We’ve reached the final week of the year, so it’s time to look back at the Nationals’ most significant stories of 2024. We continue the series today by looking at the moves the Nats did and did not make at the trade deadline …

For much of a decade, the Nationals used the trade deadline to add to their major league roster in order to compete for a World Series championship. Of course, they reached that goal in 2019. But at the cost of their farm system.

In the years since, general manager Mike Rizzo has used the deadline to rebuild the farm system by trading major league talent for minor league prospects.

It started with Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and a host of others in 2021. Juan Soto and Josh Bell netted a historic return in 2022. And then Jeimer Candelario was used to acquire two more young players, one of whom played a big role in the starting rotation this year, in 2023.

But what about 2024?

The Orioles returned to the visiting clubhouse Sunday at Target Field and still didn’t know their opponent for the Wild Card series that begins this afternoon at Camden Yards. The Royals were winning in the ninth inning. The Tigers were losing in the ninth inning. The drama was high for anyone paying attention to it.

The interest from players was low. Every television was tuned to the NFL. They punted on watching baseball.

“Whoever shows up,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said yesterday, “just go out there and continue to play our game.”

They got the Royals.

“We weren’t too worried about who it would be in the sense,” Henderson said. “Just got to know that we’ve got to go out there and continue to play. It’s postseason, so anything can happen, and they’re two outstanding teams. So we’re just going out there and trying to play the best ball that we can play.”

The month of August is about to wrap up this weekend, which means it’s been a full month since the trade deadline. Which means enough time has passed to start evaluating how trades worked out.

Of course, it takes years to know if a trade truly was worth it or not. But in the Nationals’ case, it’s worth checking in on the results of Mike Rizzo’s four deadline deals to see how they look at this point.

(Spoiler alert: They look pretty good at this early stage of the process.)

HUNTER HARVEY to ROYALS for CAYDEN WALLACE and CALEB LOMAVITA
Rizzo surprised everyone by making this deal 17 days before the July 30 deadline, but there was a good reason for it. He wanted Kansas City’s “Competitive Balance A” pick in the following night’s Draft. So in addition to Wallace, a promising-but-injured third base prospect, the Nationals also got the No. 39 pick, which they used on Lomavita, an intriguing catcher from Cal.

Wallace, who was dealing with a fractured rib at the time, just finally made his organizational debut Thursday night, delivering an RBI single and drawing a walk for Single-A Wilmington. He’ll look to finish the season strong and then come to spring training next year trying to move up the organizational ladder.

It was a busy return from the All-Star break for the Nationals on Friday.

Josiah Gray announced a partial tear in his right ulnar collateral ligament that will require season-ending surgery. First-round pick Seaver King and third-round pick Kevin Bazzell officially signed their contracts and were introduced as Nationals for the first time. And the Nats started the second half with an 8-5 win over the Reds that had some early fireworks and late dramatics.

With all the pregame news, some things said by long-time general manager Mike Rizzo were left by the wayside. But they were no less important for the Nationals in the grand scheme of things.

Rizzo spoke to members of the local media for 12 minutes after introducing two of his top four selections from this year’s draft. The topics varied, but in the spirit of the draft celebrations, started with the trade Rizzo made a week ago today to add another pick in the first night of the draft.

In a surprising move at the time, the Nationals traded right-hander Hunter Harvey to the Royals for third base prospect Cayden Wallace and a Competitive Balance A pick, which happened to be No. 39 overall. The Nats used that pick to select catcher Caleb Lomavita out of Cal.

MILWAUKEE – The jubilation of a come-from-behind 6-5 win over the Brewers had the Nationals clubhouse thumping Saturday evening. So when the team’s relievers were summoned to Davey Martinez’s office about 30 minutes after the final out was recorded, everyone just assumed the manager was going to praise them for the job they did to churn out 8 1/3 scoreless innings after starter Mitchell Parker was pulled in the bottom of the first.

Martinez did praise them for that above-and-beyond effort, but he also had news to share with the group: Hunter Harvey had been traded to the Royals for third base prospect Cayden Wallace and the 39th pick in tonight’s MLB Draft.

The room went silent, Harvey probably the most stunned of the entire group, his baseball life upended in a manner of seconds.

“It was a roller coaster of emotions yesterday, especially with the bullpen,” Martinez said this morning. “Those guys did so well yesterday in the game, and to have to break the news to them that one of their brothers was leaving us to go play somewhere else … they all get it. They understand what the reality is in this game; those things happen. I wish nothing but the best for Hunter. He’s a big part of the Nationals family.”

As it turned out, Harvey wasn’t among the five relievers who pitched Saturday and made an improbable win possible. In the moment, it was easy to assume he was unavailable after pitching the previous two days. After the fact, it was clear he was unavailable not for that reason but because the trade was in the works.

MILWAUKEE – Only minutes after one of their most rousing victories of the season, the Nationals made the first of what could be several deals that underscore the organization’s intention to keep focus on 2025 and beyond over the present.

The Nats traded top setup man Hunter Harvey to the Royals for third base prospect Cayden Wallace plus Kansas City’s Competitive Balance A pick, which just so happens to be the 39th overall pick in Sunday night’s MLB Draft.

The deal came shortly after the Nationals rallied from a five-run deficit in the first inning to beat the Brewers, 6-5, with a large number of the team’s pitchers summoned to manager Davey Martinez’s office for a closed-door meeting during which they appear to have been informed of the trade.

Harvey had become one of the Nats’ most reliably effective relievers over the last three seasons, the formerly injury-plagued right-hander with the Orioles finally keeping himself healthy for long stretches and realizing his full potential. Though he struggled recently and saw his ERA balloon to 4.20, that number was down to 2.08 in early June, and he enjoyed back-to-back impressive performances Thursday and Friday to allay any fears his slump would continue.

The 29-year-old wound up with a 3.17 ERA, 1.083 WHIP and 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings across 138 appearances since he joined the Nationals in 2022. And because he remained under club control through the 2025 season, there was always the thought general manager Mike Rizzo might choose not to trade him and keep him and closer Kyle Finnegan (also under control through 2025) together as the organization attempts to return to contention next year.

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.

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."

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals didn’t make a big deal of this three-game series against the Padres before the opener started. But if you looked at the standings, maybe they should have.

The Nats sat just a half-game behind the Padres for the last National League wild card spot entering tonight’s series opener. And although it’s still only June, the results of these three games will have an effect on those standings.

A victory would have vaulted the Nats into a playoff position with two games left to play at Petco Park. A loss would still keep them within striking distance.

After playing tight ballgames in Colorado, the Nats endured another one tonight in San Diego, this one ending in a 7-6 loss in 10 innings in front of an announced crowd of 39,164.

With two outs in the 10th inning of a 3-3 game, Keibert Ruiz pulled a second-pitch fastball from Padres reliever Enyel De Los Santos to score the automatic runner from second and give the Nats their first lead of the night.

The first time he struck out Tim Anderson, it was merely a nice way to start the afternoon. The second time he did it, it was the continuation of an already impressive outing. The third time he did it, DJ Herz hopped off the mound, slapped his hand to his glove and floated all the way back to the Nationals dugout, where teammates and coaches alike couldn’t wait to greet the rookie left-hander with high-fives and hugs.

The third start of Herz’s major league career had just come to an end, and it included a standing ovation from the crowd of 25,637 at Nationals Park who just watched this previously unknown 23-year-old put together one of the most dominant and most efficient starts in club history.

With six innings of one-hit, zero-walk, 13-strikeout ball on 84 pitches in a 4-0 victory over the Marlins, Herz etched his name alongside some of the best pitching performances the Nats have ever witnessed.

"I think this outing, I wanted to control my body language a little more, be a little better with that," Herz said. "And the first five innings, it was perfect. And then I got the last strikeout, and I kind of had a little feeling that I was done and just let my emotions fly a little bit. It was awesome."

He’s only the fourth person to wear the curly W cap and strikeout out 13 or more batters without issuing a walk. Max Scherzer did it four times during his Hall-of-Fame career. Stephen Strasburg did it twice, including in his historic major league debut. And John Patterson did it during the inaugural 2005 season at RFK Stadium.

DETROIT – There are many ways to measure progress in a franchise’s efforts to rebuild itself back into the kind of consistent contender it was years ago. But ultimately, it does come down to wins and losses, right? And, ideally, the ability to string together a bunch of wins over a sustained period of time.

The Nationals haven’t done much of that in the last three years. They’ve had their moments, sure, but rarely have those moments come in succession.

So consider the events of the last week, capped off by tonight’s 7-5 victory over the Tigers, significant in both the little picture and the big picture. In the little picture, the Nats have won five in a row, inching themselves ever closer to the .500 mark. In the big picture, they’ve won five in a row for the first time since June 19-24, 2021, the last time they were truly competitive and prioritizing short-term success over long-term plans.

"Good things will happen when you keep good vibes and play together and have fun," said shortstop CJ Abrams, who arrived in August 2022. "It's starting to show."

Win No. 5 should have come easier than it did. The Nationals put 15 runners on base through their first eight offensive innings, yet only five of them crossed the plate. There were countless opportunities to add more, but they were done in by poor situational hitting (2-for-11 with runners in scoring position) and poor baserunning (three outs made).

Looking to snap a four-game losing streak, the Nationals found themselves in a similar situation as they were last night against the Braves: Holding a two-run lead with their starter pitching a shutout.

Last night, it was Mitchell Parker taking a no-hit bid into the sixth. He then gave up a two-run home run to tie the game in the seventh. The Nats would go on to lose 5-2.

Tonight, it was Jake Irvin, who was also taking the mound against the Braves for the second time in a week, dominating the opposing lineup with a two-run lead. And thanks to a bounceback night by Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan's 17th save, he was victorious over Atlanta.

The Nationals beat the Braves 2-1 in front of an announced sellout crowd of 39,175, many of whom are probably sticking around for the Flo Rida postgame concert at Nats Park.

“He was good," manager Davey Martinez said of his starting pitcher. "Another guy to face the Braves this last week. Goes out and pitches really well against them again. That's a tough team, as we all know. They get hit, so what our two starters did these first two games was pretty impressive. It really was. He kept us in a ballgame. We faced a tough pitcher. We just got enough runs. Sometimes just one more than the other guys helps, right? So I'm proud of the guys. They fought all game, we hung and then Finney came in and closed the door.”

Having already passed just about every test thrown his way in his first two months in the majors, Mitchell Parker stared down a new challenge tonight: Face an opponent for the second time, and ideally try to beat that club again.

Parker did everything he could to pass the test, carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the Braves and a shutout into the seventh. But he ultimately departed with no-decision after surrendering a game-tying homer in the seventh, and was forced to watch and see if his teammates could pull off the win late.

They could not. Hunter Harvey, one of the most reliable late-inning relievers in the sport, gave up three runs in the top of the eighth, and the Nationals lineup did nothing against the Atlanta bullpen en route to a disheartening 5-2 loss.

The Nats’ fourth straight loss bore some resemblance to the previous ones in their inability to produce at the plate early on. This one differed from the others, though, in the manner the back end of their bullpen gave up the decisive runs late.

"We've played some good teams lately, and it just seems like on nights we hit and pitch, they're just not on the same night," right-fielder Lane Thomas said. "We took some good swings tonight. You've just got to take more than two off a team like that."

ATLANTA – The Nationals won two of the first three games against the Braves with some big hits and great pitching. They haven’t always gotten home runs, but they got one from CJ Abrams on Monday and one from Lane Thomas on Wednesday. They haven’t always seen their starter go deep in the game, but Mitchell Parker, Jake Irvin and MacKenzie Gore combined for 17 ⅔ innings.

With a chance to win the four-game series, the Nationals went back to the recipe for success that has helped them win most of their games thus far this season. And it was some good cooking that resulted in a 3-1 victory in front of 37,784 fans, who also watched the Nats win the set.

As it has for the past week, it started on the mound. The Nationals stuck to their plan that has proven to be very successful with Trevor Williams, who completed 5 ⅔ innings of one-run ball with four hits, two walks and two strikeouts on 95 pitches, 56 strikes.

“Going into the fourth game of a series, you get a good feel for what the lineup is going to do," Williams said after the game. "And all the guys the last three days gave tremendous outings. So for them to do what they did, we were able to execute our game plan for the most part. It was a well-fought win for us. Thankful for the guys behind me that they were able to make some plays and we were able to execute some pitches and get us out of some jams.”

The only run scored on him came in the third when Jarred Kelenic hit a triple to left that Eddie Rosario missed while sliding, and then Michael Harris II scored him with a sacrifice fly on the first pitch.

BOSTON – Davey Martinez managed his bullpen to perfection in last night’s 5-1 win over the Red Sox.

In a 3-1 game at the seventh-inning stretch and facing the Nos. 2-4 hitters in Boston’s lineup, the Nationals manager made the decision to go with Hunter Harvey in that moment instead of saving him for his usual spot in the eighth.

Harvey issued a leadoff walk to Rob Refsnyder, but quickly erased the baserunner with a double play ball from Tyler O’Neill. Then he got Rafael Devers, perhaps the Red Sox’s most feared hitter, to strike out on a curveball in the dirt.

That left Dylan Floro for the eighth to potentially pass the ball to closer Kyle Finnegan in the ninth. Floro retired the side in short order with three groundouts on 10 pitches.

“It's nice to have some veteran guys that understand how to pitch in high-leverage situations, especially in the back end of the bullpen,” Martinez said before Saturday’s game at Fenway Park. “Dylan fits that mold. Jacob (Barnes) fits that mold as well. But it was nice to know that, hey, the top of their lineup is tough. We could use Harvey in that moment. And then I like Floro in the middle to the bottom of that lineup. So we did it that way yesterday. Floro has been throwing the ball really well. We talked a lot about how he missed some spring training. But now he's got his feet underneath him, he's throwing the ball well.”

They turned out in large numbers – 34,078 of them, to be precise – to watch the conclusion of this two-game rivalry series, wondering if the Nationals would be able to duplicate their performance from Tuesday night’s opener and emerge with a sweep over the Orioles.

They didn't duplicate the performance. But they did put on a show that thrilled everyone in attendance, twice producing last-ditch rallies to tie the game before ultimately falling 7-6 in 12 innings.

With a furious rally in the bottom of the ninth, the Nats tied the game and sent it to extras. With another furious rally in the bottom of the 11th, they tied the game again and continued the proceedings deeper into the night. 

The magic ended there. The Orioles scored twice off a wild Jordan Weems in the top of the 12th, and the lineup could only score once in the bottom of the inning.

It was a thrilling ending to a highly captivating series between interleague rivals, who offered the large bipartisan crowd plenty of reason to want to see more of these matchups down the road.

ARLINGTON, Texas – One-run games aren’t for the faint of heart. And by one-run games, we’re not talking about games with a one-run margin of victory. We’re talking about 1-0 games, where every moment is magnified, every pitch is crucial and any one mistake can spell doom.

That the Nationals somehow found a way to pull off a 1-0 win tonight over the Rangers was nothing short of remarkable. It required another highly effective performance from Trevor Williams, who twice stranded the bases loaded. It required the scratching across of a single run by a lineup that has done next to nothing in two nights at Globe Life Park. And it required some electric work from a bullpen that knew it had zero margin for error.

But that all somehow came together beautifully over the course of 2 hours, 11 minutes this evening, leaving Davey Martinez’s heart pounding but happy at the end of a taut ballgame.

"You know what," Martinez said, "it gets interesting at the end there. ... As I often say, we try to get one more than the other guys. And today, it came true."

The Nats are a .500 club once again, opening the month of May with a win over the defending World Series champs and now giving themselves another opportunity to get over the elusive hump in Thursday’s series finale.

The Dodgers’ baserunning tonight helped put them in position to win.

The Nationals’ baserunning tonight left one of their regulars limping and ultimately departing the game due to injury, then cost them one final chance to pull off what would've been a dramatic comeback in the ninth.

So it was the three key moments in a 4-1 series-opening loss to Los Angeles came on the bases. In the first two cases, those runners were successful at stealing second, but the Dodgers’ Teoscar Hernández eventually came around to score the go-ahead run while Lane Thomas eventually came out with a left leg injury that will require an MRI. Then in the third case, a late stop sign from third base coach Ricky Gutierrez forced Luis García Jr. to slam on the brakes in the bottom of the ninth, with trailing runner Joey Gallo not paying attention, leading to a killer rundown. 

"That's a tough lineup," manager Davey Martinez said of the Dodgers. "When we have a chance to put some runs on the board, we've got to capitalize."

With a crowd of 27,806 in attendance to see the mighty Dodgers and their star-studded lineup, these two teams played another low-scoring, tight game, not all that different from last week’s series on the West Coast. The Nats took two out of three at Chavez Ravine; they’ll need to win the next two nights to pull off the same achievement on South Capitol Street.

The Nationals return to action tonight as the Dodgers come to town looking for revenge from last week’s series in Los Angeles.

The Nats will have the opportunity to do something this week they haven’t done since 2014: Win the season series against the Dodgers.

That’s right, since going 4-2 against the Dodgers 10 years ago, the Nats are 0-6-2 in season series against their West Coast foes. The teams split the season series 3-3 in 2017 and 2022, and didn’t play each other in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, in which teams only played their division rivals and the same division in the other league. Overall, the Nats are 15-35 against the Dodgers since 2014.

Also, did you know this week marks Shohei Ohtani’s first trip to D.C.? He has hit .300 with a .697 OPS in eight games against the Nats, all of which came in Los Angeles as a member of either the Angels or Dodgers. And he made one start as a pitcher against the Nats last year in Anaheim, tossing seven shutout innings with one hit, five walks and six strikeouts.

But enough about these upcoming games. Let’s make some observations from the first month of the season …