The All-Star break is over. The Nationals – along with 29 other major league teams – return to action tonight, and the second half of the 2025 season gets underway.

It’s a second half that doesn’t hold anything close to the same promise it did a few months ago, when it looked like the Nats might at least threaten the .500 mark, maybe even make a surprise cameo appearance in the National League wild card race. Alas, that’s not going to happen now. To finish 81-81, they need to go a ridiculous 43-23 the rest of the way. (That would be the equivalent of a 105-win pace over an entire season. So, yeah, it’s not happening.)

But that doesn’t mean the rest of the season is going to be meaningless. There are storylines worth following over the next 2 1/2 months. Such as these …

THE TRADE DEADLINE
For the fifth straight season, the Nationals figure to be sellers on July 31. That’s not a position anyone wanted to be in this year, but it’s reality now. Interim general manager Mike DeBartolo has no choice but to see what he can get for players who don’t look like part of the long-term plan around here. Anybody on an expiring contract (Kyle Finnegan, Michael Soroka, Josh Bell, Paul DeJong, Amed Rosario, Andrew Chafin) is going to be shopped and likely moved if any kind of substantive offer is made. The bigger question is whether DeBartolo looks to move anybody still under club control in 2026 (or beyond). Nathaniel Lowe would be a potential candidate. And what about (gulp) MacKenzie Gore, who is the same distance away from free agency right as Juan Soto was in July 2022. It would take a gargantuan offer from someone, but would DeBartolo consider doing it?

WOOD’S PERSONAL PURSUITS
He’s not going to be able to do anything on his own to help the Nationals become a winning team this year, but James Wood has plenty to shoot for on a personal level. He’s shooting for 40-plus homers, a number previously reached only by Bryce Harper (42) and Alfonso Soriano (46) in club history. If he gets within shouting distance of Soriano, September could actually be a lot of fun. He could also join Anthony Rendon as the only players in club history to drive in more than 110 runs, though it would take a mammoth surge to threaten Rendon’s team record of 126 RBIs.

At the macro level, it’s impossible to look at the Nationals’ 2025 season to date and deem it a success. The team has been in a tailspin since early June, losing 28 of its last 38 games and plummeting to 20 games under .500. That tailspin cost both Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez their jobs, firings few could have accurately predicted when they closed out May with a respectable 28-30 record.

Now, the strange part. At the micro level, there actually have been a few positive developments through the season’s first half. Several key young players have performed exceptionally well. Several prospects called up to debut amid the turmoil have done a nice job to date.

Those individual positives don’t add up nearly enough to salvage the big picture. But they have created a weird dichotomy to the first 96 games of the season. All is not well around here, but all is not lost, either.

There’s much that still needs to take place in the second half to determine the fate of the 2025 Nationals, and we’ll explore that Friday morning before the guys return from the All-Star break. Today, we’ll look at what already transpired, what went right and what went wrong through a first half that won’t soon be forgotten by anyone who had to experience it. …

RIGHT: JAMES WOOD
This can’t be said enough: Wood is having the best individual season by a National since Juan Soto. The team hasn’t had a qualified hitter finish with a .900 OPS since Soto’s .999 mark in 2021. Wood currently sits at .915, and that’s down 43 points over his last eight games. If he gets that number back to .950, he’d joint an awfully select list of players in club history (Soto, Anthony Rendon, Daniel Murphy, Bryce Harper). That’s it. Oh, he’s also on pace for 41 homers and 116 RBIs. Only Harper (42) and Alfonso Soriano (46) have hit 40-plus homes in club history. Only Rendon (126) has driven in more than 110 runs. If the Nats were a more competitive team, Wood would be in the MVP discussion over the rest of the season.

James Wood seemed to set the bar high enough when he kicked off tonight’s Home Run Derby with a solid number and several jaw-dropping blasts.

Little did the Nationals’ young slugger realize just how impressive the competition would be on this night.

Despite launching 16 home runs as the first contestant at Atlanta’s Truist Park, Wood wound up being the first one eliminated when the four batters who followed – Brent Rooker, Junior Caminero, Oneil Cruz and Byron Buxton – each surpassed that number.

Wood drew the short straw and had to bat first, leaving the 22-year-old with no way of knowing how many home runs it would take to advance to the semifinals. And he got off to a slow start, with only one of his first eight batted balls clearing the fence.

But the young man known for hitting baseballs as hard as anyone in the sport put forth a mighty swing at that point that got him going at last. His 486-foot blast off the roof of the restaurant in right-center field was longer than any ball hit during last summer’s derby in Texas.

MILWAUKEE – The Nationals made a small roster move ahead of their first-half finale against the Brewers. They recalled right-hander Andry Lara from Double-A Harrisburg to take the open roster spot left by Shinnosuke Ogasawara, who was optioned to Triple-A Rochester last night.

“Very happy. Very happy to be back here,” Lara said of coming back to a major league clubhouse, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz.

Lara’s return comes 11 days after he made his major league debut on July 2 as the 27th man in the first game of a split doubleheader against the Tigers, in which he tossed three scoreless innings and struck out four to preserve the Nats' bullpen for the nightcap. His outing came in an 11-2 loss, but he was the lone bright spot for the team in a moment he’ll never forget.

“I remember everything. Everything,” Lara said. “It was really special to me. Of course, it was my major league debut. That's something I've always dreamed of, and I'm really happy.”

The debut was a long wait for the 22-year-old, who signed with the Nationals out of Venezuela for $1.25 million as one of their top international prospects six years ago. After some ups and downs in the minor leagues, Lara, currently the Nats’ No. 16 prospect per MLB Pipeline, gets another chance at the major league level.

MILWAUKEE – For obvious reasons, this week has been challenging for the Nationals. Two mainstays for the organization – general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez – are no longer here.

It’s been an adjustment period for the players, many of whom were drafted or acquired by Rizzo and only knew Martinez as their big league skipper. But it’s also been a challenge for the coaching staff, particularly interim manager Miguel Cairo, who moved over from the bench coach role to take over the head man’s job after the dismissal of his close friend.

Cairo’s first series at the helm of the Nationals resulted in losing two out of three to the Cardinals in St. Louis. Now as he gets ready for his second series as skipper, he’s settling more into his new role, one that he’s somewhat familiar with after managing 34 games on an interim basis with the White Sox in 2022.

“We got to take it one day at a time,” Cairo said during his pregame media session ahead of tonight’s opener against the Brewers. “The guys are playing hard. I got to continue being myself. And put the players in the best situation possible for them to succeed. That's my main goal. And with the pitching staff, the same way. Put them in the spot where they can have a good outing and be successful.”

One of his first challenges comes tonight against a Brewers team that is 13 games over .500 and owns the best record in the major leagues since May 25 (28-12). And Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy is not making it easy on his counterpart by sending out left-hander DL Hall as an opener before handing the ball to right-hander Quinn Priester.

ST. LOUIS – By the time they took the field tonight, the Nationals had ample time to process the events of the last 48 hours. Not only did they have an off-day after arriving in St. Louis late Sunday night to consider the firing of their longtime general manager and manager, they also had a two-hour, 19-minute rain delay that pushed back first pitch of their series opener at Busch Stadium until 9:04 p.m. local time.

The question then was: What kind of effort would they give in their first game under an interim manager and GM? Would they be inspired by the shocking changes, or would they have trouble summoning up the energy to right this wayward ship?

The answer: The effort was fine, but the performance was pedestrian.

With Jake Irvin surrendering a pair of home runs and the Nationals lineup managing only one rally over the course of nine innings, Miguel Cairo found himself on the wrong end of a 4-2 loss to the Cardinals in his debut as the team’s interim manager. Mike DeBartolo, in his first game as interim GM, watched it all unfold from a booth adjacent to the press box, the one game he’ll watch in person this week as he now heads back to D.C. to oversee preparations for the No. 1 pick in Sunday’s MLB Draft.

"I like to win. I don't like to lose," Cairo said. "But the most important thing after the last 48 hours, the players, the guys were ready to play. You can tell the energy. You can tell they wanted to go out there and do their job. That's what we're looking for. We'll get them tomorrow."

Two more players acquired in the Juan Soto trade are now All-Stars: James Wood and MacKenzie Gore.

Wood and Gore were officially named to the National League All-Star team today, each of them selected by their fellow players to represent the Nationals at next week’s Midsummer Classic in Atlanta.

CJ Abrams, who played in last year’s game in Texas, was not selected this time from a deep class of NL shortstops, but there’s still a chance he could find his way to Truist Park as roster replacements are announced in the coming days.

For Wood and Gore, today’s announcement is further validation of their respective career ascensions, culminating with their performances through the first half of this season. Wood, who already accepted an invitation to the Home Run Derby last week, entered the day with a .944 OPS, third-best in the NL. Gore ranks third in the league with 131 strikeouts and 12th with a 3.11 ERA.

“Those two guys have played really well this half, and I hope they keep it going,” manager Davey Martinez said. “But it says a lot about this organization. We’d love to win some more games moving forward, but the progress for our young players has been a lot better. We’re excited about that.”

There was already plenty of energy surrounding South Capitol Street ahead of the Nationals’ series finale against the Tigers. People were making their way to Nationals Park to start their holiday weekend early. And about five hours before first pitch, James Wood announced he will participate in the Home Run Derby.

The icing on the cake would be a victory at the end of the night to clinch a series win over the best team in the American League.

It was a rocky start, but the Nats indeed were able to tame the Tigers one more time for an 11-7 win to allow the crowd of 31,599 fans to enjoy the postgame fireworks, kicking off the Independence Day celebrations. It was especially enjoyable for manager Davey Martinez, who earned the 500th win of his managerial career, all with the Nationals.

“Hey, I can't do what I do without those guys in there. So I appreciate what they do," Martinez said after his milestone victory. "Thank you to the Washington Nationals for giving me an opportunity to do what I love to do. I'd trade it all in for another World Series, I can tell you that. But let's keep doing what we're doing. We're playing well right now.”

Indeed, they are. The Nationals offense carried over the momentum it built up in last night’s late-inning rally to win the doubleheader nightcap. Facing an early 3-0 deficit in the first, the Nats immediately rallied to take the lead with five runs in the bottom frame.

James Wood has been making headlines locally all season as the Nationals’ budding young superstar. Today he made national headlines with a special announcement.

Wood announced today that he will participate in the Home Run Derby on July 14 during All-Star Week at Truist Park in Atlanta.

The 22-year-old phenom became the third player to officially join the yearly event the night before the Midsummer Classic, joining Ronald Acuña Jr. of the host Braves and the major league home run leader Cal Raleigh of the Mariners.

“I just got the invite. I can't remember when, really. But it's just something cool to be part of,” Wood said at his locker ahead of tonight’s finale against the Tigers. “I was watching it a lot growing up, so it should be a lot of fun.”

The announcement comes just 367 days after Wood made his major league debut at Nationals Park last summer. He said he will have third base coach Ricky Gutierrez throw to him as he does during batting practice.

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.”

SAN DIEGO – When the Nationals enjoyed their record-setting, 10-run first inning four weeks ago in Arizona, they simultaneously wrapped up a 15-12 record for May, the team’s first winning month since August 2023 and only its second winning month at all since the rebuild began in earnest in July 2021.

It was cause for mild celebration, but it wasn’t the end-all, be-all. It was only the start of something bigger, the Nats believed at the time.

“I would encourage this group to get used to winning,” first baseman Nathaniel Lowe said that night in Phoenix, “because that’s what we strive to do every day. But we’ll take this month and obviously keep going into June and look for another winning month.”

The Nationals won’t finish June with a winning month. They won’t even come close. Even if they sweep the Angels this weekend in Anaheim, they’ll merely improve to 8-18 for the month. That would still be tied for the eighth-worst month in club history. If, god forbid, they get swept, they’ll finish 5-21. That would represent the single worst month in club history.

Suffice it to say, things have taken a decided turn for the worse around here over the last four weeks.

SAN DIEGO – It seems to be defying logic, because the opposing pitching staffs are much better than what they faced last week and the ball isn’t supposed to carry better in the cool Southern California air than it does in the hot and humid nastiness back home.

But sometimes you have to throw logic out the door and just embrace what you’re seeing with your own eyes. And four games into what should be a tough West Coast trip for a previously reeling team, the Nationals are putting together the kind of offensive performances they desperately needed last week when they were losing to the Marlins and Rockies.

They scored 6.3 runs per game over the weekend at Dodger Stadium. And in tonight’s series opener on a 64-degree late-June evening at Petco Park, they took it a step further, blasting their way to a 10-6 win over the Padres behind three hits a piece from two of the young stars they acquired from San Diego three years ago.

"I just think we were kind of due," left fielder James Wood said. "We've been hitting the ball hard, just right at people. I feel like not much has changed, maybe a few more homers. But I just think the balls we've hit hard are finding gaps."

CJ Abrams went 3-for-5 and scored three runs. Wood went 3-for-5 and drove in four runs, three of them coming on his latest towering home run, this one clanging off the right field foul pole for the 22-year-old’s 22nd round tripper of the season.

LOS ANGELES – As bad as they looked over the last week against two of baseball’s least imposing opponents, the Nationals have had a weird knack for playing their best against the best. It sounds counterintuitive, but these guys have looked significantly better this year against the Dodgers than they have against the Marlins or Rockies.

Having already secured one series win vs. the defending World Series champs at home in April, the Nats now improbably have a chance to win another one against them Sunday afternoon after blasting five homers tonight in a 7-3 victory before a stunned, sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium.

James Wood, Luis García Jr., CJ Abrams and Nathaniel Lowe all homered on a cool L.A. summer night, with Lowe going deep twice for the 100th and 101st home runs of his career in one of the Nationals’ best offensive performances in some time, especially considering the level of competition.

"It's just fun," Wood said. "It's always good when the dugout is jumping like that. The more, the merrier."

A raucous crowd of 54,154 – largest in the majors so far this season – couldn’t process what it was watching. Chances are, fans who stayed up late back in D.C. were likewise having a hard time comprehending this explosion from a lineup that had been averaging a mere 2.8 runs per game this month.

James Wood’s walk-off two-run home run in the 11th inning against the Rockies yesterday signified more than just the end to the Nationals’ 11-game losing streak. It signified a moment where the rest of the baseball world might have caught onto the budding phenomenon that we already knew of here in Washington, D.C.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

With a runner on third, two outs and his team down 3-2 while staring their 12th straight loss in the face (which would have tied a Nats club record), Wood sent the second pitch from Seth Halvorsen fast and high into the air. The contact was solid, but as Wood watched it, he wondered if it would travel far enough to get out of the reach of Gold Glove center fielder Brenton Doyle?

“Honestly, no,” Wood replied when asked if he knew he had hit a homer to win the game. “I knew I got it good, but I saw Doyle, you never really know with him out there. But yeah, I was just ready for the fastball, and I just was able to see a splitter up.”

The ball traveled plenty far enough for the first walk-off home run of his career.

The Nationals' clubhouse was playing music this morning as it normally does before a game. Traditionally, it’s the pick of that day’s starting pitcher. For Trevor Williams, it was a country/pop-rock combination.

Despite an 11-game losing streak – one shy of the Nationals' club record (2005-present) – the vibes this morning felt no different than it normally does. There wasn’t extra tension. No one seemed to be walking on pins and needles. It was the same laid-back, yet focused, atmosphere this young team typically has.

The question was: Would there be music playing in the clubhouse after the game, signifying a celebration following a victory? It would be the first such occurrence for this team in almost two weeks.

The answer: Yes, thanks to a 4-3 walk-off win in 11 innings against the Rockies to snap the losing streak and get the Nats back in the win column.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

The Nationals’ 11th straight loss looked quite a bit like their previous 10. They did very little at the plate against the opposing starter. They got a solid outing from their own starter, who made one costly mistake. And they left themselves needing a last-ditch rally, which once again didn't come.

This 3-1 loss to the Rockies could’ve happened last weekend against the Marlins, or last week against the Mets, or the previous weekend against the Rangers. They’re all starting to run together at this point, the commonalities all too evident.

The only truly unique aspects about tonight’s loss? It included a 1-hour, 45-minute rain delay. And it included some legitimate bad luck for the Nats, who hit 11 balls with an exit velocity of at least 98 mph but saw only four of them land for hits because a terrible Colorado defensive unit played what had to be its best game of the year.

"We hit the ball hard. We just had nothing to show for it for a while," manager Davey Martinez said. "They were diving all over the field."

Bad luck or not, results are results. And this was the 11th consecutive bad result for the Nationals, who have fallen from a respectable 30-33 less than two weeks ago to a miserable 30-44 now. They’ll give it another shot Thursday afternoon in the series finale, hoping not to match the club’s all-time worst losing streak of 12 set in August 2008.

The Nationals promoted Brady House from Triple-A Rochester today not because they believed their 2021 first-round pick was going to singlehandedly snap their eight-game losing streak, but because they believed his presence would at least help the cause.

There was nothing, of course, House could do about what transpired during a nightmare top of the ninth with Kyle Finnegan on the mound, one that sent the home team to the worst yet of its nine consecutive losses.

Serving up a pair of home runs to Hunter Goodman and Mickey Moniak, Finnegan turned a one-run lead into a 6-4 loss to the worst-in-the-majors Rockies, leaving a season-low crowd of 11,370 stunned and dismayed at the new depths the Nats have now reached.

"When you get a chance to put your closer in for the ninth, that's what you want," manager Davey Martinez said. "Today, we just came out on the wrong side of the field. I'm excited about the way the kids played. ... Those guys are going to be all right. They'll help us win games. This was a tough one."

Finnegan took the mound with a 4-3 lead in hand, made possible by homers from Daylen Lile and James Wood, a quality start from Jake Irvin and two perfect innings of setup by Brad Lord. He needed merely to record three outs against a weak Colorado lineup. That was easier said than done. Goodman, who had already homered off Irvin way back in the top of the first, mashed a 97 mph fastball to left-center for the game-tying homer.

If this wasn’t rock bottom for the Nationals, it sure felt like it. Mitchell Parker already had dug his team into a six-run hole with an abbreviated start that left many in the crowd booing with disapproval. Then came the 2-hour, 14-minute rain delay. Then once play resumed and the prospect of post-midnight baseball loomed, Jackson Rutledge gave up two more runs to a Marlins team that was piling on a Nats club stuck in a downward spiral with little hope of escape.

And then as Friday night was turning into Saturday morning, the home team decided to finally get its act together. If only it had been enough.

Despite a spirited rally that included seven runs scored between the seventh and eighth innings, the Nationals still ultimately fell short during an 11-9 loss to Miami, their sixth straight.

Unable to overcome Parker’s early struggles on the mound and then some shaky bullpen work later, the Nats fell to the Marlins for the third time in four head-to-head matchups this season, kicking off a critical homestand against two of the National League’s bottom-feeders with the kind of loss that will only leave all affected parties feeling worse than they already did.

"We're a good team. I think there's just a lot of ups and downs in baseball," said James Wood, who did his part tonight with three hits and four RBIs. "We know we're a good team. We know we're capable of being an elite offense. When stretches like that happen, you can't really panic over them."

NEW YORK – Twelve days ago, the Nationals were coming off their second straight high-scoring win over the Diamondbacks and within two games of a .500 record. Their offense was humming, having scored nine or more runs in each outing of their four-game win streak.

But ever since then, runs have come at a premium. In the nine games since that 11-7 win in Arizona leading up to today’s finale against the Mets, the Nats scored just 15 runs for an average of just 1.7 per game.

And with today’s 4-3 loss completing a sweep in New York, that average isn’t much better as the Nats suffered a 22-inning scoreless streak from the sixth inning Tuesday night through the eighth today.

That’s not to take away from the Mets’ pitching this week. Their bullpen was lights out following Griffin Canning on Tuesday, David Peterson tossed a complete-game shutout last night and Kodai Senga continued his impressive start to the season today. But this Nats offense seems to be struggling against anyone and everyone.

Senga and his “ghost” forkball entered this afternoon’s finale with a 1.59 ERA that ranked second in the major leagues. After 5 ⅔ dominant innings, the right-hander now leads the majors with a 1.47 ERA.

NEW YORK – Manager Davey Martinez was hoping to get some “thump” from his right-handed-heavy lineup. The Nationals rank in the lower third in the National League in batting average and OPS against left-handed pitching.

Although a new-look lineup featured six right-handed hitters, they faced a tough task in Mets southpaw David Peterson, who entered the night with a 2.80 ERA.

And try as they might, there was no “thump” to be had. In fact, there was anything but “thump” from the Nats during this 5-0 shutout loss in front of 40,681 fans at Citi Field.

Peterson, who also owned a not-so-impressive 1.259 WHIP at the start of the game, held the Nationals to just six hits without any walks while completing the first complete game and shutout of his six-year major league career.

“I think he was just getting ahead and getting early contact," said James Wood. "I think that let him go the distance today.”