The afternoon began with Davey Martinez suggesting Jose Tena was going to start getting more playing time, perhaps establishing a righty-lefty platoon at third base with veteran Amed Rosario.

If Tena keeps playing like he did Tuesday evening, he won’t have any trouble convincing his manager to pencil him into the lineup with more regularity.

On a night in which the Nationals lineup totaled 10 extra-base hits en route to a 7-0 blanking of the Orioles, Tena was a surprisingly significant contributor. He went 3-for-4 with a triple and two doubles, turning in far more production than he had in any of his previous seven games played this season.

“Obviously, I hadn’t played in a couple days. But I felt comfortable and felt relaxed,” he said, via interpreter Kenny Diaz. “I felt thankful that I had the game I had today.”

With Paul DeJong on the 10-day injured list after fracturing his nose when he was struck by a fastball last week in Pittsburgh, and with top prospect Brady House still waiting in the wings at Triple-A Rochester, the Nationals find themselves with no clear daily answer at third base. Rosario got the first opportunity during the final stages of last week’s road trip but saw his production cool off. Trey Lipscomb got a start Sunday in Colorado but struggled to hit the ball in the air.

Mitchell Parker’s Tuesday night actually got off to a rough start.

He walked Orioles leadoff man Cedric Mullins on four pitches, then elicited some Bronx cheers when he finally threw a strike to Adley Rutschman. Little did anyone realize what was still to come.

“It definitely wasn’t ideal,” the Nationals left-hander said with a sheepish grin. “But it basically ended up working out, so I can’t be too upset about it. But maybe we’re going to try to not do it next time.”

Maybe Parker should try to do it again, especially if it leads to the same end result he got this evening: eight scoreless innings of one-hit ball to lead his team to a dominant 7-0 win.

Building off the four quality starts he already had authored to begin the season, Parker took things to another level tonight with the best performance of his young career. The 25-year-old became the Nats’ first starter to complete eight innings since Jake Irvin last July 4. He surrendered one single and two walks. He retired the final 17 batters he faced.

The Nationals’ Opening Day roster will include Riley Adams, José Tena, Orlando Ribalta and Brad Lord. It will not include Andrew Knizner, Juan Yepez or Jackson Rutledge.

The Nats announced their final roster moves late this afternoon, in the process leaving 26 remaining active players who will take the field Thursday against the Phillies.

The official transactions:

* Lord had his contract purchased, putting him on both the 26-man and 40-man rosters for the first time.

* Yepez and Rutledge were optioned to Triple-A Rochester, with Knizner (who wasn’t on the 40-man roster) reassigned to Triple-A.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals broke camp this afternoon and left for Palm Beach International Airport. They’ll arrive in Washington this evening having spent the last six weeks evaluating a roster they believe is much improved from a year ago, but one that’s still not 100 percent settled.

Manager Davey Martinez said the team won’t make its final cuts until after Monday’s exhibition finale against the Orioles at Nationals Park, leaving the fates of a number of players on the bubble up in the air for another 24 hours.

“This is tough,” Martinez said following an 8-5 loss to the Astros in the Grapefruit League finale. “It really is.”

The Nats settled their fifth starter competition Friday, optioning DJ Herz and Shinnosuke Ogasawara to Triple-A Rochester to leave the spot for Mitchell Parker. But they’ve still got four more roster spots to figure out: backup catcher, 26th man on the bench and two bullpen jobs.

The bullpen situation is the most complicated, because of several moving parts. Derek Law, projected all along to make the team, now appears likely to open the season on the 15-day injured list because his arm hasn’t recovered well enough from the couple of times he’s faced live hitters in the last week-plus.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – There are 11 days to go in spring training, 12 exhibition games left to play if you count the March 24 finale against the Orioles in D.C. So the Nationals are about to enter crunch time, when decisions that have been looming since mid-February suddenly come to a head.

There haven’t been that many decisions already made this camp. The players who have been cut so far were mostly expected to be cut all along. That leaves 48 players remaining in big league camp: 38 of them from the 40-man roster, with another 10 non-roster invitees still participating with the others.

Suffice it to say, there’s still a lot of work to be done to trim 48 down to 26 before Opening Day.

Let’s take a look, then, at the current state of the spring roster and try to figure out who’s sitting pretty, who still has a chance and who’s probably on the outside looking in …

CATCHERS (4)
Sitting pretty: Keibert Ruiz
Still has a chance: Riley Adams, Drew Millas
Outside looking in: Andrew Knizner
Comment: We know Ruiz is still the No. 1 catcher, and to his credit, he’s had a very good spring at the plate so far (7-for-24, three homers). There’s still a big question who will back him up when the season begins. Adams has hit two homers, but is just 3-for-13 overall and has had some shaky moments behind the plate. Millas, though, is 1-for-16 (with four walks) and surprisingly hasn’t looked great defensively. Knizner has experience with the Cardinals and perhaps could force his way into the conversation, but he’s just 2-for-15 at the plate himself.

JUPITER, Fla. – After a much needed day off – given how much it rained here Monday, they wouldn’t have been able to play a game anyway – the Nationals are back in action this afternoon with their first true road game of the spring. It’s only a 15-minute drive to Roger Dean Stadium to face the Marlins, but this is the first time they’ve played this spring somewhere other than West Palm Beach.

A few regulars made the trip, headlined by Dylan Crews (who has started all three games so far), Paul DeJong, Jacob Young and Josh Bell (who makes his first appearance at first base after DHing Sunday). We’ll also see José Tena not at third base but at second base, perhaps further evidence that the plan is to have him play multiple infield positions this season.

Trevor Williams gets the start, hoping to set the tone with a solid first outing. The veteran right-hander was a completely different pitcher last year, successful thanks to an ability to keep everything down in the zone and the addition of a sweeper to his arsenal. The Nats gave him a two-year, $14 million deal to come back. Now it’s up to him to live up to that contract.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. MIAMI MARLINS
Where: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, Jupiter
Gametime: 1:10 p.m. EST
TV: None
Radio: MLB.com (Marlins’ feed)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 72 degrees, wind 15 mph out to right field

NATIONALS
RF Dylan Crews
2B José Tena
3B Paul DeJong
1B Josh Bell
LF Alex Call
DH Stone Garrett
SS Amed Rosario
CF Jacob Young
C Andrew Knizner

The Nationals have filled almost every need on their roster this offseason. “Almost” being the key word.

Nathaniel Lowe was acquired to play first base.

Josh Bell was brought back to be the designated hitter and first base backup.

Amed Rosario was signed to add depth as a utility player.

Michael Soroka, Trevor Williams and Shinnosuke Ogasawara were brought in to fill out the rotation.

The so-called utility man has always been thought of in somewhat negative terms. If someone plays multiple positions, it’s probably because he’s not good enough to play every day at one position.

While that line of thinking has mostly held true throughout baseball history, there have been some more recent examples of teams treasuring a good player’s versatility. Utility men don’t have to come off the bench. Sometimes they hold regular spots in the lineup, just not at the same position in the field on a day-to-day basis.

And the best of them can be handsomely rewarded for those rare skills. Ben Zobrist made nearly $87 million in career earnings while playing four different positions (shortstop, second base, left field, right field) at least 200 times in the majors, plus occasional work at three other positions (center field, first base, third base).

And now Tommy Edman is the latest utility man to cash in, signing a five-year, $74 million extension with the Dodgers on Friday. Edman, who spent the first five seasons of his career with the Cardinals, was traded to Los Angeles this summer and became a key contributor to a World Series title, winning National League Championship Series MVP honors while starting games at both shortstop and in center field.

Not every team values versatility as much as the Dodgers, but Nationals manager Davey Martinez has always spoken highly of players who can be used all over the field and when possible has preferred to keep at least one on his roster.

If you were asked to predict the Nationals’ Opening Day lineup right now, you could probably rattle off six names without too much fear of being wrong. James Wood, Jacob Young and Dylan Crews figure to return as the starting outfield. CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. are likely to return as the starting middle infield. Keibert Ruiz is all but certain to start behind the plate.

We know first base is a top priority for the organization this winter, with several prominent free agents available if the Nats are ready to spend big again. And the DH slot could be filled by an outside acquisition, by someone already in the organization or some combination of the two.

But what about third base? That’s where it gets more complicated.

The hot corner has truly been a revolving door around here the last five seasons. From 2014-19, Anthony Rendon played 736 games there. The only other player to appear in more than 34 games there was Yunel Escobar, who took over the position in 2015 when an injury plagued Rendon saw more time at second base.

But since Rendon left for Anaheim following the World Series, the Nationals have searched for and failed to find a permanent replacement at third base. A whopping 19 players have appeared in at least one game there since 2020, only two of them seeing action in more than 100 games: Ildemaro Vargas (126) and Carter Kieboom (114).

PLAYER REVIEW: JOSÉ TENA

Age on Opening Day 2025: 24

How acquired: Traded with Alex Clemmey and Rafael Ramirez Jr. from Guardians for Lane Thomas, July 2024

MLB service time: 93 days

2024 salary: $740,000

NEW YORK – These Nationals don’t know what postseason baseball feels like, and they won’t be finding out in 2024. They do want to experience it in 2025, though, at minimum the pressure of a September pennant race where the outcome of each game only magnifies down the stretch.

So consider the final two weeks of this season a dress rehearsal for the youngest team in the majors, with 13 games left on the schedule, all of them against teams still in the race. And the first set of games in this closing stretch – against the Mets at Citi Field – may have the most pressure-packed feeling of the bunch.

So how did the Nats handle it all in tonight’s series opener? They didn’t appear to be overwhelmed by the situation most of the night, certainly not Jake Irvin, who authored yet another gem against the Mets. But they could not deliver the one hit or the one pitch they needed with the game on the line late, and that’s why New York ultimately was celebrating a 2-1 10-inning win at the center of the diamond, a crowd of 21,694 roaring as the home team retook the final Wild Card position in the National League from the Braves.

"It's tough," manager Davey Martinez said. "(Irvin) threw the ball really well. I thought today was probably the best day I've seen him throw the ball. ... He gave us everything we needed. We just couldn't get those couple runs he needed."

Starling Marte won it with a line drive single to left off Jacob Barnes, the Nationals’ fourth pitcher of the night. Tasked with stranding the Mets’ automatic runner after his teammates couldn’t score theirs in the top of the 10th, Barnes got Francisco Alvarez to fly out to right for one out, though that allowed Harrison Bader to advance to third. Barnes then left a 3-1 fastball over the plate to Marte, who lined the ball into left field and was mobbed by his teammates as the Nats trudged off the field.

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.

One day after committing his eighth error in 24 games, José Tena is not starting at third base for the Nationals.

He’s starting at second base.

Wanting to give the struggling fielder a mental break from the unfamiliar position he’s learning on the fly in the majors, manager Davey Martinez decided to give him a start at a more comfortable position, giving Luis García Jr. the night off against Braves left-hander Max Fried.

“I just wanted to get him over there and relax a little bit,” Martinez said. “It’s a position he’s played quite a bit. And I want to see him play there. … I wanted to give Luis a day today, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get Tena over there and kind of switch it up a little bit. We’ll see.”

Primarily a shortstop coming up through the Guardians’ farm system, Tena also has played a decent amount of second base. The Nationals’ greater need at the moment, though, is at third, so that’s where Tena has exclusively played since his acquisition last month.

It was not necessarily an easy play. The ball came screaming off Luke Williams’ bat at 104.4 mph. But José Tena’s reaction said it all.

The Nationals’ rookie third baseman couldn’t react quickly enough and was left in a defensive position as the ball skipped toward him. It rattled off his glove, and though he picked it up right away, he had to rush his throw across the diamond and ultimately pulled first baseman Joey Gallo off the bag.

“I should’ve made the play,” Tena said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I should’ve caught it and made the play.”

Tena’s error wound up prolonging the top of the third Tuesday night, with MacKenzie Gore unable to pitch his way out of the inning before allowing four runs to score. The Braves went on to rout the Nats, 12-0, and Tena found himself once again confronting questions about his shaky play in the field.

This was the eighth error charged to Tena in only 24 games since the Nationals called him up last month. The 23-year-old admittedly is still learning third base on the fly after spending the majority of his time in the Guardians system at shortstop, but his struggles nonetheless have been costly and have at times overshadowed his strong offensive performance.

The season’s final three weeks will see the Nationals play 11 of their last 19 games against teams in the thick of the pennant race. It makes for a significant challenge for a team loaded with rookies getting used to September baseball in the majors for the first time, let alone games of this magnitude.

The gauntlet begins with a quick, two-game series against the Braves, a division rival the Nats already clinched its season series against. And with MacKenzie Gore having played a huge role in that success, tonight’s matchup on South Capitol Street should have elicited some sense of confidence from the home team.

How much of that confidence remained at the end of a 12-0 drubbing? Gore and Co. can say what they want, but there were no silver linings to be found on this Tuesday night at the park.

In one of his worst starts of the season, and certainly his worst in nearly a month, Gore dug his team into an early 7-0 hole, failing to make it out of the fourth inning and getting battered around by a Braves lineup severely depleted by injury, one just hoping to produce enough to take advantage of great pitching and beat out the Mets for the National League’s final Wild Card spot.

Gore wasn’t solely to blame tonight. He was victimized by two costly defensive mistakes. And the Nationals lineup managed all of three hits despite facing the Atlanta bullpen for eight innings after All-Star starter Reynaldo López departed 25 pitches in with shoulder tightness.

If managers preach to their teams they can’t give the opposition more than 27 outs, what do they say about giving them 32 outs?

Truth be told, it probably never comes up, because how often does a team make five defensive gaffes in one nine-inning game? At the major league level, nonetheless.

What, then, will Davey Martinez have to say to his players after today’s 14-1 dismantling by the Cubs, one that was defined not by the hits the Nationals gave up or failed to produce themselves but by the five misplays they made in the field during their least aesthetically pleasing game of the season?

"We're going to pound the same message: We've got to catch the baseball," the manager said in one of the more animated postgame sessions of his seven-year tenure here. "It was awful today. I can't say nothing about it. Our defense was not there. I thought (Mitchell Parker) threw the ball really well. We've got to play defense behind him. You can't drive in runs and let in three or four more runs. You've got to catch the baseball. Defense is a big part of the game. I say that all the time. We've got to catch the ball."

Martinez has had to confront these questions before, but usually as it pertains to one or maybe two plays during the course of a game. Five? This was unprecedented, leaving him to answer how he planned to deliver the aforementioned message to his players.

There unquestionably is more young talent on the Nationals roster right now than there has been in years, and that alone is reason for more optimism than this franchise has offered in years.

Talent alone, of course, doesn’t win ballgames. Execution is required, especially in the moments that matter the most. And for some talented young players, that second part takes time to develop. If it ever does.

Today’s 5-3 loss to the Cubs was a game that was there for the taking. Alas, it slipped away from the home team because of a bad ending to a great start by DJ Herz, two more outs made on the bases at a time when the Nats needed baserunners, a particularly bad error by a rookie catcher and another inspiring but ultimately unsuccessful ninth-inning rally.

Put it all together, and you get a second straight narrow loss to Chicago, even if there have been several positive developments the last 24 hours by key young players.

"These things are worked on. It's just, the game speeds up," manager Davey Martinez said. "To me, we did make some mistakes today. But the big thing is, yesterday, one inning we gave it up. Today, one inning we gave it up. They’re going to have to learn how to get through these innings and limit the damage. That’s the big thing. The other things will clean up with time. ... Right now, we’re just making small mistakes. And as they play a little more, and play more and play more, they’ll start learning those mistakes become big mistakes in games like this."

The month of August is about to wrap up this weekend, which means it’s been a full month since the trade deadline. Which means enough time has passed to start evaluating how trades worked out.

Of course, it takes years to know if a trade truly was worth it or not. But in the Nationals’ case, it’s worth checking in on the results of Mike Rizzo’s four deadline deals to see how they look at this point.

(Spoiler alert: They look pretty good at this early stage of the process.)

HUNTER HARVEY to ROYALS for CAYDEN WALLACE and CALEB LOMAVITA
Rizzo surprised everyone by making this deal 17 days before the July 30 deadline, but there was a good reason for it. He wanted Kansas City’s “Competitive Balance A” pick in the following night’s Draft. So in addition to Wallace, a promising-but-injured third base prospect, the Nationals also got the No. 39 pick, which they used on Lomavita, an intriguing catcher from Cal.

Wallace, who was dealing with a fractured rib at the time, just finally made his organizational debut Thursday night, delivering an RBI single and drawing a walk for Single-A Wilmington. He’ll look to finish the season strong and then come to spring training next year trying to move up the organizational ladder.

If Oct. 30, 2019, represented the pinnacle of Patrick Corbin’s career, it arguably also represented the nadir of Gerrit Cole’s career. As the former came out of the bullpen to win Game 7 of the World Series for the Nationals, the latter sat in his bullpen and helplessly watched it all unfold, ostracized for not appearing in what to that point would’ve been the biggest game of his life.

The two pitchers’ careers have gone in completely opposite directions since, with Corbin devolving into the least effective starter in baseball the last five seasons while Cole moved to New York after signing a record deal and won a Cy Young Award. There’s no comparison between them in the years since.

Except on this night, when Corbin rose to a challenge like he perhaps hasn’t since that glorious October night in Houston and Cole looked decidedly human facing a young and hungry lineup that knocked him out after five innings to give the Nationals a most satisfying 4-2 victory.

Behind back-to-back home runs from rookies Andrés Chaparro and José Tena, plus the first two hits and stolen base of Dylan Crews’ career, the Nats opened up a lead on Cole. Corbin (six scoreless innings) and four relievers then did the rest, holding down one of the most feared lineups in the sport in impressive fashion to pull off one of the team's most impressive wins of the year.

"Patrick did an awesome job today going out and giving us a chance to win," said Crews, who caught the final out of his first major league victory. "That's his job, and he executed it perfectly. It was a great crowd today. Our bullpen did an awesome job today, too. Overall, I thought today was awesome. And we won, so it was a great day."

ATLANTA – As he rounded the bases in the top of the second Saturday night, having just connected for his first major league home run, José Tena’s smile could be seen throughout Truist Park. And when he crossed the plate and returned to the dugout, the Nationals’ 23-year-old rookie went right to Luis García Jr. and offered an even wider grin.

“I kept running the bases with a big smile on my face,” Tena said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “Thank God for giving me my first opportunity to hit my first home run.”

And thank García for providing Tena with a little extra motivation.

The Nats second baseman is only one year older than Tena, but he’s got 407 more games of big league experience and has taken his new teammate under his wing. And though Tena had been delivering hit after hit since joining the club earlier this month, García jokingly asked him Saturday when he was finally going to hit his first home run.

“I’m so proud of him,” García said with a smile as wide as Tena’s was after the homer.