While James Wood’s first two major league games came with all of the deserved hype, the Nationals’ top prospect had yet to really deliver a signature moment.

Sure, he reached base in high-leverage moments in both games, but he hadn't yet scored his first major league run nor recorded his first major league RBI.

So maybe the third time would be the charm for Wood, who was promoted to the No. 1 prospect in baseball by Baseball America earlier today. And sure enough, his first big league moment came tonight in leading the Nationals to victory.

Wood drove in the game-winning run with an RBI single in the seventh inning of the Nats’ 7-5 win over the Mets, their first against their division rival this season.

After rallying from a 5-0 deficit to make it a one-run game entering the sixth inning, the Nationals offense put Wood in position to be the hero.

Will tonight be the night? Can the Nationals finally beat the Mets after starting the year 0-5 against their division rival? Better yet, can they do it in the standard nine innings after losing each of the first two games of this series in the 10th?

Starting pitching hasn’t been a problem for the Nats this week. On the contrary, they have remained in these games thanks to some dominant performances from their starters over the last two days. Mitchell Parker will look to continue that trend in his 15th start. The left-hander is 5-4 with a 3.32 ERA and 1.119 WHIP to begin his rookie season.

The Mets called up rookie right-hander Christian Scott to make his sixth major league start tonight. The 25-year-old is 0-2 with a 3.90 ERA and 1.084 WHIP to begin his big league career. After holding his own against two southpaws in his first two games, this will be James Wood’s first time facing a right-handed starter in the majors.

If you’re coming to the game tonight, you’ll be treated to the traditional postgame fireworks ahead of tomorrow’s July 4 celebrations.

Note: The Nationals requested unconditional release waivers on Eddie Rosario, who was designated for assignment on Monday to make room for Wood.

Tuesday’s news on Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli wasn’t good, certainly not in Gray’s case. The Nationals’ Opening Day starter, who landed on the injured list after two outings with a right flexor strain, has been shut down during the final stages of his rehab assignment after a recurrence of elbow discomfort and is scheduled to visit specialist Keith Meister in Dallas during the All-Star break.

We won’t know until then whether Gray’s injury has become far more significant and requires surgery, or whether he managed to avoid the worst and just needs more time off. Either way, it’s clear he won’t be pitching in the big leagues anytime soon, and his 2024 season could end up a complete wash.

There’s still reasonable hope for Cavalli pitching major league games for the Nationals in the relatively near future, though his return from Tommy John surgery isn’t as imminent as it once looked after the right-hander came down with the flu last week and now needs to start building up his arm yet again. Both Cavalli and Gray’s rehab assignments have been shut down.

This would have qualified as terrible news back in April. The Nats absolutely were counting on both Gray and Cavalli to be a big part of their 2024 rotation, and then for years to come after that.

It’s still bad news, but it may not be as damaging to the club’s short-term and long-term hopes as most would’ve thought when the season began. For that, we can thank the remarkable and unexpected ascension of three other young starting pitchers who have dazzled so far in the majors this year: Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz.

James Wood has spent all of two nights in the big leagues. Each time, the Nationals’ top prospect has found himself stepping to the plate to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning in a tie game. Each time, he hasn’t been able to score the winning run.

And each time, the Nats went on to lose to the Mets after a disastrous top of the 10th.

The script was basically the same tonight, New York scoring five 10th-inning runs after exploding for six in Monday’s series opener. The Nationals didn’t have a last-ditch rally in them and thus lost their fifth straight to their division rivals, this time by a more lopsided score of 7-2.

"I think I've kind of been learning quick that how close these games really are," Wood said, "and one play can really make a difference."

Kept off the bases his first three times up tonight, even though he scorched the ball each time, Wood finally got a chance to face a right-hander in his fourth plate appearance of the game, his ninth overall in the big leagues. He saw six pitches from the Mets’ Jose Butto, didn’t swing at any of them, and wound up drawing the walk.

Josiah Gray is unlikely to pitch again for some time after the right-hander experienced elbow discomfort during his last rehab start, prompting the Nationals to schedule an MRI and a consultation with Dallas specialist Keith Meister during the All-Star break.

Though they don’t yet know the extent of this setback, the Nationals and Gray admittedly are worried about the possibility of a serious injury that requires him to miss considerable time after he already spent nearly three months trying to make it back from a flexor strain in his elbow and forearm.

“I’m a little concerned right now,” manager Davey Martinez said. “We got him ramped up, he looked good. Last outing, the velo wasn’t there. He said he just felt tired. His arm, he felt like he had nothing in there. So we’ll wait and see what happens.”

Gray was making his fifth rehab start of the month Sunday, his previous outing Tuesday for Triple-A Rochester going exceptionally well: six innings of one-run ball on 73 pitches. This latest appearance bore little resemblance to that one, with Gray getting roughed up for seven runs in three innings and his fastball topping out at 91.9 mph.

“Honestly, I felt really good going into it,” the 26-year-old said. “And then in between innings, I didn’t feel like I was recovering well. I just felt a little fatigued. Told the trainers, and we tried to get ahead of it. We’ll see what we’ve got when we get the MRI.”

Monday wasn’t a typical day at the ballpark. Today should be, as the hullaballoo of James Wood’s debut dies down and the rookie outfielder just gets to work on being a big leaguer for a team trying to start winning games again.

The Nationals had themselves within a game of .500 just over a week ago, but they’ve lost six of their last seven and now suddenly sit at 39-45, three games behind a Mets team they led for most of the season’s first half. They need to get this thing back in gear before it spirals too far out of control.

Wood and his teammates will be facing another left-hander tonight in Sean Manaea. The 32-year-old has solid numbers (3.89 ERA, 1.297 WHIP, 76 strikeouts in 76 1/3 innings) but he’s also walking four batters per nine innings. A Nats lineup that frequently hasn’t shown enough patience needs to show it tonight.

DJ Herz, meanwhile, starts for the Nationals, and the rookie left-hander needs a bounceback performance after back-to-back shaky outings on the road that have made his 13-strikeout gem against the Marlins feel like a distant memory. We still don’t know what exactly is going on with Josiah Gray and Cade Cavalli, so Herz’s job may not be on the line tonight. But a strong outing would certainly help his cause to stick around and avoid a trip back to Triple-A Rochester.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly clear, 84 degrees, wind 10 mph out to left field

James Wood was the center of attention Monday night, and he may remain so for the foreseeable future. But a whole lot of other stuff happened during the course of the Nationals’ wild, frustrating, 9-7, 10-inning loss to the Mets.

And it’s worth revisiting some of those other key developments through the course of the game …

* Another rough night for Harvey
There haven’t been many players on the roster this season more consistently reliable than Hunter Harvey, but the right-hander is in a legitimate pitching slump right now. And it’s costing his team games.

Harvey entered Monday’s affair having been scored upon in two of his three previous appearances, not to mention four of his last nine. He endured through an awful 10th-inning meltdown in San Diego last week. And then he basically re-lived it Monday night against the Mets.

Harvey faced six batters and retired only two. The three hits he surrendered were a three-run homer, a two-out double and an RBI triple. He got only two swings and misses out of his 24 pitches. And of the five balls that were put into play against him, four featured exit velocities of at least 101.5 mph, while the fifth still clocked in at 98.6 mph.

This was always going to be James Wood Night at Nationals Park, no matter how the 21-year-old performed in his major league debut, no matter the outcome of the Nats’ series opener against the Mets.

But as early evening turned to dusk turned to night on South Capitol Street, it became clear this game was going to come down to Wood at the plate – or the bases – with a chance to be the hero.

The only problem: Wood needed at least some help from his teammates, and alas they provided none at the critical moment of the game. Which then set the stage for the proceedings to flip entirely in the other direction.

A six-run top of the 10th by the Mets, five of those runs scoring off Hunter Harvey, ultimately was the difference in what devolved into a bizarre, 9-7 Mets victory, spoiling Wood’s highly anticipated debut before a crowd of 26,719 that desperately wanted to go home happy but instead left disappointed.

"Obviously, that's the end goal," the sport's No. 3-ranked prospect said at the end of a long, emotional day. "I wish we'd come out with a win. But we've got another one tomorrow, and that's all I'm focused on."

James Wood’s arrival date had been known since Friday. What wasn’t known was the identity of the player whose roster spot the Nationals’ top prospect would take.

That question finally was answered this morning when the Nats designated Eddie Rosario for assignment, bringing an end to the veteran outfielder’s frustrating three months with the organization. The 32-year-old hit just .183 with seven homers, 26 RBIs and a .555 OPS in 67 games.

The Nationals had high hopes for Rosario when they signed him to a minor league deal in spring training, assuming all along he would make the Opening Day roster. He did make the club and earned a guaranteed $2 million in the process, with the potential to earn up to $2 million more via performance incentives.

Rosario actually started Opening Day in center field, ahead of Victor Robles, though he eventually settled into the two corner outfield positions, playing in right field while Lane Thomas was on the injured list and then shifting to left field once Thomas returned.

Rosario labored through a miserable April, finishing that month with only six hits in 68 at-bats, one homer and three RBIs. A notorious slow starter, he and club officials insisted things would turn around as the season progressed.

A day Nationals fans (and players, for that matter) have long awaited has arrived at last. Nearly two years after the deal went down, the top prospect acquired in the Juan Soto trade makes his major league debut. And he’ll be joined on the field by two other top young building blocks who arrived in the same trade with the Padres.

It’s James Wood Day on South Capitol Street, and this promises to be the organization’s most significant debut since Soto himself arrived in May 2018. Don’t be surprised, though, when the lineup is unveiled and you have to scroll down a bit to find Wood. Soto batted sixth in his first career start (after one game coming off the bench). Same for Ryan Zimmerman (after four games off the bench) and Anthony Rendon. Bryce Harper batted seventh in his debut. Trea Turner batted eighth (after four games off the bench).

Abrams, who also had to earn his way up the lineup, will be leading off as usual against Mets starter David Peterson. Despite the lefty-lefty matchup, here’s some good news: Abrams has an .889 OPS vs. left-handers this season, and Wood had a 1.089 OPS against lefties at Triple-A. Not bad.

MacKenzie Gore is on the mound, and he is especially excited to have this assignment tonight, knowing the significance of this game. The young lefty knows he needs to control his emotions and perform a lot better than he did last week in San Diego, when he allowed five runs in five innings during a highly charged game with the Padres. The Mets also got to Gore for six runs in 4 1/3 innings last month, so he should have plenty of motivation to be good tonight.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv, MLB Network (outside D.C. market)
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 79 degrees, wind 11 mph in from left field

April was an especially encouraging month for the Nationals, who played .500 ball for the entire month and saw one of their most important young players take his game to another level.

In that opening month to the season, CJ Abrams put forth a titanic offensive slash line: .295/.373/.619. He got on base. He stole bases when presented with the opportunity. He scored runs. He drove in runs. He drove in himself. It was to be just the beginning of a breakthrough season for the 23-year-old shortstop.

Then came May, and with it a precipitous drop in production. Abrams slashed a far less impressive .205/.216/.304 in the season’s second month. He didn’t get on base. He didn’t steal bases. He didn’t score as many runs. He didn’t drive in as many runs.

And with an 0-for-3 showing Wednesday in the Nationals’ 9-1 loss to the Mets, Abrams’ prolonged slump continued. He’s now batting a mediocre .246 with a .293 on-base percentage and .446 slugging percentage.

Is it any wonder the Nats are 13-19 since May 1, making that April of success feel like a distant memory?

The Nationals came home Sunday evening rightfully feeling good about themselves after a winning road trip against a pair of contenders. Next up: a three-game series against a Mets team in disarray in advance of its weekend trip to London to face the Phillies.

What ensued: A three-game sweep at the hands of that supposedly unraveling Mets club that featured two ugly pitching performances, an injury to one of the team’s best starters to date and precious little production from a lineup that has been the roster’s weak link for two months now.

Consider today’s 9-1 shellacking before the fans who waited out a rain delay a new low point to the season. Patrick Corbin was rocked once again. The Nationals lineup looked helpless against Luis Severino. And by day’s end, it was Davey Martinez’s bunch that looked ready to leave town, not the guys heading to England.

"Rough series," Martinez said. "But we can't feel sorry for ourselves. We've got another tough team coming in (the Braves this weekend). We've got to be ready to play tomorrow."

Outscored 23-11 during the sweep, the Nats held a lead after only one of the 27 innings they played. They saw MacKenzie Gore get roughed up for six runs in 4 1/3 innings Monday. They made David Peterson throw only 81 pitches in 6 2/3 innings Tuesday. And today they suffered the worst of both worlds, with Corbin shelled for six runs in 5 1/3 innings while the lineup made Severino throw only 72 pitches through seven scoreless innings before finally plating a run in the eighth.

Josiah Gray is ready to pitch in a competitive game again.

Gray, who has spent nearly two months on the 15-day injured list with a flexor strain in his forearm, has been cleared to begin a minor league rehab assignment. The exact date and location hasn’t been finalized yet, but manager Davey Martinez suggested it’s most likely to come Sunday at Single-A Fredericksburg.

“I would like to send him to the closest affiliate for now, because I want him to come back here after he pitches,” Martinez said. “So if Fredericksburg is home, that’s probably where he’ll go.”

The Fred Nats indeed are home Sunday afternoon against Kannapolis, so that appears to be the answer.

Gray landed on the IL on April 9 after two rough starts to his season. He slowly built his arm back up and in recent weeks pitched in three simulated games against teammates. The last of those came Tuesday when the right-hander threw 65 pitches over three innings.

The Nationals are scheduled to play the Mets at 4:05 p.m. today. The Mets are scheduled to fly to London after the game in advance of their weekend series against the Phillies. And it’s scheduled to begin raining here later this afternoon. So this creates a bit of a predicament.

The good news: The Mets are back here the first week of July. So there’s really little reason for the Nats and Major League Baseball to wait around for a long time in hopes of playing today. A postponement would not be surprising.

But until we hear otherwise, we’ll assume they’re going to play. And if they do, the Nationals will need a win to avoid what would be an awfully disappointing sweep at the hands of the team that trails them in the standings and was kind of in disarray when it arrived in town at the start of the week.

The Nats need to hit, and they need to hit early and not wait until the New York bullpen takes over. They face Luis Severino this afternoon, and the veteran right-hander has been solid overall (3.52 ERA, 1.172 WHIP) but has allowed five runs in two of his last three starts (against the Marlins and Diamondbacks). In between, he dominated the Giants. So who knows what you’re going to get.

Patrick Corbin has this start for the Nationals, coming off back-to-back quality starts against the Mariners and Guardians. The lefty was quite bad last season in three starts against the Mets, allowing 14 runs and 21 hits in only 15 2/3 innings.

DJ Herz’s major league debut wasn’t the fairytale Mitchell Parker experienced two months ago at Dodger Stadium. Neither was it the nightmare suffered by countless other Nationals rookies over the last decade.

Herz wasn’t great in his first career start. Neither was he bad. The rookie left-hander pitched with some confidence, escaped a couple of early jams, then began to succumb as his evening progressed.

In the end, Herz allowed two runs while he was in the game, plus another two that were charged to him after he departed in the top of the fifth. And because his teammates did very little at the plate themselves, he wound up charged with the loss as the Nationals fell 6-3 to the Mets.

"He was a little nervous," manager Davey Martinez said. "He was sweating like crazy out there. But you know what, in big moments he kind of settled down and threw strikes and looked really good."

The Nats hoped for something more akin to Parker’s sparkling April debut in Los Angeles, when the unheralded rookie left-hander struck out Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani, went five strong innings and became the franchise’s first starting pitcher to win his major league debut since Stephen Strasburg.

Trevor Williams will be shut down from throwing for two weeks after an MRI revealed a flexor muscle strain in the right-hander’s forearm. How much time the Nationals veteran starter will need to return after that remains an open question.

“There’s positive news from it: Everything structurally looks good. It’s just going to take some time,” Williams said this afternoon. “That’s the positive news. I wish it was just one start that I was skipping to be able to let my body recover. But unfortunately, it’s not that way.”

The Nats placed Williams on the 15-day injured list today, calling up left-hander DJ Herz from Triple-A Rochester to make his major league debut tonight against the Mets. The IL move is backdated to June 1, so Williams technically will be available to return as soon as June 16. But there doesn’t appear to be any reason to believe he’ll actually be ready that soon.

Williams said he felt fine during his last start Thursday in Atlanta, when he held the Braves to one run over 5 2/3 innings, throwing 95 pitches (his second-highest total of the season). But when he went to play catch the next day in Cleveland, he said his arm didn’t respond the way it usually does. And when the discomfort lingered through the weekend, the Nationals had him get an MRI to determine if there was an injury.

That MRI showed no issues with Williams’ elbow ligament or tendons, so the injury is purely muscular. Manager Davey Martinez called that diagnosis “best-case scenario.”

Who’s ready to watch a major league debut tonight? An unexpected one, at that.

Trevor Williams was supposed to start the second game of this series against the Mets, but he was placed on the 15-day injured list with a flexor muscle strain in his right arm, so DJ Herz got the call from Triple-A Rochester and will make his first major league start tonight instead.

Who is DJ Herz? He’s a 23-year-old left-hander, acquired last summer from the Cubs for Jeimer Candelario. He’s had big strikeout numbers in the minors, but he’s also had big walk numbers. He’s been a lot better in recent outings, though, and in his last start Thursday he struck out 10 with only one walk over 5 2/3 innings. Herz is going to be amped up big-time. His ability to control his emotions will go a long way toward determining if he has success or not.

Some run support would also help, of course. The Nationals scored seven runs Monday night, and they’d love to do the same tonight against New York left-hander David Peterson, who makes only his second start of the season after recovering from hip surgery.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 83 degrees, wind 9 mph right field to left field

The Nationals rotation, a surprising strength for the club so far this season, is getting a surprising shakeup today.

Trevor Williams has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a flexor muscle strain, opening the door for left-hander DJ Herz to make his major league debut tonight.

Williams was scheduled to face the Mets in the second game of a three-game series, hoping to continue his strong run to begin the season. The 32-year-old right-hander is 5-0 with a 2.22 ERA and 1.076 WHIP through 11 starts, having surrendered only two homers one year after he led the league with 34 homers allowed.

Williams last pitched Thursday in Atlanta and showed no outward signs of physical ailment. He held the Braves to one run over 5 2/3 innings, throwing 95 pitches (his second-highest total of the season).

The flexor muscle strain is the same injury suffered by Josiah Gray in April. Gray is scheduled to face live hitters today for the third time since going on the IL, and if all goes well is expected to begin a minor league rehab assignment after that.

Monday night’s 8-7 loss to the Mets was one of the Nationals’ more eventful games of the season, featuring an odd combination of encouraging, discouraging and frustrating moments along the way.

Let’s look back at some of the developments worthy of a second look …

* Drew Millas’ rough night
Making his first start behind the plate since his promotion Sunday from Triple-A Rochester, the rookie catcher was front and center for much of the game. And he did not enjoy a particularly good game.

At the plate, Millas went 0-for-4 with a walk, but he wound up as the guy in the batter’s box with the game on the line in the bottom of the ninth, the bases loaded and his team trailing by one run. He proceeded to strike out on three pitches, including a 97-mph fastball down the pipe from left-hander Jake Diekman that he watched sail by for a killer strikeout.

“I think my swing got a little big,” the switch-hitter said of his approach to the first two pitches of the at-bat. “I haven’t batted righty in a while, but that’s no excuse. I feel very confident right-handed to get the job done in that scenario. There’s zero excuse there.”

Though he hasn’t been lights-out every time he has pitched this season, MacKenzie Gore had shown significant progress from last season in one key area: The ability to avoid letting a shaky start go completely awry.

That streak ended tonight with easily the left-hander’s worst outing of the year. Unable to consistently locate any of his pitches, the young Nationals starter couldn’t take advantage of some rare healthy run support from his teammates and ultimately was the pitcher of record in an 8-7 loss to the Mets that saw the home team come up just short with a last-ditch attempted rally in the ninth.

"A lot of fight with our team and in our clubhouse. We always feel like we're in it," said Jesse Winker, who had three hits and drove in three runs. "We almost got the job done."

This game didn’t resemble any of Gore’s previous 11 starts, nor did it resemble many of the Nats’ previous 58 games. They had been 19-7 this season when scoring at least four runs, 19-5 when scoring at least five runs.

That wasn’t enough offense tonight, not with Gore laboring throughout his outing.