When it finally came down to it early this evening, when the Nationals finally gave themselves a chance to complete a late rally and pull off an inspiring comeback against the Diamondbacks, they were handed a best-case scenario.

Bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded, down by a run, Juan Soto at the plate. What more could you ask for?

"I'll take my chances with Juan up there with the bases loaded," manager Davey Martinez said. "I hope he gets up there a lot with the bases loaded."

Soto had come up with the bases full only once this season. RBI opportunities have been few and far between for perhaps the most feared hitter in baseball. So when this one presented itself, he was understandably motivated to deliver.

Alas, it takes more than motivation to deliver the hit that turns loss into victory. And when Soto popped up the high 0-2 cutter he saw from Arizona closer Mark Melancon, the dismay among the crowd of 14,424 and among the players in home white uniforms as a 4-3 loss became official was all too evident.

The Nationals were relieved to learn Josh Bell could return to today’s lineup after departing Wednesday night’s game with tightness in his left knee. They were not so relieved to learn another member of their bullpen is out with an arm ailment.

The Nats placed Hunter Harvey on the 10-day injured list shortly before today’s series finale against the Diamondbacks with a right pronator strain, a situation that appears to have just emerged within the last 24 hours after the hard-throwing reliever tossed a scoreless inning.

Harvey, the former Orioles first-round pick whose career has been beset by a smorgasbord of injuries, made four scoreless appearances since joining the Nationals bullpen during the season’s opening weekend. The 27-year-old was starting to earn his way into manager Davey Martinez’s good graces and perhaps start getting called upon in high-leverage situations, but something apparently didn’t feel right during Wednesday night’s game.

Harvey entered that outing averaging 97 mph on his fastball in his first three appearances. That number went down to 96 mph during Wednesday’s game, bottoming out at 94.3 mph on one of the 12 pitches he threw to three Arizona batters.

The pronator is part of the flexor mass group of muscles and tendons in the forearm, near the elbow. A pronator strain would be to one of the muscles in that area, not an uncommon injury for pitchers.

The Nationals have a chance to win a series this afternoon. If they can beat the Diamondbacks, they will have taken three of four and will improve to 7-8 on the young season. All things considered, that wouldn’t be bad at all.

As we’ve seen time and again, and as we certainly saw Wednesday night, the starting pitcher will probably have as much impact on the final outcome as anyone. The Nats continue to win when they get five or more quality innings from their starter (aside from one game, Sunday in Pittsburgh). They continue to lose when they don’t get that.

So, Josh Rogers: What do you have for us today? The lefty was outstanding in his season debut in Atlanta, then struggled his next start against the Pirates. He needs to get ahead in the count today, avoid walks and induce some weak contact out of an admittedly weak-hitting Diamondbacks lineup.

Here's some good news: Josh Bell is in the lineup, the MRI on his left knee having come back clean. Bell, who came out of Wednesday's game in the fourth inning, tested it out pregame and was cleared to play first base and bat cleanup as usual.

There was, however, another roster move before today's game: The Nationals have placed reliever Hunter Harvey on the 10-day injured list with a right pronator strain and selected the contract of fellow right-hander Erasmo Ramirez from Triple-A Rochester. (They transferred Ehire Adrianza to the 60-day IL to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.) So the bullpen, which already lost Sean Doolittle to an elbow sprain Wednesday, has now also lost Harvey for some period of time.

No injury is good news for any ballclub. But a Josh Bell injury would qualify as particularly damaging to the Nationals as currently constructed.

Bell, who departed Wednesday night’s game in the fourth inning with tightness in his left knee, is scheduled to undergo an MRI this morning. He was cautiously optimistic after the game it’s nothing serious, and described his departure from the game as “precautionary,” so there’s no need to panic yet.

That said, we got a glimpse of what the Nationals would look like minus Bell during the final six innings Wednesday, and it wasn’t pretty.

Maikel Franco moved from third base to first base. Lucius Fox came off the bench to take Franco’s spot at third base. That hurt the Nationals defensively, and it hurt them offensively. (The light-hitting Fox actually became their cleanup hitter in the process.)

Bell has been the only consistently productive bat in the lineup through the season’s first two weeks. His .977 OPS leads the club, and his 11 RBIs are tied for fifth in the majors. Remove him from the equation for any length of time, and the drop-off in production is staggering.

The day began with news of Sean Doolittle landing on the 10-day injured list with an elbow sprain, a development that on its own could’ve been enough to ruin the Nationals’ entire day.

Who knew it would be only the first in a series of calamities over the course of eight hours that ended with an 11-2 debacle of a loss to the Diamondbacks in which Erick Fedde recorded only 10 outs, Josh Bell departed with tightness in his left knee and a pregame demonstration of the U.S. Army parachute team prompted an emergency evacuation of the U.S. Capitol grounds.

Suffice it to say, it was not a particularly positive Wednesday night at the ballpark, wiping out plenty of the good vibes that emerged during Tuesday’s doubleheader sweep of Arizona.

"It felt like a cursed day, for sure, in that sense," Fedde said. "We're all trying to get our feet under us, and sometimes it's harder some days than others. I think we're all just trying to get through this first month and survive at this point."

This game represented a complete reversal of fortunes for both clubs. After holding the Diamondbacks to one total run across 18 innings of baseball the previous day, the Nationals pitching staff gave up a boatload of them tonight, with Fedde setting the tone during a start that lasted only 3 1/3 innings.

Sean Doolittle first felt something in his elbow during the seventh inning Sunday in Pittsburgh. It was sore, but nothing he hadn’t dealt with before. Then he warmed up Tuesday afternoon in the bullpen at Nationals Park, and it was worse. Still, he thought he could deal with it, so he pitched the top of the sixth in relief of Josiah Gray, retiring two of three batters faced but notably with his fastball velocity down a couple ticks.

By the time he returned to the dugout following that nine-pitch appearance, Doolittle realized he needed to speak up. He told the Nationals medical staff, which ordered an MRI. He left the team prior to the nightcap of the doubleheader against the Diamondbacks, and by night’s end the results were in: He has a sprained elbow ligament and has been placed on the 10-day injured list.

What exactly that means isn’t fully known yet. Doolittle said the MRI results are being sent to other doctors for further examination. He admits a ligament sprain can in some cases require major surgery. But that’s not part of the immediate plan for him. He’ll first attempt to rehab the injury and hope he can return to pitch in relatively short order.

“We don’t have a timetable. I know that sounds like I’m talking around it and talking in generalities, but we’ve got to let it tell us what’s going on,” the left-hander said. “So we’re going to throw ourselves into that process right now, starting today. I actually started last night. By the end of that 10 days, we’ll start throwing again, see where we’re at and go from there.”

Even if this proves to be a best-case scenario and Doolittle is able to resume throwing with no issues in the next couple weeks, today’s news is a significant blow to the Nationals and to the 35-year-old reliever, who five outings into his return to D.C. looked to be enjoying a career resurgence.

The Nationals seemed to get through Tuesday’s doubleheader in great shape, sweeping the Diamondbacks and holding them to one run over 18 innings. It may have come at a price, though, because there are roster changes today.

Sean Doolittle, who retired two of the three batters he faced in the sixth inning of Game 1, is going on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left elbow, which obviously is a concern. Sam Clay has been called up from Triple-A Rochester to take his spot. Additionally, the Nationals have kept lefty Francisco Perez (yesterday's 29th man for the doubleheader) in their bullpen and optioned Donovan Casey back to Rochester before the outfielder ever had a chance to make his major league debut.

So the roster looks a little different for tonight’s game, the third in this four-game series. The pressure will be on Erick Fedde to do what Josiah Gray and Joan Adon did Tuesday and provide quality innings, taking pressure off the bullpen. Fedde was solid in his last outing against the Pirates, allowing only two runs in five innings, but his pitch count of 96 was too high for Davey Martinez’s likes.

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 59 degrees, wind 5 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
2B César Hernández
RF Juan Soto
DH Nelson Cruz
1B Josh Bell
C Keibert Ruiz
LF Yadiel Hernandez
3B Maikel Franco
SS Alcides Escobar
CF Victor Robles

Davey Martinez’s last season as a big league player came in 2001, when he hit .287 for the Braves. Atlanta’s rotation, the backbone of a team that won 88 games to capture a division title, averaged 6.2 innings per start, tops in the National League. Even the worst rotation in the league that year, the Reds, averaged 5.4 innings per start.

On Tuesday night, Martinez watched Joan Adon become the first member of the Nationals rotation to complete six innings this season, then even record an out in the seventh before he was pulled. Not that they were alone in that regard: Ten other major league clubs had yet to get a six-inning start in 2022 as of Tuesday.

“The game has definitely changed,” Martinez said. “I look around at what’s going around the league. There’s only been like 10 or 11 games where starters have gone six innings. For someone that’s been doing this for three decades, the game has changed a lot.”

There are valid reasons for this. The condensed, three-week spring training is chief among them. Pitchers simply didn’t have the usual amount of time to build their arms up like they would during a camp that normally would’ve been twice as long.

But this is also a reflection of Major League Baseball in 2022, where length from starters simply isn’t viewed as the priority it once was. With teams having seen the data on starters facing a lineup three times a night, and with most bullpens featuring a bounty of big arms, front offices and field managers simply don’t believe it’s prudent to push most starters the way they used to.

A day-night doubleheader is no easy challenge for a major league manager, certainly not when it comes two weeks into a season in which no starting pitcher has completed six innings and no days off had been savored until Monday night’s scheduled series opener was rained out.

The Nationals, though, did just about everything they could this afternoon during a 6-1 victory over the Diamondbacks to make life easy on Davey Martinez.

They got a strong outing from Josiah Gray (one run in 5 1/3 innings). They got a key rally to take the lead. They got good work from a couple of their top relievers. And then they tacked on three late insurance runs, allowing closer Tanner Rainey to take a seat and Austin Voth to pitch the ninth instead.

Too bad more fans weren’t here to witness it. The announced paid attendance of 9,261 officially was the smallest in Nationals history (excluding 2021 games with COVID-19 capacity restrictions), though that number doesn’t include anyone who purchased a ticket to Monday night’s originally scheduled game and already exchanged it for a future game. (The previous low in club history was 10,999 on Sept. 20, 2010 against the Astros.)

Tiny gathering or not, those who did brave 47-degree temperatures and a strong wind out of the northwest were treated to a quality performance from the home team, which opened this 10-game homestand on a positive note.

When it came time to map out their pitching plans for today’s doubleheader, the Nationals had to consider multiple factors.

* Should they use regular starters Josiah Gray and Joan Adon, taking stress off their bullpen today but forcing them to find a fill-in starter later this week?

* Should they use one starter today and use their bullpen in the nightcap, saving Adon for Wednesday and keeping the rest of the rotation intact the rest of the week?

* Should they use their allotted 29th player for the doubleheader on a spot starter from Triple-A?

It’s a cold, windy Tuesday in the nation’s capital, but at least it’s not raining anymore. So guess what? Let’s play two!

Yes, we’ve got our first doubleheader of the season following the postponement of Monday night’s scheduled series opener between the Nationals and Diamondbacks. That game is being made up this afternoon at 1:05 p.m., with the originally scheduled 7:05 p.m. game still on tap for this evening.

Keep in mind all doubleheader games are once again scheduled for nine innings after two years of the seven-inning trial during the peak of the pandemic. That means pitching is of the essence, and the Nats will need to get length from their starters today.

With that in mind, Davey Martinez is sticking with both of his originally scheduled starters for the first two games of this series. It’s Josiah Gray in the afternoon game, then Joan Adon in the nightcap. They’ll have to find a spot starter sometime this weekend, likely Saturday, but they’ll delay that decision for now.

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS (Game 1)
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 51 degrees, wind 19 mph out to right field

The season’s first two weeks have mostly been a blur. The Nationals played 11 games in 11 days, with multiple rain delays, one lighting delay, two road trips and a bunch of long nights along the way before finally getting a chance to catch their breath Monday.

That wasn’t even supposed to be a day off. If not for the persistent rain all day and night here, the Nats would’ve continued a stretch of 18 games in 18 days to begin the season, not getting their first scheduled day off until next Monday.

But since they did get a chance to hit the pause button for just a moment before it starts back up again with today’s doubleheader against the Diamondbacks, let’s take this moment to assess how things have gone so far.

Eleven games in, what have we learned about the 2022 Nationals?

* The rotation is shaky
This isn’t a surprise. It was the No. 1 area of concern entering the season. But now that we’ve seen two full turns of the rotation (plus Patrick Corbin a third time), we have actual evidence the concern was valid. Nats starters have a 5.80 ERA (fourth-worst in the majors) while averaging only 4.5 innings per outing. Nobody has completed six innings yet. There have been a handful of encouraging starts from Josiah Gray, Erick Fedde and Josh Rogers, but Corbin continues to struggle and Joan Adon looks very much like a rookie with minimal experience in the upper levels of the minors.

With rain in the forecast all afternoon and evening, the Nationals wasted little time making a call on tonight’s series opener against the Diamondbacks, announcing it has been postponed seven hours before scheduled first pitch.

The two teams will now play a split doubleheader Tuesday, with a new game starting at 1:05 p.m. ahead of the originally scheduled 7:05 p.m. nightcap. Both games will be nine innings, with Major League Baseball returning to longstanding rules after instituting seven-inning games for doubleheaders in 2020-21.

Fans holding tickets for tonight’s game can use them for the 1:05 p.m. game Tuesday or exchange them for tickets to an available future game. A separate ticket is required for the 7:05 p.m. game.

The rainout doesn’t necessarily come at a bad time for the Nationals, who just completed the first 11 games of a scheduled 18-day marathon with no breaks to open the season. With only two members of their rotation having even reached the sixth inning so far, the pitching staff has been taxed during a 4-7 opening stretch.

The Nats got home late Sunday night following a seven-game trip to Atlanta and Pittsburgh, having won two of three against the defending World Series champion Braves before dropping three of four to the Pirates.

Ask Sean Doolittle if there’s one thing he can point to above all else to explain his dramatic return to form this season, and the answer might catch you off-guard.

“To be honest, I think it’s my brain,” the Nationals reliever said over the weekend in Pittsburgh.

Wait, even when trying to explain how his velocity has increased?

“Yeah,” he insisted. “Because I think over the last couple years, when you’re not throwing with confidence and you’re thinking: ‘Where do my hands need to be? Or where does my front side need to be when I break my hands? Or how am I moving?’ Your body can’t do a thing like that and compete at the same time. You can’t move quickly. You’re not going to have the same conviction behind the ball. That’s what I meant when I said it’s about confidence.”

Whatever the reason, the difference in results is impossible to ignore. Five appearances into the season, Doolittle has yet to allow a batter to reach base. He has faced 14 of them. He has retired 14 of them (six via strikeout). He has thrown only 46 pitches in total, 35 of them strikes.

PITTSBURGH – The Nationals’ formula for success this season, tried and true through the first 10 games, went awry this afternoon at PNC Park. They got the five-inning start that to date has guaranteed victory, only to watch Patrick Corbin fade in the sixth and one of their most-trusted relievers, Steve Cishek, give up the lead in the seventh.

Throw in their worst defensive showing of the year, and what was shaping up to be a simple win over the Pirates in their series finale instead morphed into a 5-3 loss that devolved rather abruptly on this 42-degree Easter Sunday.

“Those little things, we got to clean up,” said manager Davey Martinez in one of several rare displays of public criticism of his team over the last few days. “We can’t give teams extra outs. We’re not going to win games like that.”

Corbin’s sixth-inning woes turned a three-run lead into a one-run lead. Cishek then gave up three runs himself in the bottom of the seventh, the first time the Nationals’ so-called “A” bullpen has blown a late lead.

There were other mistakes along the way. Third baseman Maikel Franco was charged with three errors, two of them on one play. The lineup failed to take advantage of late scoring opportunities after plating three early runs. And Josh Bell was narrowly thrown out at the plate trying to score from first on Franco’s seventh-inning double to left, aggressively waved around by third base coach Gary DiSarcina.

PITTSBURGH – Riley Adams has been a No. 1 catcher most of his life. He played all the time at the University of San Diego. He topped 400 plate appearances in the Blue Jays farm system in both 2018 and 2019.

That’s not going to be the case with the Nationals. Not unless something happens to Keibert Ruiz, the unquestioned No. 1 catcher here now.

So Adams has to start learning how to keep himself productive at the plate when he’s only catching once or twice per week.

“It’s a little different,” the 25-year-old said. “But it just means you’ve got to spend a little more time before the games behind the scenes making sure you’re as prepared as you can be.”

Adams is behind the plate for today’s series finale against the Pirates. It’s only his third start in 11 team games to date. And with very little opportunity to pinch-hit now that the designated hitter has come to the National League, there’s little reason to worry about coming off the bench in-game these days.

PITTSBURGH – It’s cold. Really cold. Like, there were snow flurries this morning cold. But there’s a series finale to play this afternoon, and the Nationals and Pirates will be bundled up when they take the field at 1:35 p.m.

The Nats really could use this one. After winning two of three in Atlanta, the last thing they want to do is lose three of four in Pittsburgh. It’s going to take a much better start from Patrick Corbin, though, to give them a chance. The left-hander was battered around by the Braves last time out. He was working in the bullpen with pitching coach Jim Hickey on some things the other day. At this point, the Nationals will take any improvement they can get from him.

They’d like to score a few more runs than they did Saturday night, as well, when they went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and needed a two-run rally in the ninth just to get to four total for the game. They’ll be going up against Pirates left-hander Jose Quintana, who held the Cubs to one earned run in 5 1/3 innings in his season debut.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at PITTSBURGH PIRATES
Where: PNC Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Mostly sunny, 42 degrees, wind 8 mph out to right field

NATIONALS
2B César Hernández
RF Juan Soto
DH Nelson Cruz
1B Josh Bell
3B Maikel Franco
LF Lane Thomas
SS Alcides Escobar
C Riley Adams
CF Victor Robles

PITTSBURGH – Davey Martinez has been talking about “the little things” since joining the Nationals in 2018. It’s a common refrain from the fifth-year manager, highlighting the importance of all those small, mundane moments during the course of a ballgame that actually make a difference in the final outcome.

And there were several little things during Saturday night’s 6-4 loss to the Pirates that did make a difference, not in a positive way.

The bottom of the eighth, most notably, featured a string of defensive mistakes that helped Pittsburgh score three tack-on runs against Kyle Finnegan, turning a one-run deficit into a four-run hole the Nats couldn’t climb all the way back from in the ninth.

It all began on the first ball in play of the inning. Michael Chavis’ line drive into the left field corner should’ve been an easy standup double for the Pirates first baseman. But then Yadiel Hernandez turned it into a triple.

Playing his first inning in the field after pinch-hitting for Victor Robles in the top of the inning, Hernandez was slow to get to the ball in the corner. Then he made a casual throw to the infield, and Chavis (who was all set to stop at second base) noticed it and immediately took off for third.

PITTSBURGH – The Nationals had more than their share of opportunities to deliver hits in big spots tonight during a 6-4 loss to the Pirates. The story of this game can be told in the simple fact they went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, and one of the hits came in the top of the ninth while trailing by three runs.

What will be remembered most from this loss, then, is the biggest hit they did get: a Juan Soto home run that did something nobody around here remembers ever seeing at PNC Park.

Soto’s fifth-inning missile to right cleared the 21-foot-high Clemente Wall, landed in one of the tunnels separating seating areas, bounced off the concourse and somehow found its resting place in the Allegheny River down below.

“I didn’t know about it,” he said. “Not at all. I just saw it going through the hallway.”

It was the latest “He Did What?!” moment from Soto in a career filled with plenty of them since the star slugger debuted in 2018. If only it hadn’t come in a loss, not that it was his fault. Soto reached base four times for the second straight night, adding two walks and a ninth-inning double to his earlier homer.

PITTSBURGH – Aníbal Sánchez’s neck has healed enough to allow him to begin throwing again, but the veteran right-hander is going to need some time now to build himself back up before he’s ready to pitch for the Nationals.

Sánchez played catch Friday for the first time since landing on the 10-day injured list with a cervical nerve impingement, and manager Davey Martinez said everything went well during that session. But this is just the first step in a longer process to get him back into big league shape.

“He said it felt better, so we’ve got to build him up now,” Martinez said. “Obviously, he missed some time. He’s off today, he’s strengthening. We’ll build him up and see where we get him.”

Sánchez, who was signed early in spring training to a minor league contract, was ticketed to open the season in the Nationals’ rotation, and the club added him to its 40-man roster as camp ended. But when he reported a stiff neck following the team’s charter flight from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Washington, he landed on the IL and Josh Rogers was recalled from Triple-A Rochester to take his rotation spot.

Rogers makes his second start of the season tonight, hoping to build off a strong performance Monday night in Atlanta. The lefty figures to remain in the big league rotation for the time being, given that Sánchez needs more time to work his way back.