: American Family Field
Gametime: 7:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

MILWAUKEE – The ball came off Luis Urias’ bat, headed down the third base line and bounced directly to a charging Maikel Franco, at which point anybody watching immediately must’ve had the same thought.

Could this be a triple play?

And when Franco stepped on third, fired to second and watched as teammate César Hernández made a smooth turn to get the ball to Josh Bell at first base in plenty of time to retire Urias, it almost felt too good to be true.

Has a triple play in a big league game ever looked as easy as the 5-4-3 triplet-killing the Nationals pulled off during Friday night’s loss to the Brewers?

“It’s not easy,” Franco insisted afterward. “But you know, sometimes the play tells you what you have to do. I know I’ve been on the line and the ball was (hit) hard on the line, and I just catch the ball and I think about go to second, and César made the good turn.”

MILWAUKEE – The worst thing a team struggling to win – and, more specifically, struggling to score runs – can do is try too hard to make something big happen.

The Nationals have been trying too hard for several weeks now, committing unforced errors in the field, on the bases and at the plate. It seems to be happening on a nightly basis during their current road trip. And tonight it may have come to a head in absolutely agonizing fashion.

Trailing the Brewers at the time 2-0 with one out in the top of the seventh, Lane Thomas drove a ball off the wall in deep right-center. And when it caromed to the side a bit, Thomas had himself an easy triple.

Except third base coach Gary DiSarcina wanted more. He waved Thomas around, shooting for an unlikely inside-the-park home run. And when the Brewers successfully relayed the ball to the plate to nail Thomas for the second out of the inning and the home crowd of 29,609 roared with approval, all the Nationals could do was watch in disbelief as it happened yet again.

"He thought he may have had a shot," manager Davey Martinez said of DiSarcina. "But when you don't score any runs, you try anything you can to get a run across the plate."

MILWAUKEE – Carter Kieboom hoped he’d be spending the next week building up his arm, resuming baseball activities and making plans to rejoin the Nationals’ active roster sometime in June, the elbow sprain that landed him on the 60-day injured list to begin the season finally behind him. Instead, the club’s longtime third baseman of the future will be preparing for Tommy John surgery that will sideline him until 2023.

Kieboom will have that major procedure Friday to repair his ulnar collateral ligament after the same pain he experienced in spring training cropped up again recently as he attempted to resume his throwing program in Florida. It’s a significant blow for the 24-year-old, who for the third straight season won’t have been able to secure the starting third base job the Nationals have long hoped he would seize when given the opportunity.

“We tried to do it conservatively, which he wanted to try first, and he felt really good,” manager Davey Martinez said of the rehab process Kieboom had endured over the last two months. “And then he started throwing and tried to really get it going, and he said the pain came back. At this point, we thought it was best, and he thought it was best, that he does have the surgery to fix it. This way, he comes back and there’s no other issues.”

The specter of Tommy John surgery has loomed since Kieboom first injured himself making a throw in spring training. An MRI at the time revealed both a flexor mass strain and a sprain of the UCL, though he and the Nats initially hoped he would be able to avoid surgery and return in a few months with rest and rehab.

All along, though, the club knew surgery might be needed if that rehab plan didn’t work. And sure enough, during a follow-up exam in Washington last week, the decision was made to schedule the ligament-replacement surgery.

MILWAUKEE – Hello from the stadium formerly known as Miller Park. It’s now American Family Field, and yes, that’s going to take a while to get used to. The Nationals come to town for a three-game weekend series with the Brewers, hoping for some better results than they experienced during the first half of this trip in Miami, which required some extra-inning drama to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Marlins.

At this point, we kind of know what needs to happen for the Nats to have a realistic shot at winning: They need to hit. Or, more specifically, they need extra-base hits. Though they rank fourth in the National League with a .250 batting average and sixth with a .317 on-base percentage, they’re only ninth in runs scored with 158. Most of that is due to a lack of power; their .360 slugging percentage ranks 11th.

So that’s the challenge tonight against Brewers left-hander Eric Lauer, who enters with a 2.60 ERA and 0.981 WHIP but has allowed a hefty 1.8 homers per nine innings, including three in his last start (against the Marlins). Boy, this would be a good night for Nelson Cruz to get a hold of a pitch on the inner third of the plate, wouldn’t it?

Erick Fedde starts for the Nats, and it’s been some kind of wild ride for him of late. Fedde issued five walks May 8 in Anaheim, yet emerged without allowing a run. He issued three first-inning walks Saturday against the Astros but escaped the jam without any damage before giving up three runs later. Plain and simple, the right-hander needs to have an early feel for more than one of his pitches, keep the ball in the zone and keep his pitch count down against a Milwaukee lineup that’s 10th in the NL in batting average (.233) and on-base percentage (.311) but fourth in runs (179) because … they hit for power (.408 slugging percentage ranks fourth)!

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MILWAUKEE BREWERS
Where: American Family Field
Gametime: 8:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

Trying to catch a break or at least a few clutch hits, the Orioles came up with sort of a partial loaf tonight. They finally scored some runners in scoring position to tie the game 2-2. But when Milwaukee pushed across two runs in the top of the ninth versus righty Jorge López, they beat the Orioles 4-2 at Camden Yards.

But it was a night where the Orioles’ top starting pitcher, lefty John Means, exited the game early due to injury.

Means, who missed time last year with a shoulder issue, retired seven straight batters through the top of the fourth tonight and was trailing Milwaukee 2-0. But he was settling into a good groove, retiring the Brewers in order on nine pitches in the third and 12 pitches in the fourth.

And then he was suddenly out of the game due to left forearm tightness.

When right-hander Joey Krehbiel started warming up in the home fourth, it was clear something was up. Means was at 51 pitches through four and he was rolling. But he would also soon be out of the game.

Orioles left-hander John Means retired the Brewers in order tonight on 12 pitches in the first inning, nine in the third and 12 in the fourth. They scored twice in the second on 18 pitches, but he wasn’t laboring. The total body of work was solid.

Why it lasted only through the fourth was a curiosity, to say the least.

Joey Krehbiel began to warm in the bullpen and entered the game in the top of the fifth. Dillon Tate worked the sixth. Other relievers would be following him, as manager Brandon Hyde needed to cover for Means’ unexpected departure.

The club announced that Means had left forearm tightness, with more details to come, including whether this is an injured list situation. Meanwhile, the Orioles rallied to tie the game in the eighth, but a run-scoring triple by Kolton Wong and RBI double by Rowdy Tellez in the ninth off Jorge López gave Milwaukee a 4-2 win and the series.

Means is expected to undergo an MRI, and the club hopes to have more information Friday.

It is a marquee pitching matchup to wrap up the Brewers-Orioles series tonight as O’s lefty John Means (0-0, 2.25 ERA) faces Milwaukee right-hander Corbin Burnes (0-0, 5.40 ERA) at Camden Yards. Tonight’s winner takes the series after Baltimore’s 2-0 win Monday and Milwaukee’s 5-4 victory last night.

Burnes won the 2021 National League Cy Young Award in a close vote over the Phillies' Zach Wheeler and Max Scherzer, who was with the Nationals and Dodgers last year. In the final vote tally, Burnes came up with 151 points to 141 for Wheeler and 113 for Scherzer. The 10-point margin of victory was the closest in the NL and tied for the fourth-closest overall since the ballot expanded from three to five pitchers in 2010. The closest in the American League was in 2012, when the Rays’ David Price outpointed the Tigers’ Justin Verlander 153-149.

Some Orioles fans will certainly remember that the closest election in the AL before that occurred in 1969 with the only tie in Cy Young Award balloting, between the O’s Mike Cuellar and the Tigers’ Denny McLain, the last year when voters could select only one pitcher.

Burnes is the first Brewers pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in the NL. The only other Cy Young Award winners for the Brewers, Rollie Fingers in 1981 and Pete Vuckovich in 1982, did so in the AL. The Brewers moved to the NL in 1998.

Burnes went 11-5 with an ERA of 2.43, best in the NL, in winning the award. Over 167 innings, he recorded a WHIP of 0.94, allowed just 6.6 hits per nine and only seven homers for a homer rate of 0.4. In 2021, he recorded 58 strikeouts before issuing his first walk on May 13. The Brewers went 19-9 in his starts.

It would have been a cool story to watch unfold for the two brothers. When the schedule was released for the 2022 season, both Ramón Urías of the Orioles and his younger brother, Luis, of the Brewers noted the April dates on the calendar. Ramón’s Orioles would host Luis and the Brewers, and their family would made the trek from Mexico to see it.

But in his first spring training game, Luis, 24, suffered a quad injury.

“We felt bad about it. We were waiting for this time. My family would be here for sure if if we both were playing,” said Ramón, the older brother by three years, today in the O’s clubhouse.

Just like his older bro, Luis also plays second, shortstop and third base. He moved around the infield for the 2021 division-winning Brewers, slashing .249/.345/.445 with a .789 OPS, 23 homers and 75 RBIs.

“When we were growing up together, we talked a lot of baseball,” Ramón said. “We prepared together this offseason in Phoenix. I am proud of him, he’s a good player. We are very close.”