There’s not much to complain about on a Sunday afternoon in mid-September in Washington, D.C. The summer’s heat and humidity have departed the region for the year. And there were matters of sport of all kinds happening in the area on a lovely sunny, 70-degree day in the District.

As it pertained to the local baseball club, this afternoon went as easily as a Sunday morning to wrap up the penultimate homestand of the 2024 season. With a 4-3 victory in front of 18,265 fans on South Capitol Street, the Nats finished this homestand 4-2 and the season series 11-2 against the Marlins.

MacKenzie Gore set the pace en route to his ninth win of the year, despite a prolonged first inning.

“Just command wasn't there from the get-go," Gore said after the game. "And then we got going.”

After issuing a leadoff walk and a two-out walk, the southpaw needed 31 pitches, only 16 of which were strikes, to get out of a scoreless top of the first. But he settled in from there to produce yet another strong stat line against the Marlins.

DETROIT – An O’s starter pitched well, but got little or no run support. A recurring theme in Birdland a lot lately.

Facing a traditional starter – not an opener – was not something that helped the struggling Orioles offense today.

They saw Detroit right-hander Keider Montero. And while his 4.88 ERA was not impressive, his last outing was. He pitched a three-hit shutout Tuesday on 96 pitches versus Colorado.

Today, he didn’t get that deep in the game, but the O’s could not score off him either.

They finally got some offense, but it proved too little and too late today.

DETROIT - They lost Friday's game 1-0 at Comerica Park. And, behind right-hander Corbin Burnes, the Orioles beat the Tigers 4-2 Saturday night. Today they try to end this series and road trip on a winning note. 

At 84-65, they begin play two games back of the Yankees for the American League East lead and two games up on the Royals for the top AL wild-card spot. The Orioles went 4-2 against the Royals this year, so should the teams tie for a playoff spot, the O's hold the tiebreaker and will get the higher seed.

Even in winning last night, the Orioles have lost five of their past seven and six of nine games. They are 26-27 since the All-Star break and 31-34 since July 1.

The Orioles are 1-1 versus the Tigers and the teams play again next weekend in Baltimore. The Orioles are 17-8 (.680) versus AL Central teams, their best win percentage this year against any division.

In the two games this series, Baltimore pitchers have allowed just three runs. Over the past four games, the O's team ERA is 2.04.

The easy part of the Nationals’ 2024 schedule comes to a close today. After this final game against the Marlins, the remaining four opponents over the season’s final two weeks are all over .500, with three of them entering today in a playoff position.

With a win this afternoon, the Nats will improve to 11-2 against the Fish, a good sign that the script has finally flipped between these two teams as they head in different directions moving forward.

MacKenzie Gore will look to get back on track after a rough outing his last time out against the Braves. The young lefty is 1-0 with a 1.38 ERA and 19 strikeouts in two starts against Miami this season.

Adam Oller will make his sixth start for the Marlins in today’s finale. The right-hander is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA and 1.388 WHIP. He was charged with six runs, seven hits and three walks in five innings against the Pirates in his last outing. The 29-year-old has never faced the Nationals in his three-year career.

CJ Abrams is missing from the lineup for a third consecutive game. The 23-year-old originally was left out of Friday's lineup with a sore left shoulder.

DETROIT – Heston Kjerstad is back with the Orioles, finally free of concussion symptoms and feeling good about his swing and his health.

He is batting fourth as the DH today, so thrust right back into the mix in a prominent spot. He wants to help an offense that has produced just 15 runs in five games this road trip. Over the last nine games, in going 3-6, Baltimore batters are averaging 2.1 runs per game with a team OPS of .583.

Kjerstad is ready to try and provide a boost with his bat.

“Oh 100 percent. All of us want to provide that boost. Maybe I can bring that. It’s a great lineup we have here. Baseball, you want to play well and the offense, we need to get rolling a bit better. All it takes is one. Once one goes, the rest of the offense will roll with him, so we’ll get it rolling here,” he said.

After he was hit in the helmet July 12, Kjerstad went on the seven-day concussion injured list. He returned eight days later but the symptoms lingered.

DETROIT - The Orioles are adding Heston Kjerstad to their roster for today’s series finale with the Detroit Tigers.

The O's announced that move and series of others this morning. In addition they have reinstated righty reliever Jacob Webb from the injured list where he was out due to right elbow inflammation. Webb has pitched to a 3.08 ERA with 53 strikeouts in 49 2/3 innings pitched. He last pitched on Aug. 2 at Cleveland.

They designated for assignment pitcher Cole Irvin and infielder/outfielder Nick Maton. The O's 40-man roster right now is at 38.

Kjerstad has been on the injured list with a concussion and playing minor league rehab games in the last several days with both High-A Aberdeen and Double-A Bowie.

He went 4-for-13 with a double and three RBIs in four games with Bowie after going 2-for-5 over two games with Aberdeen. He was the leadoff hitter last night for Bowie at Erie and went 0-for-1 with two walks.

The penultimate road trip of the season concludes later today in Detroit, which limits my usage of the word "penultimate." At least until the next-to-last regular season game.

The Orioles are off Monday and host the Giants and Tigers before wrapping up the regular season in the Bronx and Minnesota.

Those last six games could be meaningful. Don’t you think?

The roster will keep changing as more injured players return. Well, more players will return from the injured list. Phrasing!

Here are some mailbag extras that were stuck at the bottom of the bag. My tube of hair gel leaked. I have no idea how it got in there, so hopefully that isn't one of your questions.

DETROIT – The pressure was most definitely on the Orioles Saturday night at Comerica Park. On this night, they stood up to it with an important and impressive 4-2 win over a hot Detroit Tigers team that had won 21 of 30 coming into play.

The O’s were three games back of the Yankees for the division lead and Kansas City had pulled within two games for the top American League wild card seed.

They needed a win to gain a game on one team after the Yankees lost Saturday afternoon and hold off another. Now they are two back of the Yankees and two up on the Royals.

They were 2-6 over the last eight games and not scoring much. The clubhouse was trying to stay together and avoid the outside criticism the team was getting.

After the win Saturday, catcher James McCann said they have stayed strong as a team.

Maybe it was appropriate today’s game featured a centennial celebration of Washington’s 1924 champions, a club that won the city’s first World Series despite ranking last in the American League with a grand total of 22 home runs that season.

No team in the National League this year has hit fewer home runs than the Nationals, who entered this contest against the Marlins with a grand total of 122 on the season.

Bucky Harris, Muddy Ruel, Goose Goslin and Co. would’ve been proud of Davey Martinez’s current squad, which runs the bases with the kind of abandon more common in the Dead Ball Era than the Modern Era. They might not have known what to make, though, of the three titanic blasts that were on display this afternoon during a 4-1 victory by the home team. (Not to mention the giant scoreboard, flashing lights and instant Statcast data.)

Yes, the 2024 Nationals won a baseball game thanks to three home runs. For that, they can thank Joey Gallo, José Tena and Juan Yepez, who each delivered a solo shot during the course of the afternoon and early evening to send a crowd of 28,175 – just a bit shy of the 31,667 who packed into Griffith Stadium on Oct. 10, 1924 – home happy.

It hasn’t been their typical formula for success this season. But it’s appreciated when it happens.

It’s a spectacular Saturday afternoon in the nation’s capital. Maybe the matchup between the Nationals and Marlins isn’t anything to get excited about, but there are surely worse places to be on such a lovely day than the ballpark, right?

The Nats look to make it two in a row (and 10 out of 12) against Miami, and they’ll hope Patrick Corbin does his part to help make that possible. The left-hander makes his 30th start of the season, his 168th start as a National. He’s probably got two more after this one, and maybe after everything he’s been through he can finish this all off with some quality performances.

The Marlins send Valente Bellozo to the mound, and the rookie right-hander was really good when he faced the Nats last week in Miami. He tossed six scoreless innings on 85 pitches, outdueling MacKenzie Gore (who had a no-hit bid going that night). The Nationals will need to put together some better at-bats today, with the top of the lineup preferably scoring early as it did each of the last two nights.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs MIAMI MARLINS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 84 degrees, wind 10 mph in from right field

NATIONALS
RF Dylan Crews
LF James Wood
DH Juan Yepez
2B Luis García Jr.
3B José Tena
C Keibert Ruiz
1B Joey Gallo
CF Jacob Young
SS Nasim Nuñez

Luis García Jr. has made strides in just about every aspect of his game during his breakthrough season. The Nationals second baseman has established career highs in batting average (.282), on-base percentage (.320) and slugging percentage (.445), is 21-for-25 in stolen base attempts and has turned himself into a better defensive player as well.

There’s still room for improvement in some areas, though, most notably at the plate against left-handers.

Manager Davey Martinez has been reluctant to start García against most lefties, concerned his swing mechanics haven’t been as consistent in those at-bats. García tends to let his front shoulder and hip fly open, leaving him vulnerable to pitches on the outer portion of the strike zone.

There have been a few more opportunities of late, though, and García took full advantage of his latest one Friday night. Facing Marlins lefty Anthony Veneziano in the bottom of the seventh, he put forth one of his best swings of the season and slammed a leadoff homer to help lead the Nats en route to a 4-1 victory.

“That was a big home run,” Martinez said. “He stayed on that ball, gave us another point, and then we scored another one. That was a big moment for us.”

DETROIT – The storyline for the game tonight at Detroit in the series-opener for the Orioles was not just would their offense finally get going.

It was would they get a hit or even a baserunner?

Their batters who had scored just 15 runs their past seven games, were going down quickly and too many times taking called third strikes. They were getting nothing going.

And they almost never did.

Gunnar Henderson's two-out triple down the right-field line in the ninth ended Detroit's combined no-hit bid. But one strikeout of Anthony Santander later, the O's had lost this game 1-0 in the series opener in front of 25,253 at Comerica Park.

It has flown under the radar a bit, but DJ Herz has turned into the Nationals’ best starting pitcher over the last two months.

Since returning from a brief stint at Triple-A Rochester around the All-Star break designed to give him some extra rest, the rookie has taken the mound 10 times. And in those 10 games, he now owns a 2.76 ERA and 1.082 WHIP, all while striking out 10.5 batters per nine innings.

Including in that stretch was another gem tonight, with Herz tossing five more innings of one-run ball. And thanks to some long-awaited clutch hits from a lineup that has precious few of them the last two nights, the Nationals emerged with a 4-1 victory over the Marlins to reward Herz for his efforts.

Despite totaling only four hits, the Nats found a way to score four runs. And their bullpen didn’t squander their starter’s effort, with Eduardo Salazar, Jose A. Ferrer and Kyle Finnegan combining for four scoreless innings of relief to finish off the team’s ninth win in 11 games against Miami this season.

Herz was already on a roll entering this start, having tossed five no-hit innings against the Pirates last Saturday before he was pulled with a pitch count of 87. And when he retired the first six Marlins he faced tonight, the young lefty was now on a run of seven consecutive innings without allowing a hit.

DETROIT - The Orioles tonight play game No. 148 and for the first time in 2024, they will play the Tigers. The clubs open a three-game series at Comerica Park.

The teams will meet six times in the next nine games, playing back-to-back weekends in Detroit and Baltimore.

While the O's have not played well for most of the last couple of months really, the Tigers are a pretty hot team right now despite their 4-2 loss Thursday to the Rockies.

Detroit has won its last two series versus Oakland and Colorado and is 5-1 in its past six series.

At 75-72, the Tigers begin play tonight 3.5 games back of the Twins for the last American League wild-card berth and the No. 6 AL seed.

CJ Abrams won’t get a chance tonight to see if he can continue his recent power surge at the plate.

The Nationals shortstop was scratched from the lineup after reporting a sore left shoulder, the result of a diving play during Thursday night’s 6-3 loss to the Marlins.

Abrams made a nice play diving to his left to snag Connor Norby’s sharp grounder up the middle in the top of the third, hopping to his feet and firing to first base in time for the out. He played the rest of the game but woke up this morning with shoulder stiffness. And when the condition didn’t improve by mid-afternoon, the Nats decided to scratch him from the lineup.

“He’s getting worked on right now,” manager Davey Martinez said around 4 p.m. “But I don’t want to take a chance.”

Martinez said Abrams isn’t scheduled for an MRI yet, but if he’s still dealing with the issue Saturday that could change.

DETROIT - As he began his pregame media session in the visitor's dugout ahead of tonight's series-opening game in Detroit, O's manager Brandon Hyde was asked to provide an update on his various injured list players.

“Is this a two-hour program?" Hyde quipped.

Then he used the next few minutes to provide numerous updates on this list of players.

Jordan Westburg: “His hitting progression is progressing. He’s doing better, doing all baseball activities. Swinging the bat in the cage now. All positive. No setbacks as of right now. But when you haven’t swung a bat for a while and you are coming off a broken hand, it takes a little while to gain strength in your hand. So they are building strength in the hand and he is getting used to swinging the bat."

Ryan Mountcastle: “Mountcastle? Unsure, honestly. He is in Sarasota. I’m hoping he is going to start swinging a bat here in the next few days. That’s going to be a hitting progression too. Trying to stay optimistic that we will see him by the end of the season.”

Thursday was not a good night for the Nationals, who did so many things wrong during the course of a 6-3 loss to the Marlins that really should have been a win based on the way the game began and based on the way Mitchell Parker pitched.

But it’s a new day, so they’ll try to bounce back tonight and win game two of the four-game series, with another rookie left-hander on the mound who has enjoyed success against this opponent before.

Way back on June 15, DJ Herz made only his third career start. It was against the Marlins, here in D.C. And he proceeded to toss six innings of scoreless ball, striking out 13 of the 19 batters he faced that afternoon. It was a brilliant performance that suddenly showed the world just how good Herz can be when he’s locked in. He was similarly locked in last weekend against the Pirates, tossing five hitless innings on 87 pitches before he was pulled. You never really know with certainly what you’re going to get from him on any given night, but if ever the stars were aligned for a dominant performance …

The Nationals need better offensive production tonight against Edward Cabrera than they got Thursday against Darren McCaughan, who gave up three quick runs in the first inning and then nothing else the rest of the way. It’s been a while since the Nats last saw Cabrera, April 27 to be precise. They got to the right-hander for six runs in only 4 1/3 innings that afternoon, though it’s worth noting the big hits in that game came from Jesse Winker, Nick Senzel and Trey Lipscomb, none of whom are going to be here tonight.

Update: CJ Abrams was scratched from the lineup after jamming his left shoulder making a diving play at shortstop Thursday night. Everyone moves up a slot in the lineup, with Nasim Nuñez now batting ninth and starting at shortstop.

DETROIT - Looking for wins and now two games back in the American League East race, the Orioles play at Comerica Park tonight. They open a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers, Major League Baseball's winningest club since Aug. 11.

The O's lineup tonight shows Gunnar Henderson leading off, Cedric Mullins batting third and Adley Rutschman hitting fourth. Eloy Jiménez is the DH and Jacskon Holliday is batting ninth at second base. 

Yes, the Tigers (75-72) are a hot team and they are pushing for wins too. They begin play tonight 3.5 games behind the Twins for the final American League wild-card playoff spot.

Detroit has won four of five and 13 of 19 games. The Tigers lead MLB in going 20-9 since Aug. 11.

Best MLB records since that date:

It’s too late for Keibert Ruiz’s season totals to become respectable. The Nationals catcher dug himself into such a deep hole in April and May, he simply wasn’t going to be able to climb all the way back and finish with offensive numbers that look decent on the back of his baseball card.

But anyone who has watched Ruiz over the entirety of the season can see he’s a much better hitter now than he was several months ago. He has progressively improved, and the version he’s put there of himself the last few weeks has been the best version of him.

“The way he’s playing right now – everything, defense, hitting – he’s done way better,” manager Davey Martinez said Thursday. “And he’s gotten progressively better every month after the All-Star break.”

That’s not entirely true. Ruiz was slightly better in May than he was in June, slightly better in July than he was in August. But the overall improvement most definitely is there, from a .488 OPS in March and April to a .554 OPS in May and June to a .679 OPS in July and August. And now, through the first 12 days of September, he boasts a .958 OPS built on the strength of a 12-for-36 hot streak and seven extra-base hits.

Ruiz delivered his sixth double of the month during Thursday night’s loss to the Marlins. He has been hitting the ball with more authority, especially to right field, and not chasing pitches out of the zone quite as regularly as he did during the season’s first half.

A Nationals club that has owned the Marlins this season looked ready to keep that trend going tonight when it stormed out to a quick three-run lead against an unheralded opposing starter while watching its own starter cruise along for six innings barely breaking a sweat along the way.

It’s not quite that simple to win ballgames in the major leagues, of course, no matter the quality of opponent. You still need to pitch well for nine innings, hit for more than one inning and play clean defense all night.

And the Nats did none of those things during what wound up a disheartening 6-3 loss to Miami.

Despite an at-times dominant start from Mitchell Parker and the aforementioned early three-run lead, the Nationals fell flat the rest of the way. They didn’t score again after the bottom of the first. They committed three errors, two of them directly leading to three unearned runs. And they didn’t get the outs they needed from Derek Law during a decisive top of the eighth that flipped the score in the Marlins’ favor.

All of which added up to only their second loss in 10 head-to-head games this season against the last-place Marlins, this one played before a sparse crowd of 13,299 on Thursday night in September.