For the first time this season, the Nationals are adjusting the order of the top of their starting rotation, giving MacKenzie Gore an extra day of rest prior to his next outing.

Jake Irvin will now start Tuesday night’s series opener against the Cardinals in St. Louis, a standard five days after the right-hander pitched Thursday against the Tigers. That bumps Gore to Wednesday night’s game at Busch Stadium, a full week following his most recent start last Wednesday against Detroit.

Gore has pitched in front of Irvin throughout the season, beginning with Opening Day, and has firmly established himself as the staff ace. But on the heels of an outing in which he had to extend himself more than usual, manager Davey Martinez thought it would be a good time to give the lefty more time than usual to recover.

“He threw 111 pitches the last outing,” Martinez said. “So this gives him an extra day to kind of recuperate a little bit.”

The swap also puts Gore in a better position to pitch in the All-Star Game, if he’s selected. (The official roster announcement is coming later this afternoon.) If Gore stayed on turn and started Tuesday, he would line up to start again next Sunday in Milwaukee in the second-half finale. Major League Baseball rules prohibit players who pitch on that day to appear in the All-Star Game two days later.

We’re going to see a major league debut today, one that may not compare to other recent ones for the Nationals, but one that carries some significance nonetheless. Shinnosuke Ogasawara is the first player the Nats have ever signed directly out of Asia. The Japanese left-hander may not have come to America as highly touted as plenty of others who have come here over the decades, but today represents a dream come true for the 27-year-old nonetheless.

What can we expect from Ogasawara against the Red Sox? His fastball, we know, is not elite. He needs to command it exceptionally well, and then he needs to rely heavily on his deep arsenal of off-speed pitches to try to keep the hitters off-balance. He did have a bit of success in a couple of his early season starts for Triple-A Rochester. But he then missed two months with an oblique strain, so it’s hard to know what exactly to expect today.

On the flip side, the Nationals would love to provide their rookie starter with some run support. They’ve got quite a challenge in that regard facing Garrett Crochet. The Boston lefty enters with a sparkling 2.34 ERA and league-leading 144 strikeouts in a league-leading 115 1/3 innings. That said, he did give up five runs in his last start against the Reds (while also striking out nine over six innings).

BOSTON RED SOX at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly sunny, 87 degrees, wind 8 mph out to left field

RED SOX
3B Nate Eaton
2B Romy Gonzalez
RF Roman Anthony
DH Rob Refsnyder
SS Trevor Story
LF Jarren Duran
1B Abraham Toro
C Connor Wong
CF Ceddane Rafaela

Some of the Nationals’ worst qualities converged today and made for another lopsided loss in a season that already had included too many of those.

Mitchell Parker’s propensity for early struggles was on full display. So was his continued inability to field routine comebackers toward the mound. Add some more sloppy infield defense to the mix, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a game that was well out of hand before many in the crowd of 34,319 had a chance to get settled in at Nationals Park.

This 10-3 loss to the Red Sox ranks right up there with the ugliest of the season. It’s the ninth time in 89 games the Nats have lost by seven or more runs, the third time in five games on this current homestand.

To win Sunday’s finale and avoid a sweep at the hands of Boston, they’re going to have to get a whole lot better of a performance from the pitcher they promote from their farm system to take over the rotation spot Trevor Williams held until landing on the 15-day injured list this week with a sprained elbow: Shinnosuke Ogasawara.

Manager Davey Martinez announced this evening the Japanese left-hander will be promoted from Triple-A Rochester to make his major league debut, selected over top prospect Cade Cavalli (who gave up seven runs over three innings in his most recent minor league start). Ogasawara, the first free agent the Nationals have ever signed directly out of Asia, opened the season at Triple-A but only recently returned from a two-month stint on the injured list with an oblique strain. The 27-year-old, who signed a two-year, $3.5 million contract, faces a stiff challenge in his debut.

Just as they’re getting one reliever back from a major elbow surgery, the Nationals are worried another key reliever may have a serious problem with his elbow.

On the same day they activated Mason Thompson off the 60-day injured list, the Nats transferred Derek Law to the 60-day IL and revealed the veteran right-hander will be getting an MRI on his elbow after experiencing a recurrence of pain following his most recent rehab appearance.

Law has been attempting to work his way back since late March, stymied by setbacks on several occasions along the way. The 34-year-old, who made 75 appearances while totaling 90 innings as the workhorse of the Nationals bullpen last season, already was shut down a week recently before coming back to pitch for Triple-A Rochester on Wednesday.

Though that outing (one scoreless inning, one walk, one strikeout) went well, he told team officials he had a recurrence of elbow pain the next day, prompting them to shut him down again and bring him back to D.C. for a new MRI.

“I’m more concerned for him,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Because he wants to come back and help us. The big thing is to figure out what’s really going on. We thought we were over the hump there, but his elbow started barking again. We’ll go get an MRI and we’ll see what the MRI says.”

Friday morning’s game pretty much stunk for the Nationals, who were routed by the Red Sox and gave little reason for a big crowd to get excited about the home team. But if there’s anything we’ve learned about this particular group, the previous day’s result rarely seems to foretell what’s going to happen the next day. So perhaps that means the Nats are in store for a bounce back later this afternoon in the second game of the weekend series.

Mitchell Parker will need to be on point to give his team a chance, and the left-hander has generally been much better of late, allowing three or fewer runs in five of his last six starts. He’s been much better in the first inning in recent outings, with his struggles more often coming near the end of his starts. The Red Sox, for what it’s worth, have been better against lefties than righties this season.

On the flip side, the Nationals will be facing a struggling opposing starter in Walker Buehler. The veteran right-hander has a 6.45 ERA and 1.582 WHIP, having walked a career-high 4.3 batters and allowed a home run to a career-high 2.0 batters per nine innings. He hasn’t made it out of the fifth inning in four of his last five outings, with a hefty 14 walks issued in his last 11 1/3 innings.

BOSTON RED SOX at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 87 degrees, wind 8 mph out to left field

RED SOX
3B Nate Eaton
2B Romy Gonzalez
RF Roman Anthony
DH Rob Refsnyder
C Carlos Narváez
SS Trevor Story
LF Jarren Duran
1B Abraham Toro
CF Ceddane Rafaela

Things were a little different around here the last time Lucas Giolito started a game at Nationals Park.

On Aug. 28, 2016, the Nationals were 20 games over .500, well on their way to a division title under new manager Dusty Baker. Trea Turner was the leadoff-hitting center fielder. Daniel Murphy hit third and owned a .994 OPS. Oliver Pérez, Koda Glover and Matt Belisle came out of the bullpen in relief.

Giolito, of course, was one of the top pitching prospects in baseball at that time, viewed internally as the next great member of a rotation that already featured Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Gio González.

And then a few months later, he was gone, one of three pitching prospects dealt to the White Sox in exchange for outfielder Adam Eaton, a trade that sent shockwaves through the Winter Meetings at National Harbor and revealed that perhaps the Nats didn’t view Giolito quite as favorably as everyone assumed they did.

We can debate the merits of that trade for eternity. Giolito and Reynaldo López certainly went on to have some success elsewhere, even if it took a while to materialize. Eaton played an important role on a Nationals team that won the World Series in 2019. Maybe it all worked out in the end.

For the second straight season, Trevor Williams is going on the injured list with an arm issue. And the veteran right-hander didn’t sound overly optimistic about his latest ailment.

The Nationals placed Williams on the 15-day IL with a right elbow sprain, the most significant of a series of transactions the club made this morning prior to its Fourth of July matinee against the Red Sox. The team also activated catcher Keibert Ruiz off the 7-day concussion IL, optioned Drew Millas to Triple-A Rochester and recalled reliever Ryan Loutos only one day after sending him down.

The Williams injury revelation comes two days after the 33-year-old labored through the worst of his 17 starts this season, one in which he threw 54 pitches in a six-run top of the first against the Tigers and then returned to toss two more innings before manager Davey Martinez pulled him in the first game of a day-night doubleheader.

Williams said his arm didn’t respond as it normally does after a start, so he notified club officials about it Thursday and underwent an MRI. He suggested the team is still waiting to fully decipher the results of that test before determining a course of action, but the right-hander concedes he’s going to miss some time.

“It’s hard to pinpoint exactly,” he said. “It could be a mechanical deficiency. It could be a grip thing. Who knows? The unfortunate part is that the MRI showed I’m not going to be able to start this weekend. We’ll see what happens and what the next steps will be.”

It’s the Fourth of July in our nation’s capital, and that means the return of one of the great annual traditions around here: morning baseball! Every Independence Day since 2012 (except for 2020), the Nationals have taken the field at 11:05 a.m. for the only major league game played during that early window. They’ve gone 6-6 all-time in the morning game, including a dramatic 1-0 victory over the Mets last year.

This year’s opponents are the Red Sox, who also played here on July 4, 2018, and won the game 3-0 behind a combined shutout from Eduardo Rodriguez, Matt Barnes, Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel. Boston’s starter today: Lucas Giolito, the long-ago Nats prospect who finally makes his first career start at Nationals Park for the opposition after six appearances for the home team as a rookie in 2016. Finally healthy after missing the 2024 season following Tommy John surgery, the right-hander is 4-1 with a 3.99 ERA. He’s not striking out as many batters as in the past, but his velocity remains at pre-surgery levels (93.4 mph fastball).

Michael Soroka (who is Canadian) gets the honor of starting today for the Nationals. As rough as June was for the team, the right-hander enjoyed a strong month, delivering a 3.49 ERA with an 0.812 WHIP and impressive 36-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The Nationals announced a flurry of roster moves this morning: Trevor Williams was placed on the 15-day injured list with a sprained right elbow (more on that coming shortly), with Ryan Loutos recalled from Triple-A Rochester only one day after he was sent down. And Keibert Ruiz was activated off the 7-day concussion IL and will start behind the plate today, with Drew Millas optioned to Rochester.

BOSTON RED SOX at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 11:05 a.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv, MLB Network (outside D.C. market)
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 81 degrees, wind 7 mph in from left field

The outcome of Wednesday afternoon’s game had long since been decided by the time Andry Lara took the mound in the top of the seventh. The Nationals were well on their way to an 11-2 loss to the Tigers, a result that felt preordained the moment Trevor Williams was roughed up for six innings during a torturous top of the first.

None of that, of course, mattered to Lara. When the lanky right-hander trotted in from the bullpen, the score of the game was insignificant. The fact he was pitching in a major league game was.

“It’s incredible,” he said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. “It’s something I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid, me and my family. I just don’t have any words.”

Lara’s major league debut, in which he tossed three scoreless innings and struck out four, was probably the lone bright spot of Wednesday’s lopsided loss. But it helped keep the rest of the Nats bullpen fresh heading into the nightcap of the doubleheader, and it gave Lara a long-awaited opportunity to face big league hitters.

Six years after the Nationals signed him out of Venezuela for $1.25 million, with a rocky path in front of him, Lara finally made his debut. The 22-year-old actually had been called up for the team’s Easter Sunday doubleheader in Colorado, but neither game presented the right situation for him to pitch, so he returned to Triple-A Rochester afterward.

Their ace had labored through 5 1/3 innings of 111-pitch ball. Their lineup had gone dead silent since an early rally against the opposing starter. And their bullpen had turned a slim lead into a slim deficit, giving the crowd of 16,0965 at Nationals Park reason to believe the nightcap of today’s doubleheader against the Tigers was going down an all-too-familiar path.

And then Detroit manager A.J. Hinch turned to the usually reliable Tommy Kahnle for the bottom of the eighth, and the top half of the Nats lineup sprang back to life with one of its most impressive rallies of the season.

Scoring five runs before making an out in the eighth, then adding another after that, the Nationals took a 9-4 lead and then handed over the ninth to Kyle Finnegan, who closed out a most impressive, come-from-behind victory over one of the best teams in the majors.

That ninth inning, by the way, including a leaping catch at the wall by Jacob Young, who appeared to rob Riley Greene of a homer.

"I think we all had the same reaction, which was: Holy smokes!" designated hitter Josh Bell said. "I just held my finger up pointing. I think everybody did for about 15 seconds. Probably the best catch that I've seen in person."

As ugly as the opener of today’s doubleheader was, there are some saving graces from the Nationals’ perspective. They’ve now got their ace taking the mound in the nightcap. And thanks to six innings of relief from Jackson Rutledge, Eduardo Salazar and especially Andry Lara after Trevor Williams was knocked out early, they’ve got all of their top bullpen arms fresh and available in search of a win this evening.

All eyes will be on MacKenzie Gore to do his usual thing, and to do it against a tough Tigers lineup that leads the American League in runs scored. Gore, of course, has never been one to back down from a challenge, and he’s coming off an outstanding start in San Diego that nevertheless resulted in a 1-0 loss (his eighth of the season despite his 3.09 ERA).

So the Nationals will need to provide some run support for their No. 1 guy tonight. They face Jack Flaherty, the enigmatic 29-year-old who at times during his career has looked like a true frontline starter and at other times has looked lost. It’s been a rough season for him so far, as evidenced by his 5-9 record and 4.80 ERA. Flaherty’s biggest issue: He has surrendered 16 homers in 84 1/3 innings, seventh-most in the AL. The Nats need to hit the ball in the air against him tonight.

DETROIT TIGERS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 85 degrees, wind 5 mph right field to left field

TIGERS
DH Justyn-Henry Malloy
2B Gleyber Torres
LF Jahmai Jones
1B Spencer Torkelson
CF Matt Vierling
RF Wenceel Perez
C Dillon Dingler
SS Javy Báez
3B Zach McKinstry

The Nationals didn’t need a gem out of Trevor Williams today. They needed length. And, ideally, a minimal amount of damage sustained to keep the opener of today’s day-night doubleheader against the Tigers within reach.

Eight batters into the game, the second half of that preferred equation had already been thrown out the window. But Davey Martinez had no choice but to try and at least get length out of his No. 5 starter, which explains why Williams was still on the mound in the top of the first throwing his 54th pitch of the most laborious inning of his life.

And why Williams retook the mound for the top of the second and top of the third before Martinez finally decided enough was enough. When he needed length from his starter, he got three innings, 86 pitches and a massive hole en route to an 11-2 thrashing that set a decidedly negative tone to this long day and night of baseball on South Capitol Street.

The Nats could not have drawn up a worse script for this unexpected matinee, the result of Tuesday night’s rainout. They’ll try to lick their wounds, regroup and split the doubleheader behind ace MacKenzie Gore later this evening.

"It's an unfortunate spot. I put us in a really big hole in the first game of a doubleheader," Williams said. "But I know the guys are going to come out in the second game ready to win." 

Paul DeJong always knew he’d be back playing for the Nationals again. He just couldn’t fully appreciate the process of returning from his frightening injury until he actually completed the process.

“It’s been a humbling experience for me to go back to square one and just pray to get healthy and recover from a traumatic injury,” he said. “But that process went about as good as it could have gone for me.”

It’s been 2 1/2 months since DeJong was struck by a fastball on the left side of his face during the Nationals’ April 16 game in Pittsburgh. He fractured his nose and multiple bones near his left eye, requiring surgery. He spent several weeks holed up in his apartment, watching old movies with his grandfather, who came to D.C. from Florida to help take care of him.

Then the rehab process finally began, slow and steady. DeJong, who fortunately did not suffer any vision impairment, built up to the point where he could face live pitching again. And two weeks ago, he headed off to Double-A Harrisburg for a rehab stint, his first opportunity to play competitive baseball since the injury.

Over the course of 12 games with the Senators – only four fewer than he played for the Nats before going on the 10-day IL – DeJong went 11-for-40 with a double, a homer and six RBIs. He was hit by a pitch (in the foot). And he became comfortable standing in the batter’s box again, now wearing an extended ear flap to protect the left side of his face.

Alright, what do you say we give this another shot? And then play another game after that?

Unable to commence this week’s homestand on time due to a vicious line of thunderstorms that rolled through the area Tuesday afternoon and evening, the Nationals now face the prospect of a day-night doubleheader against the Tigers this afternoon and evening. The nightcap will be the previously scheduled 6:45 p.m. game, with MacKenzie Gore starting as planned all along against Jack Flaherty (who was supposed to start Tuesday’s game).

That means today’s 1:05 p.m. game (the rescheduled game, available to anyone who had tickets to Tuesday’s rainout) will now feature Trevor Williams against Detroit left-hander Tyler Holton. Holton is not a starter. He’s an opener, specifically chosen by manager A.J. Hinch to face the top of the Nationals’ lineup in the first inning. So we’ll have to see if CJ Abrams, James Wood and Co. can throw a wrench into those plans and get on the board first.

Williams will be even more rested than he already was, hoping to keep the Tigers’ lineup in check and provide some length. Though the Nats get to carry an extra reliever today, they’ve still got another game to worry about tonight, so Davey Martinez has to be careful not to burn up too many games in the opener.

DETROIT TIGERS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Cloudy, 80 degrees, wind 5 mph in from right field

After a week and a half of gorgeous weather in Southern California, the Nationals returned home and must now deal with the harsh reality of summer life back on the East Coast: Heat, humidity and rain.

Tonight’s homestand opener against the Tigers has been postponed, the club announced, due to the significant line of thunderstorms passing through the region this afternoon and evening. They’ll now play a day-night doubleheader Wednesday, with the rescheduled game at 1:05 p.m. in advance of the originally scheduled game at 6:45 p.m.

The Nats never had to consider any weather issues during their nine-game trip to Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim, with temperatures generally in the 70s and nothing but sunshine pouring down from the sky. It’s a different story back here in D.C., where temperatures have been in the 90s and dew points in the 70s, ingredients ripe for thunderstorms.

The first round of rain already blew through Nationals Park this afternoon, canceling batting practice for both teams. Though there is currently a break in the precipitation, several inches more are expected the rest of the evening and into Wednesday morning.

Fans who held tickets to tonight’s postponed game can use them for admittance to Wednesday’s 1:05 p.m. game. A separate ticket is required for the originally scheduled 6:45 p.m. game. The series still wraps up Thursday at 6:45 p.m., with a postgame fireworks show planned in advance of Friday’s traditional 11:05 a.m. Independence Day game against the Red Sox.

We’re not in California anymore. The Nationals at long last are back home after a nine-game trip west that featured a 4-5 record and a whole lot of beautiful weather days. That’s not the case anymore. It’s disgusting back here in the nation’s capital, with temperatures in the 90s, dew points in the mid-70s and heat indexes well over 100. And now there’s a massive line of storms headed this way, putting tonight’s series opener against the Tigers in serious jeopardy.

We’ll see how that all transpires, but in the meantime let’s assume they play as scheduled. The Nats will look to hold their own against the surprisingly best-in-baseball Tigers. At least they don’t have to face Tarik Skubal, who pitched another gem Sunday night and won’t pitch again until this weekend.

Jack Flaherty is no slouch, though, and the Nationals will need to put together quality at-bats against the 29-year-old, whose bottom-line numbers (5-9, 4.80 ERA) aren’t great but peripherals are much better (1.233 WHIP, 10.7 strikeouts per nine innings).

Trevor Williams, meanwhile, keeps chugging along for the Nats. At this point, you know what you’re going to get from the veteran right-hander. At best, he’s going to keep them in the game for five-ish innings. They just have to hope he keeps Detroit’s lineup to three or fewer runs along the way.

The Nats also made a pregame roster move: Paul DeJong has been activated off the 10-day injured list about 2 1/2 months after getting hit in the face by a fastball. Andrés Chaparro was optioned to Triple-A after he went just 1-for-11 in limited playing time.

James Wood could only chuckle when presented with the news he had just become the first major leaguer to be intentionally walked four times in the same game since Barry Bonds.

“That’s pretty cool,” the Nationals left fielder. “I mean, if you’re getting put in the same sentence as him, that’s pretty cool.”

Bonds, for the record, achieved his four-intentional-walk game in 2004, at age 40, during a season in which he hit 45 homers to go along with an insane slash line of .362/.609/.812. Of his all-time-record 232 walks that year, an astonishing 120 of them were intentional. He had long since established himself as the most feared hitter in baseball by then.

Wood, on the other hand, is 22 years old. Sunday was the 163rd game of his big league career. He is only beginning to establish his place in the sport, and yet the Angels’ actions over the weekend spoke volumes about the respect he already commands.

“It stinks, because I like to watch him hit. But it’s pretty crazy that they’re already taking those measures against him,” teammate Jacob Young said. “But it makes sense. He’s carried our offense for a lot of the year, and he’s special when he’s up there.”

ANAHEIM, Calif. – For eight innings, the Nationals did just enough to keep today's series finale against the Angels close, overcoming missed opportunities, missed calls and missed locations to at least put themselves in position to win.

It was, quite frankly, the kind of game they lost too many times over the last week and a half during a Southern California road trip that featured as many one-run losses as wins of any margin (three apiece).

And then when it really mattered, a Nats team wrapping up a miserable month found a way to deliver and head home finally feeling better about itself for the first time in a long time.

With a ninth-inning rally against future Hall of Fame closer Kenley Jansen, then a three-run rally keyed by several youngsters in the 11th and the first three-inning relief appearance of Kyle Finnegan's career, the Nationals pulled off a rousing, 7-4 victory at Angel Stadium that felt as significant as any other during this disappointing season.

"We haven't done as well as we'd like in the wins department this road trip," Finnegan said. "But I feel like we've played pretty good baseball. So to win a game like this - last game of a long road trip away from home, guys away from their families, grind one out in extra innings - I feel like it's good for our morale."

ANAHEIM, Calif. – As he watched from the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh Saturday night, helpless to do anything about the nightmare inning his teammates were suffering through, Kyle Finnegan tried to think of any good that could come from the situation.

The Nationals’ closer would’ve rather been on the mound himself. But that wasn’t going to happen that early in the game. So he could only watch Zach Brzykcy, Eduardo Salazar and Ryan Loutos combine to give up six runs and turn a one-run lead over the Angels into a five-run deficit, then try to help them have some perspective at the end of the night.

“When you find yourself struggling for whatever reason, watching from the outside, you want to go out there and try to help or tell them what to do,” he said. “But as a young player, I think it’s important to learn on your own. Unfortunately, in this game you learn from mistakes a lot of times. I hope these guys learn from things that have hurt them and always remember the things that have gone well.”

Finnegan has been doing a lot of watching from the bullpen in recent weeks. The Nationals today play the ninth and final game of this extra-long trip through Southern California. Their closer has appeared in only two of those games, each of them coming in San Diego, where he faced only one batter each time, entering in a non-save situation each time.

The Nats have won three games on the trip, one apiece over the Dodgers, Padres and Angels. But in each case, they won by at least four runs. So there hasn’t been a save situation for Finnegan to enter.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Nationals arrived in Southern California way back on July 19, fresh off a walk-off win over the Rockies that finally snapped their losing streak at 11 games. Today, they finally wrap up this nine-game trip through all three major league cities in the region, having lost two of three to both the Dodgers and the Padres and needing a win today against the Angels to avoid the same fate.

The good news: Davey Martinez should have his top bullpen options available to him after not having them Saturday night. So if Mitchell Parker can get the Nats through five or six quality innings, Brad Lord, Jose A. Ferrer and Kyle Finnegan are all raring to go, with Finnegan in particular available for more than one inning given how little he has pitched during this road trip.

The Nats also need to score more than the two runs they scored Saturday, only one of them coming off starter Kyle Hendricks. Today they face right-hander Jack Kochanowicz, who is 3-8 with a 5.49 ERA in 16 starts. The key: He has walked 4.2 batters per nine innings while striking out only 6.5. Patience, patience, patience from a lineup that includes all of the recent regulars with one exception: Drew Millas gets the start behind the plate after Riley Adams caught the majority of five straight games following Keibert Ruiz's head injury.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES ANGELS
Where: Angel Stadium
Gametime: 4:07 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 85 degrees, wind 8 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathanial Lowe
DH Josh Bell
3B Brady House
RF Daylen Lile
C Drew Millas
CF Jacob Young