It was a slow afternoon in the Nationals clubhouse as they prepared to welcome the division champion Braves for a four-game series, the last home series of the season.

Per usual, manager Davey Martinez provided some injury updates to begin his pregame press conference ahead of a series opener.

Riley Adams, whose season was ended by a fractured left hamate bone, had successful surgery last week and already is on a good path toward recovery.

“Riley Adams still has his stitches in. He's getting them out,” Martinez said. “He's gonna recover fine. He's already itching (to get back). He's working his hand a little bit, so he's doing well.”

Travis Blankenhorn’s season seems to be over as well. Although he was placed on the 10-day injured list on Tuesday, retroactive back to Sept. 16, he received an injection to treat his plantar fasciitis that will keep him “out for a while,” per Martinez.

Well, this final stretch for the Nationals isn’t going to be easy as they are only two wins away from their first 70-win season since 2019. Their last nine games come against the teams with two best records in the major leagues: The Braves and the Orioles, both of whom still have a lot to play for over the season’s last week.

Entering this four-game series – the last to be played at Nationals Park this year – the Nats have fared a lot better against the Braves this year than they did in 2022. They are already 2-4 against Atlanta this year, not having faced them since early June. Last year, they went an abysmal 5-14 against the division champs.

Jake Irvin has been one of the Nats’ most consistent starters during his rookie year. He’ll make his 24th start tonight, bringing a 3-6 record and 4.34 ERA, which is the second-best in this rotation.

The Nats will face Max Fried for the first time since Opening Day in which the lefty allowed one run over 3 ⅓ innings before departing early with a hamstring injury. He has only made 12 starts since, but is 7-1 with a 2.64 ERA on the season.

The Braves have locked up their sixth straight National League East title, but their magic number to claim the No. 1 seed in the NL is at seven as the Dodgers host the Giants this weekend. Coming into the weekend with the best record in baseball, the Braves’ magic number to clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs is eight against the Orioles.

After he takes the mound one more time next week, what will Josiah Gray consider when he evaluates his 2023 season?

Will the Nationals right-hander look at his breakthrough first half, the 3.41 ERA that earned him the first All-Star nod of his career? Will he look at his second half struggles, the 5.13 ERA that wiped up much of what he had accomplished earlier?

Or is there something else that rises above the rest to paint a more accurate picture of Gray’s season?

“I think the first goal is to stay healthy,” he said. “But then you want to perform. You want to go out there every outing and put the team in a position to win. The last two outings, I’ve been able to do that.”

Gray has performed much better his last two starts. He struck out 10 without issuing a walk one week ago in Pittsburgh, then he allowed one run over five innings Wednesday afternoon in a blowout victory over the White Sox.

There have been precious few of these – genuine laughers – during the course of the season, certainly over the last month-plus as the Nationals have needed to scratch and claw their way to any win they could secure.

The Nats hadn’t won a game by more than four runs since Aug. 11 against the Athletics. They hadn’t won a game by more than six runs since July 22 against the Giants. They hadn't won a game by 10 or more runs since April 29, 2022.

So consider this afternoon’s 13-3 thumping of the White Sox a much-needed, well-deserved walk in the park. A team that has looked like it’s running on fumes down the stretch of the season finally had an opportunity to enjoy a victory that was firmly in their grasp the entire way.

"It's great anytime we can score some runs early, score a lot of runs and pitch well," first baseman Dominic Smith said. "Those games are fun. Those are my favorite games."

In the process today, the Nationals secured their 18th series victory of the season, six more than they managed during their nightmare of a 55-107 campaign in 2022. With nine games left on schedule, but all coming against the teams with the two best records in baseball in the Braves and Orioles, it was imperative to lock up wins No. 67 and 68 against the White Sox now to make the path to 70 by season’s end a bit more palatable.

The Nationals will skip Trevor Williams’ next turn in the rotation, but the struggling right-hander will make another start during the season’s final week.

Manager Davey Martinez said he wanted to give Williams a breather after a string of subpar outings but did not want to shut him down entirely or move him to the bullpen.

“I spoke to him, and he wants to finish the year off,” Martinez said. “I thought the best thing was to skip him one, and then let him have one more.”

Williams lasted only two innings in his most recent outing in Milwaukee, throwing a whopping 70 pitches in the process. He hasn’t completed five innings in any of his last three outings, and his ERA now stands at 5.55, with a league-leading 34 homers surrendered.

Williams’ 29 starts are his most since 2018 with the Pirates, his 141 innings his most since 2019.

Who knows what the final week-plus of the season has in store for the Nationals, but we do know this: Today is probably their last best shot at winning a series. A victory today over the White Sox would complete their 18th winning series of the year, six more than they won last year. That would be a nice improvement.

To pull it off, they need the good version of Josiah Gray to show up this afternoon. That’s the version the Nats got last week in Pittsburgh, when Gray struck out 10, didn’t issue a walk and allowed two runs over 6 1/3 innings. He still didn’t emerge with the win, though, and he actually hasn’t won a game since July 22. It would be nice to end that streak today.

The Nationals lineup needs to show more patience today than it showed Tuesday night, when everybody seemed to be swinging at the first pitch and making outs. Well, that can’t be the case today against Michael Kopech, who leads the American League in walks. Plain and simple, the Nats have to work the count today. There’s no excuse not to.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CHICAGO WHITE SOX
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 76 degrees, wind 3 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
DH Joey Meneses
C Keibert Ruiz
1B Dominic Smith
2B Luis García
3B Ildemaro Vargas
LF Jake Alu
CF Jacob Young

It was only 25 light throws from 45 feet, the kind of mundane activity anyone who has ever picked up a baseball has engaged in countless times. For Cade Cavalli, Tuesday’s activity was anything but mundane.

For the first time since he underwent Tommy John surgery in March, the Nationals’ top pitching prospect played catch. And while this was merely the first of many thresholds still to cross before he returns to a big league mound, the significance was not lost on the right-hander.

“I have been visualizing that moment since pretty much the time I tore (my elbow ligament),” he said. “And now that it’s here, it was very surreal. It felt great. It did feel weird the first couple of throws, trying to find that slot again. But once I found it and felt comfortable in it, it was awesome. I don’t know how else to describe it but awesome. It was a great feeling.”

Cavalli has spent the majority of this season rehabbing at the Nationals’ spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Fla. It’s a lonely, tedious experience, especially those first several months that include zero baseball activities.

When the time finally came to let him throw for the first time, the club decided to bring Cavalli to D.C. and have him throw in the outfield prior to batting practice Tuesday afternoon, with assistant athletic trainer Jon Kotredes on the receiving end of the throws.

The most important development of tonight’s ballgame on South Capitol Street was Jackson Rutledge’s second career start, one that saw the rookie right-hander reach the seventh inning on 78 pitches and allow only two runs.

The most satisfying moment of tonight’s game, though, came on one big swing from Joey Meneses, which ensured Rutledge’s quality start wouldn’t be for naught.

Meneses’ pinch-hit, three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh provided the clutch hit the Nationals had been seeking all night and ultimately propelled them to a 4-3 victory over the White Sox.

"It was beautiful," manager Davey Martinez said. "One thing I know about Joey: You put runners on base, there's a good chance he's going to hit it hard."

Shut down throughout the evening by José Ureña, who spent the summer pitching for Triple-A Rochester before getting released and picked up by Chicago, the Nats finally did something at the plate once they had the chance to face the White Sox bullpen.

The Nationals made another change to their ever-changing outfield for the final 11 games of the season, placing Travis Blankenhorn on the 10-day injured list with plantar fasciitis and recalling Blake Rutherford from Triple-A Rochester.

Blankenhorn had not played since Thursday in Pittsburgh, when the pain in his foot became significant enough to keep him off the field. The 27-year-old had only been called up from Triple-A two weeks prior, homering in his Nats debut but doing little after that.

“About three days ago, he said it was really bothering him a lot,” manager Davey Martinez said. “So we decided just to shut him down. He was hurting pretty good.”

In 10 total games, Blankenhorn went 5-for-31 with that one homer and RBI, six walks, six strikeouts and a .555 OPS, failing to seize the left field job when given an opportunity to take it over for the season’s final month.

Rutherford had already been given a similar opportunity in August, called up from Triple-A and given a chance to play on a regular basis after posting big numbers in Rochester. But the 26-year-old started his major league career in an 0-for-16 slump before going six for his next eleven.

There are 11 games remaining on the Nationals’ 2023 schedule. Nine of those come against the teams with the two best records in baseball. Which makes these final two games against the White Sox kind of important if they want to stockpile a couple more wins and inch closer to the 70-win mark.

It didn’t happen Monday night, not even close as Mike Clevinger went the distance and didn’t allow a run until Dominic Smith’s solo homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth (which set off a silly benches-clearing argument). At this point, it’s probably too much to expect this Nats lineup to get red-hot, but it would sure be nice to get just a little bit more production.

Perhaps it will happen against José Ureña, who has had quite the interesting season. You may or may not remember he opened the season with the Rockies, then was released after going 0-4 with a 9.82 ERA in five starts, one of which saw the Nationals knock him out after 2 2/3 innings at Coors Field. The right-hander then signed a minor league deal with the Nats and proceeded to make 15 starts for Triple-A Rochester, going 1-3 with a 6.31 ERA. He was released in August, signed with the White Sox and now finds himself in their September rotation, going 0-2 with a 6.10 ERA in two starts.

Jackson Rutledge was a teammate of Ureña in Rochester and now faces him tonight in his second career start. Rutledge’s debut was kind of a nightmare, and he surely will be motivated to flip the script tonight and perhaps emerge with his first career win in his first career start in D.C.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CHICAGO WHITE SOX
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 72 degrees, wind 6 mph in from left field

The Nationals have 11 games left in the regular season, and while they will try to go 1-0 in every one of them, the organization is already having internal discussions on how they can improve next year.

One thing they’re going to take a hard look at is how they stayed mostly healthy this year, particularly with their pitchers.

The Nationals placed 24 different players on the injured list for 25 different stints last year. So far this year, they have placed 16 different players on the injured list for 17 different stints. Six of those players were placed on the 60-day injured list at the start of the season, with two (Carter Kieboom and Israel Pineda) coming back at some point. Three players (Carl Edwards Jr., Victor Robles and Stone Garrett) were eventually moved to the 60-day IL. And two players (Riley Adams and MacKenzie Gore) only recently landed on the IL.

“One thing we're gonna really look at is how we kept these guys healthy,” said manager Davey Martinez. “Because we're gonna be young again next year. So we'll probably have to map out again some of the things we want to do and definitely use some of the things that we did this year.”

As it pertains to their pitchers, the Nationals have only had eight different pitchers make starts for them throughout this year. Keeping them healthy was a major point of emphasis entering the season after many of their starters dealt with injuries last year or entered this season with an injury history.

The Nationals were looking to build off their dramatic win Sunday in Milwaukee and start their final homestand of the season on a strong note. In fact, manager Davey Martinez has mentioned multiple times over the last week the importance of his team finishing the regular season strong heading into the offseason.

Obviously, wins would be nice, but that also includes clean baseball all around.

While welcoming the White Sox, who are the last sub-.500 team they will face this season, to town for three matchups, the Nats did not get off to a good start to these last seven games to be played on South Capitol Street in the 2023 campaign.

The Nats dropped tonight’s opener to the White Sox 6-1 as Mike Clevinger pitched a complete game against the home squad in front of an announced crowd of 20,977 at Nationals Park, with some ugly scenes along the way.

The ugliest from both sides came when benches and bullpens cleared in the bottom of the ninth inning.

As the Nationals get ready to begin their last homestand of the 2023 season, the club is also looking at how it is going to handle two pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery before the team breaks for the offseason.

Tanner Rainey, still working his way back from his surgery last year, is running out of time to pitch for the Nats this year. The right-hander had always put August as a target date to return to the major leagues, but with only 12 games left in the season, there might not be enough innings to get him into an actual game. After 12 appearances over the last month while on a minor league rehab assignment, Rainey will throw another bullpen session with the Nats on Tuesday.

“We got Rainey here,” manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame session with reporters before the Nats open a three-game series against the White Sox. “He's gonna throw a bullpen. We want to put eyes on him and see where he's at.”

Martinez told reporters over the weekend that Rainey has been working on some mechanical things recently while not feeling totally comfortable returning to a big league mound. Regardless of where he does it, the Nationals want Rainey to continue his throwing program over the next two weeks so he can have a normal offseason and be ready for spring training.

But is there a point in the near future where it wouldn’t make sense to activate Rainey off the 60-day injured list just so he can appear in one or two games?

Two weeks from tonight, there will be no more Nationals baseball in 2023. So let’s soak in these last 12 games as much as we can.

Joan Adon will make his eighth start since joining the rotation as the sixth man in August. Over his first seven outings, he’s 2-2 with a 6.00 ERA, but the Nats are 5-2 in those games. He gave up four runs on eight hits and a career-high six walks last week in Pittsburgh. Adon has never faced the White Sox, but he is 0-1 with a 5.51 ERA in four interleague games, including three starts.

Mike Clevinger takes the mound for Chicago. One of the White Sox’s better starters, the veteran right-hander is 7-8 with a 3.61 ERA over his 21 starts this year. He has given up just two runs with 14 strikeouts in 13 innings over his last two starts against the Tigers and Royals. Clevinger is 1-1 with a 5.91 ERA in two career starts against the Nationals, including five innings of one-run ball here last year.

The Nationals have officially been eliminated from playoff contention. Although their elimination number is one in the National League Wild Card race, the best they can do is tie the Marlins for the last spot and Miami holds the head-to-head tiebreaker 11-2.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CHICAGO WHITE SOX
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 72 degrees, wind 9 mph from left to right field

MILWAUKEE – Watch the play, and it looks like Michael Chavis not only makes a fantastic diving stab to his left of Rowdy Tellez’s scorching grounder down the first base line, but then makes the split-second decision to throw to the plate and ultimately retire William Contreras for the double play that sealed the Nationals’ 2-1, 11-inning victory over the Brewers late Sunday afternoon.

Listen, though, to Chavis’ detailed breakdown of the unconventional, 3-2 double play, and you realize it was anything but a spur-of-the-moment decision by the fill-in first baseman.

“That’s one of the cases where the preparation really pays off,” he said.

The scenario: The Brewers had runners on the corners with one out in the bottom of the 11th, needing to plate one run to extend the game, two runs to win it. The left-handed-hitting Tellez was at the plate. The left-handed-throwing Robert Garcia was on the mound. And the right-handed-fielding Chavis was at first base, having entered the game two innings earlier to pinch-run for Dominic Smith and then subsequently taken over his position in the field.

As Tellez made his way toward the batter’s box, Chavis did what any good defensive player does and asked himself what he would do if the ball was hit to him. Except he broke it down in even more detail than that, considering how his play might be different depending on where precisely the ball was hit.

MILWAUKEE – There's no question at the end of this weekend which of the two ballclubs that competed at American Family Field is headed for the postseason and which is headed home for October. The Brewers looked the part of a first-place team. The Nationals looked the part of a last-place team.

And yet every one of these games was there for the Nats to take. They just couldn’t find a way to take any of them in key, late moments. Until they finally did what they needed to do in the most critical moments this afternoon to pull out one victory at last.

Unable to convert on countless scoring opportunities throughout the game, the Nationals finally came through in the top of the 11th and escaped with a 2-1 victory over Milwaukee. In the process, they snapped a five-game losing streak and avoided falling to 20 games under .500 with only 12 left to play this season.

"Just a great win," manager Davey Martinez said. "The guys battled. We battled yesterday, and we're in a lot of these games. To finish a series like this, against a really good team, it feels gratifying."

This was shaping up to be an incredibly frustrating afternoon. The Nationals led 1-0 in the sixth, then gave up the tying run. They were in prime position to re-take the lead in the eighth, then blew that opportunity. They stranded a runner on second in the top of the ninth. They stranded a runner on third in the top of the 10th. They finished 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

MILWAUKEE – The Nationals made one change to their bullpen before today’s series finale against the Brewers and appear to be contemplating a change to their rotation in the coming days.

Needing a fresh arm after Trevor Williams’ two-inning start Saturday night taxed the bullpen, the Nats recalled Cory Abbott from Triple-A and optioned Amos Willingham back to Rochester.

“We just needed somebody with length,” manager Davey Martinez said. “It’s a stinky part of the job. I really like Willingham, wanted to see him more. But our bullpen’s been beat up, so we wanted to have two guys down there who can give us length in case something happens.”

Willingham was the first reliever summoned after Williams was knocked out early and wound up throwing 43 pitches over one-plus innings. The rookie right-hander wouldn’t have been available again for several days, so the team made the move to bring up Abbott, who tossed five hitless innings for Rochester five days ago and is available for long relief today if needed.

Though there’s still a chance Willingham could return to the big leagues before season’s end, this likely ends the 24-year-old’s rookie campaign, one that saw him start the year at Double-A Harrisburg and work his way up the organizational ladder.

MILWAUKEE – The Nationals have lost 15 of their last 19 games. A win over the Marlins way back on Aug. 26 left them only eight games under .500, and talk of a 75-win season was legitimate. A loss today, however, would drop them to 20 games under .500, and all of a sudden a 70-win season is no longer a sure thing.

They can help their cause this afternoon with a victory over the Brewers to avoid a series sweep, but it’s a tall task against Brandon Woodruff. The right-hander missed the majority of the season with a shoulder injury, but he’s been dynamite since returning last month. In nine total starts, he’s 5-1 with a 1.93 ERA, and he hasn’t allowed a run in either of his last two outings. Good luck to the Nats lineup today.

And good luck to Patrick Corbin, who is going to have to provide some length after Trevor Williams lasted only two innings and Davey Martinez had to ask a whole lot out of his bullpen Saturday night. Corbin was solid in Pittsburgh to begin this road trip, allowing two runs over 6 2/3 innings while striking out eight. But that came on the heels of back-to-back ugly showings against the Blue Jays and Mets, so who knows which version of the left-hander will show up today.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MILWAUKEE BREWERS
Where: American Family Field
Gametime: 2:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
DH Joey Meneses
1B Dominic Smith
3B Ildemaro Vargas
2B Luis García
C Drew Millas
LF Jake Alu
CF Jacob Young

MILWAUKEE – That the Nationals found themselves in this position tonight – tie game in the eighth inning – after the kind of start they got from Trevor Williams, was quite the surprise.

Truth be told, this game never should’ve been there for the taking, not after Williams needed an astounding 70 pitches to complete two innings and left his bullpen to pick up from there.

And yet, there it was, right there for the taking thanks to a yeoman’s effort from that bullpen and a lineup that scratched and clawed its way back from an early deficit to tie it up in the eighth.

Which perhaps only made the events that followed sting even more.

Kyle Finnegan, pitching for the first time in a week, loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth, was one pitch away from getting out of the jam, then gave up the grand slam to Mark Canha that flipped this game right back to the Brewers, who wound up winning 9-5.

MILWAUKEE – The Nationals’ decision to demote Luis García to Triple-A in early August was grounded in a desire for the struggling second baseman to develop better pregame routines that would hopefully translate into better in-game results.

And when they made the decision to call Garcia back up from Rochester last week, the Nats seemed to be indicating he had taken that message to heart and was ready to see how it translated to the big leagues again.

Eight games in, though, Garcia’s results still don’t match the process. If anything, he’s producing less now than he did in his previous big-league stint.

Since his Sept. 8 recall, Garcia is a mere 2-for-22 at the plate. He has zero extra-base hits. He has drawn one walk while striking out five times.

“Since he’s been here, he’s worked super hard on everything,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He’s got a really good routine going. He’s doing everything we’ve asked him to do. The hits aren’t coming right now, but I’m happy that he’s going out there and really trying to compete and doing things we want. The hits will come.”