ST. LOUIS – MacKenzie Gore probably wouldn’t have looked at this kind of start – six runs allowed over five innings – and found positives to focus on at any other point this season. But this is where the Nationals left-hander is these days, searching for some good developments to cling to during what has been one of the toughest stretches of his career.

“Look, today wasn’t good. But it was better,” he said. “I’m trying to figure this whole thing out and stop the bleeding here. We’re going to. But it obviously wasn’t great today.”

Taking the mound Friday night hoping to snap a run of four substandard performances over his last five starts, Gore didn’t really do that, as evidenced by his final line. But his night did start off on a high note, with only 24 pitches thrown over two scoreless innings. And it ended on a high note as well, striking out Dylan Carlson with a runner in scoring position to close out a scoreless fifth.

The trouble is what took place in between, especially during a nightmare third inning.

That frame began with Gore allowing the first five Cardinals batters he faced to reach and ultimately score. He walked No. 9 batter Michael Siani. He surrendered a two-run homer to Masyn Winn. He allowed singles to Willson Contreras and Alec Burleson. And then he served up a three-run homer to Nolan Arenado to complete the sudden rally and ensure this would go down as another poor start.

ST. LOUIS – They overcame another subpar start from MacKenzie Gore, clawing their way from back from a three-run deficit to pull even with the Cardinals in the seventh.

And thanks to four scoreless innings from their bullpen, the Nationals gave themselves a chance to finally take the lead in the 10th. At which point Jacob Young came through with the biggest hit of his young career.

Young laced a three-run triple to right with two outs in the top of the 10th, the big blow the Nats desperately needed to complete their 28th come-from-behind win of the year, this one by the final score of 10-8 at a stunned Busch Stadium.

One night after getting no-hit for the second time in a calendar year and getting shut out for the 12th time this season, the Nationals cracked double-digits for only the seventh time in 2024.

"It's in the past. Turn the page," said Juan Yepez, who came through with three hits and two RBIs against his former team. "Just be aggressive and trust our talent. Swing hard, put the ball in play and play for the team. I think that's what we did, and that's how we got the win."

ST. LOUIS – The Nationals sent Eduardo Salazar down to Triple-A on Tuesday, saying they wanted to see the right-hander back in the big leagues before long. Turns out it took only three days to bring him back.

The Nats recalled Salazar from Rochester this afternoon, permitted to make such a move because he is replacing an injured teammate, in this case Jordan Weems, who was placed on the 15-day injured list with right shin splints.

Pitchers normally are required to spend 15 days in the minors after getting optioned, but exceptions are made for doubleheaders and injuries. And in this case, the Nationals were able to get the exemption because of Weems’ injury, which he made club officials aware of earlier this week.

Owner of a 6.59 ERA and 1.683 WHIP in 40 appearances, Weems was roughed up by the Padres for five runs in one inning of relief Wednesday after starter Mitchell Parker was pulled after only three frames. Manager Davey Martinez said he noticed Weems struggling to push off the mound, and when asked about it, the 29-year-old admitted he has dealt with pain in his shin on and off since last season.

“Last year, it was pretty bad,” said Weems, who still had a 3.62 ERA and 1.207 WHIP in 51 games. “This year, it just kind of continued to get worse and worse. It felt like it was a good time to just give it a blow, instead of letting it get to the point where I do get something like a stress fracture or something like, where you could really be out for a while.”

ST. LOUIS – The Nationals couldn’t have asked for a better start to their homestand. And then they couldn’t have asked for a worse conclusion. They swept the Reds, then they were swept by the Padres, including Dylan Cease’s no-hitter Thursday afternoon. All that just to finish 3-3 for the week.

It’s a new day, though, and the Nats are back on the road, with a six-game trip beginning tonight in St. Louis and extending through Tuesday’s trade deadline in Phoenix.

The Nationals just faced the Cardinals a few weeks ago in D.C., losing three of four, the first of those losses an 11-inning affair. In that game, they jumped all over Sonny Gray for five runs in three innings. Luis García Jr. was the offensive star of the night, going 4-for-5 with a homer, and he’ll hope for similar results in tonight’s rematch with Gray.

Speaking of rematches, MacKenzie Gore gets another crack at the Cardinals after giving up five runs on six hits and five walks in only 3 1/3 innings during that series. That was the first of three subpar outings by Gore, who has totaled only 10 innings in those games while seeing his pitch counts skyrocket. The left-hander hasn’t minced words about his performances. It’s time for him to right the ship, and he knows it.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Where: Busch Stadium
Gametime: 8:15 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 84 degrees, wind 6 mph in from right field

Josiah Gray underwent Tommy John surgery, plus an additional procedure to further stabilize his right elbow, officially ending his 2024 season and guaranteeing the Nationals’ Opening Day starter will miss the majority of the 2025 season as well.

Gray, who learned last week he had a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, flew to Dallas to be operated on today by orthopedist Keith Meister, who left open the possibility of performing only the less invasive internal brace procedure.

In the end, Meister determined the tear to be significant enough to warrant the full ligament replacement surgery named for the famed left-hander whose career was saved by the then-experimental procedure in the 1970s, plus the internal brace procedure, which reinforces the new elbow ligament.

Typical recovery time for Tommy John surgery is 12-to-18 months, so even in a best-case scenario, Gray would only be ready to return late in the 2025 season.

“He’s going to miss time, as we all know,” said manager Davey Martinez after announcing the news following tonight’s 12-3 loss to the Padres. “But he’s doing well. He feels good about it. … He’s got a long road, he knows that. But knowing him, he’s going to work really hard to get back.”

As much as young starting pitching carried the Nationals through the first half of the season, everyone involved has known all along there were no guarantees that group of unproven arms would continue to perform at such a high level through the second half of the season.

This is especially true for the least-experienced members of the group: Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz, neither of whom opened the year in the big leagues but quickly burst onto the scene to make names for themselves.

Upon seeing Herz begin to struggle earlier this month, the Nats decided to demote him to Triple-A and give him an extended All-Star break to rest his arm and mind. He returned Tuesday night and impressed over five innings against the Padres.

The club might be tempted to do something similar with Parker after he got ransacked tonight by San Diego during an ugly, 12-3 loss that ended with utilityman Ildemaro Vargas firing up a crowd of 23,323 with a scoreless top of the ninth featuring a plethora of eephus pitches.

The Nationals are now 0-5 against the Padres this season, 47-50 against everyone else.

The Nationals signed another one of their top draft picks today, coming to terms with Caleb Lomavita and giving the former Cal catcher a tour of the ballpark and a chance to take batting practice with big leaguers.

Lomavita, the 39th overall pick in this month’s draft, received a signing bonus of $2.325 million, according to a source familiar with the terms. That’s slightly below Major League Baseball’s recommended slot value of $2.4 million for that particular pick.

That the Nationals even found themselves holding the 39th pick was a last-minute surprise, with general manager Mike Rizzo acquiring it along with third base prospect Cayden Wallace from the Royals for reliever Hunter Harvey about 24 hours before the start of the July 14 draft. It was one of only a handful of draft picks eligible to be traded, officially a “Competitive Balance A” pick awarded to Kansas City because it is considered a low-revenue club.

Inside the Nats’ draft war room, scouts were ecstatic to suddenly have a third selection on the event’s opening night to go along with the previously assigned No. 10 and No. 44 overall picks.

Lomavita, 21, is considered a top offensive prospect whose catching skills developed significantly over the last few years in Berkeley. In 158 games across three seasons at Cal, the Hawaii native hit 38 homers with 141 RBIs and a .302/.369/.534 slash line while seeing his caught-stealing percentage improve from 19 percent as a sophomore to 23 percent as a junior.

The Nationals have not fared well against two teams in particular this season. They’re 2-8 against the Mets, and they’re 0-4 against the Padres. Throw out those records – which obviously you can’t do – and they’ve actually gone 45-42 against everybody else in the majors. Which is not bad at all. But one of these days, they’ve got to find a way to beat San Diego, and there are only two games left to do that.

Davey Martinez would love to get a better offensive performance tonight than he got in the opener, when the Nats were shut out for the 11th time this year. That came against unheralded right-hander Randy Vasquez and three relievers. Tonight, it’s Matt Waldron, who enters with better numbers than Vasquez and pitched well against the Nationals just last month at Petco Park, allowing two runs while striking out eight over six innings. (That’s the game that was remembered far more for what happened during a wild 10th inning than anything that happened earlier.)

Mitchell Parker did not pitch in that series, so this will be his first start against the Padres. The rookie left-hander had a breakthrough first half, until a disastrous finale in Milwaukee in which he couldn’t get out of the first inning. A fast and effective start to Parker’s evening this time around is a must.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly cloudy, 84 degrees, wind 7 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
DH Jesse Winker
1B Juan Yepez
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
C Riley Adams
3B Trey Lipscomb
CF Jacob Young

As Tuesday’s trade deadline draws ever closer, the biggest dilemma facing the Nationals has become crystal clear: Whether or not to deal Kyle Finnegan.

Most of the other decisions Mike Rizzo faces over the next six days are pretty clear cut. Jesse Winker and Dylan Floro are here on one-year deals and will most likely be traded for the best available offers. Trevor Williams and Joey Gallo are still on the injured list and unlikely to return until sometime in August at best, so that takes both veterans out of the equation. Lane Thomas’ fate isn’t certain, but the emergence of Jacob Young in center field and the fact Dylan Crews is going to be big-league-ready very soon gives Rizzo plenty of reason to see what he can get for his 28-year-old right fielder.

But then there’s Finnegan, who is sure to draw interest from contending teams and could command a high asking price but also could very much still be a critical part of a Nationals team that hopes to win in 2025.

The pros and cons for trading the All-Star closer:

PRO: On the heels of a dominant first half, and with one-plus years of club control attached to his name, his value may never be higher. Finnegan ranks among the league leaders in saves, ERA and WHIP, and he’s been a consistently dominant presence at the end of games. Fourteen of his 28 saves have come with completely clean innings, with nobody reaching base against him, second-most in the majors behind the Cardinals’ Ryan Helsley.

After a weekend sweep of the Reds that included a series of notable rallies and some long-awaited power displays from a lineup that desperately needed it, the Nationals returned tonight to face the Padres hoping for at least some carryover effect.

Instead, they got the exact opposite. During the course of a lackluster 4-0 loss, they did very little at the plate, squandering the scoring opportunities they had and rarely hitting the ball with any real authority.

Thus did the Nats lose for the first time since the All-Star break, missing a chance to sustain some positive momentum with a tepid showing at the plate against an unheralded opposing pitcher.

Randy Vasquez, a 25-year-old right-hander who has given up a bunch of hits – especially homers – this season, combined with three San Diego relievers to shut out the Nationals on only 102 pitches.

"We hit some balls hard, but we just couldn't get any good swings off," manager Davey Martinez said. "We swung the bats today, but we really didn't work good at-bats."

The Nationals used the days before and after the All-Star break to carry an extra reliever. Turns out they only used him once before sending him back to the minors.

Eduardo Salazar, who impressed in his July 14 outing against the Brewers, was optioned to Triple-A Rochester this afternoon, a move necessitated by the return of DJ Herz, who starts tonight’s series opener against the Padres.

Salazar, who posted eye-popping numbers in nine games with Rochester after the Nationals claimed him off waivers from the Mariners last month, was called up for the final two days before the All-Star break when the club could afford to carry a ninth reliever. He pitched two innings in the first half finale in Milwaukee, striking out four batters with a sharp-breaking slider, though he also issued two walks in that game.

The Nats kept the nine-man bullpen for last weekend’s series but never summoned Salazar while sweeping the Reds. So the 26-year-old now heads back to Triple-A, where he’ll hope to make an impression again and earn his way back to the majors.

“I think we will see more eventually,” manager Davey Martinez said. “The thing about it that’s tough is, one, he’s got options. Two, he’s a depth piece for us. But he threw the ball really well. So I’m sure we’ll see more of Salazar.”

The Nationals couldn’t have asked for a better start to their second half, sweeping the Reds over the weekend in impressive fashion. Now they’ll have to try to keep it going against a team that recently swept them.

The Padres are in town, and it was only four weeks ago when they won three straight against the Nationals during a wild series in San Diego that ruined a lot of positive momentum they had built up earlier in June.

One of those games at Petco Park was started by DJ Herz, who makes his return to the big leagues tonight after officially getting recalled from Triple-A. (Reliever Eduardo Salazar was optioned to Rochester to clear up that roster spot.) Herz essentially got a 16-day break since he last pitched up here, making only one abbreviated start for Rochester to keep his arm fresh. It will be fascinating to see how the rookie left-hander returns, and whether he can find some level of more consistency than he showed in his first stint.

Right-hander Randy Vasquez is tonight’s opponent, and he will be a new face from the Nationals’ perspective, nobody on the current roster having faced him before. There will be a few ex-Padres in the lineup, though, with some extra motivation against the franchise that traded them. How will James Wood and CJ Abrams handle this assignment?

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Chance of rain late, 88 degrees, wind 7 mph out to left field

For three months, as he produced decent – but hardly spectacular – numbers in Rochester, Juan Yepez had little reason to believe he was a simple phone call away from Washington. He was, like so many others with big league experience, stuck at Triple-A, trying to make the best of a frustrating situation.

“For sure, I felt like the call felt far,” he said. “Honestly, I was surprised. I wasn’t expecting it. But I think I had trust that I was going to get my opportunity, and I’m just glad I had it.”

The call did finally come July 5, the Nationals deciding they couldn’t wait any longer for Joey Meneses to break out of his season-long slump. Meneses went down to Rochester. Yepez came up and was given the opportunity to prove he deserved to be the starting first baseman.

More than two weeks later, he’s done just about everything in his power to prove he does deserve the job.

Yepez has played 13 games with the Nats. He has recorded at least one hit in all 13 games. He has recorded at least one extra-base hit in eight of those games. He’s the proud owner of a .367 batting average, .437 on-base percentage and 1.008 OPS, the kind of production the team desperately needed from the most offensive-minded position on the field.

Forgive Kyle Finnegan if he has trouble remembering what day it currently is, or where he’s been over the last week.

A quick refresher course, then. On Sunday, Finnegan was with the Nationals in Milwaukee, having just pitched three straight days. On Monday, he and his family were in Hershey, Pa., enjoying their All-Star break at an amusement park. Until he got the call from Nats general manager Mike Rizzo he had just been selected as a last-minute addition to the National League’s All-Star team.

So on Tuesday, the Finnegan family surprisingly found itself in Arlington, Texas, getting the full All-Star experience (even though he didn’t pitch in the game). Wednesday and Thursday finally offered an opportunity to rest up a bit. But then Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Finnegan found himself on the mound at Nationals Park, recording the final out in three consecutive victories over the Reds to cap off a wild week.

“A lot has happened,” he said. “It’s been exciting. It’s been a little hectic. But I was talking to my wife: The experience we’ve been able to have with our family over these last four or five days has been really special. That’s the beautiful part about this game and what it can bring into your life.”

Finnegan wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. Though he was the only one of 12 pitchers on the active NL All-Star roster who didn’t appear in the game, he otherwise got to partake in everything the Midsummer Classic had to offer. (Oh, and by the way, had the NL rallied from a 5-3 deficit in the top of the ninth, he would’ve been the one closing out the game in the bottom of the inning.)

The formula that won Saturday night’s game wasn’t going to be plausible today. The Nationals simply couldn’t afford another ultra-abbreviated outing from their starter, putting even more strain on an already strained bullpen.

So Jake Irvin did his part, rediscovering the form that made him one of the league’s breakout pitchers in the first half of the season. And then James Wood made sure that pitching performance would count with one huge late swing.

Wood’s three-run homer off reliever Justin Wilson turned a tie game in the bottom of the eighth into a 5-2 Nats victory and a three-game sweep of the Reds to kick off the season’s second half in decidedly upbeat fashion.

"We're right there with them," Wood said of a Nationals team that has won five of six and currently sits four games out of a wide-open Wild Card race. "We're trying to make a push, too."

Wood stepped to the plate with two out and two on in the eighth, Cincinnati manager David Bell summoning Wilson specifically to face him. The rookie had batted against the veteran left-hander Saturday night, grounding out on the fifth pitch of that at-bat. He wasted no time today, aggressively going after Wilson’s first-pitch fastball and driving it 404 feet to left for his second career homer.

The second half schedule afforded the Nationals the option of waiting a while before using their fifth starter. They’ve decided, though, to go ahead and use him now.

The Nats will send that yet-to-be-announced starter to the mound Tuesday against the Padres in what is actually the team’s fourth game coming out of the All-Star break. That pushes left-hander Mitchell Parker back to Wednesday’s game, with Patrick Corbin (who started Friday night’s second half opener) pitching Thursday’s series finale against San Diego.

The presence of an off-day on the schedule this week gave the Nationals some room to maneuver if they wished. They don’t actually need a fifth starter until Saturday’s game in St. Louis, the eighth game coming out of the break.

But rather than offer all of the extra rest to one pitcher, the club decided to give others (especially Parker) an extra day before taking the mound.

“Exactly, that’s what it boils down to,” manager Davey Martinez said. “We want to try to give these guys as much rest as we possibly can. Some of these guys are going to pitch a lot more than they have in the past, so we’re trying to just stretch this out a little bit.”

The Nationals have already won back-to-back series. Now they have a shot at a rare series sweep if they can beat the Reds again in this afternoon’s finale.

Though they’ve somehow managed to win a pair of games in the last week in which their starter didn’t even reach the third inning, that’s probably not a formula for sustained success. So it would behoove Jake Irvin to be good today, and to give his team some length so Davey Martinez doesn’t have rely too heavily on a bullpen that’s already worn down only two games into the second half of the season.

Irvin is coming off back-to-back rough starts, though, which took some of the luster off his breakthrough first half. The right-hander’s issue in those games against the Mets and Brewers: He was hit hard, to the tune of 13 runs on 18 hits over 10 innings. That was a pretty stark drop-off after back-to-back starts in which he surrendered only one hit.

The Nationals face another left-hander today in Andrew Abbott. He’s been solid in 40 career starts, but the Nats did get to him for six runs in 5 2/3 innings last August in Cincinnati. The University of Virginia alum has walked 22 batters over his last 37 1/3 innings, so patience is a virtue against him this afternoon.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CINCINNATI REDS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 89 degrees, wind 5 mph out to left field

That the Nationals had to ask for at least seven innings from their bullpen for the second time in four games was aggravating. That they somehow were still in position to win another one of these games was absolutely remarkable.

And yet here the Nats were once again, forced to turn to the bullpen early after an extra-abbreviated outing from their starter. And here they were once again finding a way to emerge victorious at the end of the night, storming back from an early deficit created by MacKenzie Gore to beat the Reds, 5-4.

"Well, that was a grind," manager Davey Martinez sighed. "The boys played hard. They played with their heart."

They pulled it off by chipping away at Cincinnati’s early lead, scoring two runs in the first, one in the fourth, one in the seventh and one more in the eighth on Jacob Young’s clutch two-out RBI single.

And they pulled it off thanks to another brilliant performance by a relief corps asked to work overtime after Gore lasted only two laborious innings.

Cade Cavalli hoped all along to make his return from Tommy John surgery in June. And if not June, at least by July. But as the clock continues to tick and the right-hander still finds himself waiting to restart the latest phase of his extensive rehab program, it has become clear the Nationals are only going to be able to get a handful of big league starts out of their 2020 first-round pick before season’s end.

Cavalli, who had elbow ligament replacement surgery in March 2023, has made only three official minor league rehab starts, none since June 21 for Single-A Wilmington. In the month since that outing – he tossed three scoreless, hitless innings – he has been sidetracked both by the flu and a period in which he experienced “dead arm” when he threw.

The dead arm period, which manager Davey Martinez revealed for the first time today, prompted the Nats to further delay Cavalli’s throwing progression.

“We just wanted to keep him down, and honestly slow him down a little bit,” Martinez said. “He had that dead arm for a little while. And him being sick, we just didn’t want to push him. … It’s one of those things, he’s so young and he’s a big part of our future. We want to make sure we do everything right for the kid. We talked to him. He was in agreement. He wanted to take a little bit of a break, and then we’ll go from there.”

Cavalli, who turns 26 next month, remains in D.C. with the Nationals. He’s scheduled to go to West Palm Beach, Fla., next week and start his progression all over again, throwing off flat ground, then off a mound, then against live hitters before he goes on another rehab assignment.

Though it got way more interesting in the top of the ninth than it needed to be, the Nationals’ 8-5 victory over the Reds on Friday night was a very good way for them to open the second half of the season. They got sustained offense, including a pair of home runs from two positions where they’ve desperately needed more offense. They got a very good start out of Patrick Corbin. And they actually supported him for a change and earned him his first win since May 10.

Now there’s an opportunity to clinch a weekend series win and really get the second half to a positive start. It starts with MacKenzie Gore, who needs some positive performances himself right now. The left-hander allowed four or more runs in four of his last five starts, turning a 3.26 ERA into a 4.01 ERA at the break. He’s got to be more efficient and give himself a chance to go deep in the game, especially after the Nats used five relievers to pull off Friday’s win.

The Nationals lineup faces the Reds’ Nick Lodolo, who put together a very solid first half of his own, going 8-3 with a 3.33 ERA and 1.123 WHIP. The left-hander is facing the Nats for only the second time in his career, and the previous start took place back in 2022, when he allowed three runs over seven innings to a lineup that included a top four of César Hernández, Joey Meneses, Luke Voit and Nelson Cruz. Not a lot to be drawn from that performance.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CINCINNATI REDS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Rain ending, 80 degrees, wind 9 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
1B Juan Yepez
DH Harold Ramírez
C Riley Adams
2B Ildemaro Vargas
LF James Wood
3B Trey Lipscomb
CF Jacob Young