MIAMI – The Nationals will try to bounce back after last night’s heartbreaking loss to the Marlins when Hunter Harvey surrendered a two-run walk-off home run to Jorge Soler.

There are still two games left to play in this series and the Nats will have another good chance to get a win tonight with MacKenzie Gore on the mound. The young left-hander is 3-2 with a 3.29 ERA and 1.463 WHIP over his first eight starts, while still sporting an impressive 11.2 strikeout-per-nine-innings rate. Gore gutted through four shutout innings Friday against the Mets, a high pitch count of 96 shortening his outing. He’ll try to keep it down tonight in his first career start against the Marlins.

Edward Cabrera gets the start for the Fish. The 25-year-old right-hander is 2-3 with a 5.35 ERA and 1.670 WHIP over his first eight starts. He has struggled to get deep into games this year, only pitching into the sixth once. Cabrera is 1-1 with a 3.94 ERA and 1.063 WHIP in three career starts against the Nats.

The Nationals are planning to platoon left field with Corey Dickerson getting the starts against right-handers and Stone Garrett starting against lefties. With Cabrera on the mound for Miami, Dickerson returns to the lineup for the first time since being reinstated from the injured list on Monday, but as the designated hitter. He only appeared in the first two games of the season, as a pinch-hitter on Opening Day and as the starting left fielder on April 1 before hurting his calf in the eighth inning.

A roster move is expected to come before the game. Jake Alu has a locker in the Nats clubhouse and Joey Meneses doesn’t. Meneses’ wife is pregnant and due soon, so he should land on the paternity list. Ildemaro Vargas is playing left field while Dickerson is the DH.

MIAMI – Last night’s outing probably would have gone very differently for Josiah Gray if it had occurred last year. And for the worse.

Then 24, Gray had to learn on the fly during his first full major league campaign while being entrusted to take the ball every fifth day as part of the Nationals rotation. While there were some positives to take away (he stayed healthy throughout the course of the season while pitching a career-high 148 ⅔ innings over 28 starts), there were some learning curves as well (he led the major leagues with 38 homers and led the National League with 66 walks).

But last night’s start, while nothing too exciting to write home about, showed the important improvement Gray has made so far this season.

If it were a start in 2022, it would have likely been an outing that would have gotten away from Gray and fast. Especially against the Marlins, against whom he went 0-3 with a 5.67 ERA and a 1.560 WHIP in six starts last season.

But now in 2023, he was able to take the good and the bad and turn it into his fourth quality start in his last five outings.

MIAMI – The Nationals have found enough offense to play .500 ball since the first week of the season. Without a lack of a true power source, it was a serious question of how they would generate runs this season.

Since that 1-6 start, they have found that their style of baseball is good enough to win games and score runs in a variety of ways, even without a lot of longballs.

That style was on full display tonight in what appeared to be a 4-2 win over the Marlins. But a walk-off two-run home run by Jorge Soler off Hunter Harvey in the ninth turned it into a 5-4 loss in front of an announced crowd of 8,811 at loanDepot Park.

Pitching against a team for whom his father recorded 51 saves, Harvey entered the ninth trying to protect the Nats' two-run lead that they had built in the previous inning. He recorded a flyout and a strikeout on 10 pitches, needing just one more out for his second career save.

But a double by Garrett Cooper and an RBI single by Luis Arraez made it a one-run game, too close for comfort. Pinch-runner Jon Berti stole second base to put the tying run in scoring position, which was ultimately unnecessary thanks to Soler's 10th homer of the season.

MIAMI – The Nationals are getting closer to activating Chad Kuhl off the 15–day injured list while he continues his recovery from right foot metatarsalgia. Though they still have time to decide, the question is now becoming: How will they adjust the pitching staff when he’s finally ready to return?

Kuhl is eligible to come off the IL now, having been placed back on May 1 but retroactive to April 30. His biggest step in his rehab was throwing 65 pitches over four innings in a simulated game yesterday afternoon and reporting that he felt great today.

“Chad came out of his simulated game feeling good,” manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame session with the media ahead of tonight’s opener against the Marlins. “So we're gonna reevaluate and see what the next step would be for him.”

The right-hander, who was only in the Nats rotation because of Cade Cavalli’s Tommy John surgery coming out of spring training, is 0-2 with a 9.41 ERA and 1.955 WHIP over five starts this season. The Nationals have only won one of the games started by him, and that was largely thanks to the 10 runs they scored while he pitched just 3 ⅔ innings on April 22 in Minnesota.

The Nationals are still evaluating the situation and how they’ll move forward with him and the rotation.

MIAMI – Hello from loanDepot Park, where they make sure to stylize that with a lowercase L. I don’t understand why because even now in its third season since the name change from Marlins Park, I still read it as if it’s a capital I. But I digress …

Josiah Gray will get the ball to start this quick three-game road trip in South Beach. He’s been fantastic through his first eight starts of the season, sporting an improved 3-5 record, 2.96 ERA and 1.336 WHIP. The right-hander will look to continue that trend tonight as he hopes to fare much better against the Fish than he did last year: In six starts against Miami, Gray went 0-3 with a 5.67 ERA and a 1.560 WHIP.

To be fair, the Nationals as a team did not do well against the Marlins last year (or anyone in the National League East for that matter). They finished 4-15 against the Marlins in 2022 and started off by losing 12 of the first 13 matchups.

Former Nationals third-round pick Jesús Luzardo makes his ninth start of the season for the home team. You’ll remember him being included in the 2017 trade to the Athletics for Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson. He was then traded to Miami for Starling Marte in 2021. The left-hander is 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA and 1.412 WHIP on the season, but 0-2 with a 7.58 ERA and 1.895 WHIP in four career starts against the Nats.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot Park
Gametime: 6:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

No, Joey Meneses hasn’t come close to duplicating his remarkable two-month debut for the Nationals late last season. But the 31-year-old hasn’t come close to falling completely flat, either.

It may have taken him a while to find his swing again, but Meneses is now producing at the plate in a manner that suggests his out-of-nowhere August and September of 2022 wasn’t a total mirage. With a four-hit, three-double, four-RBI performance Monday in a 10-3 thumping of the Mets, he raised his batting average to an even .300, his OPS to a respectable .722.

“That’s what I’m looking for,” Meneses said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I’m just getting that confidence that I had last season and I’m helping the team on the offensive side.”

Meneses still isn’t hitting for a ton of power. The man who wowed the baseball world with 13 homers and a .563 slugging percentage in his first 56 major league games has hit only two balls out of the park while slugging .394 in his first 40 games this season.

But there are encouraging signs, and they keep growing in number each day. Over his last 27 games, Meneses is batting .345 with 20 RBIs and an .809 OPS. He is starting to pull the ball in the air with some consistency for the first time this year, from his go-ahead homer 10 days ago in Arizona to two of his run-scoring doubles in Monday’s win.

There is little reason to believe that, come season’s end, the Nationals and Mets will be anywhere near each other in the National League East standings. The rebuilding Nats are supposed to finish at the bottom of the division. The $330 million Mets are supposed to challenge for the division title and play deep into October.

But the season is now 25 percent complete, and the difference between the two clubs is 1 1/2 games. In part because the Nats have now beaten the Mets in four of their seven head-to-head matchups after today’s 10-3 thumping in the finale of a wraparound series on South Capitol Street.

"It was a good series," manager Davey Martinez said. "These guys, they've been playing hard. Let's forget about the first week of the season (when they went 1-6 against the Braves and Rays). We've been playing really well. I want them to take that into consideration. Not just playing one team. But understanding where we're at and what we're doing. It's been fun. They're playing with a lot of energy."

The Nationals have more than held their own against New York, taking two of three last month at Citi Field and now splitting this four-game series. They’ve done so with quality pitching, some improved offensive punch and a whole lot of CJ Abrams.

Abrams was back at it this afternoon, launching a solo homer into the second deck in right field in the sixth inning, his latest blast in a recent power surge by the 22-year-old shortstop. Abrams now has hit four homers this season, three of them against the Mets, two of them in the last two days. He’s suddenly tied with Lane Thomas and Jeimer Candelario for the team lead in homers, and he leads the team with 22 RBIs despite typically batting ninth.

The Nationals entered the season planning to utilize Corey Dickerson as their starting left fielder, certainly against opposing right-handers. More than six weeks later, they’ll finally be able to implement that plan.

Dickerson was activated off the 10-day injured list this afternoon, and though he’s not in the lineup for the team’s series finale against the Mets, he is eligible to play for the first time since straining his left calf on April 1. Utility man Jake Alu was optioned to Triple-A Rochester to clear a spot on the active roster.

Dickerson hurt himself in the season’s second game, his first start after signing a $2.25 million contract with the Nationals over the winter. The veteran outfielder, who turns 34 next week, spent more than a month rehabbing the injury, then departed Friday for a quick rehab assignment in Rochester, where he went 2-for-10 with a double, a walk and four strikeouts over three games.

Owner of a career .287/.331/.504 offensive slash line against right-handed pitching – those numbers have dropped a bit to .280/.326/.418 over the last three seasons – Dickerson will get a chance to be the player the Nats believed they were getting all along when they signed him.

“What I’ve known of him, he’s such a streaky hitter that he can go on a roll where he can hit in the middle of the lineup, or even the top of the lineup,” manager Davey Martinez said. “I’ve seen him work unbelievable at-bats, 10-, 12-pitch at-bats, and then rocket a ball to left field. He also has a little juice. Right now, having his bat against right-handed pitching is very nice.”

It’s been a long, often frustrating weekend at Nationals Park. And yet, there’s still a chance for the home team to emerge with an encouraging end result.

If the Nationals can win today’s finale of their four-game, wraparound series with the Mets, they’ll have continued their trend of playing .500 baseball over an extended stretch. They would split the series and improve to 17-17 since their 1-6 start to the season. Nothing to complain about there, right?

They’re going to need to do more in the clutch today than they did yesterday, when CJ Abrams drove in all four of their runs across 16 innings of play while the rest of the team went 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position. They won’t be facing Max Scherzer today; it’s left-hander David Peterson, who enters with a 1-5 record and 7.68 ERA.

Speaking of 1-5 records, Patrick Corbin starts for the Nats. That record isn’t entirely indicative of how he’s pitched. Over his last five starts, the lefty has a 3.56 ERA, 1.088 WHIP and 21 strikeouts to only three walks. And yet he’s gone 0-3 in those games, with the Nationals winning his two no-decisions.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 75 degrees, wind 8 mph out to center field

Not that Mason Thompson truly expected to dominate to such a dramatic extent all season, but the Nationals reliever had every reason to believe he was capable of continuing to pitch at a high level all year long after a brilliant April.

In his first 10 appearances of the season, Thompson sported an 0.96 ERA, 0.589 WHIP and a staggering 17-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Then came a three-inning save at Citi Field on April 25, a milestone moment for the Nationals right-hander cause for concern for anyone worried about the health of the 25-year-old’s arm. And sure enough, in six appearances since, Thompson has been roughed up. He’s given up runs in five of those six outings. He’s allowed a whopping 15 batters to reach base in only 3 2/3 innings of work. He’s walked as many batters (four) as he’s struck out.

What happened?

“I’m just not getting the ball where I need to get it right now,” Thompson said Sunday after his latest rough appearance in the Nationals’ 8-2 loss to the Mets. “Just leaving too many pitches over the plate, and they’re taking advantage of it.”

When the ball left Brandon Nimmo’s bat and started rolling toward the second base position, Jake Irvin could’ve been excused for believing he had just escaped a fifth-inning jam and was about to head back to the dugout having completed yet another impressive outing in this most unexpected run of them.

If Luis García fields that routine grounder and starts a 4-6-3 double play, the inning is over and Irvin is done for the day, the proud owner of a sparkling 0.67 ERA through the first three starts of his career, best in Nationals history.

Yes, better than Stephen Strasburg, who had a 1.86 ERA in his first three career starts. Yes, better than Max Scherzer, who had an 0.83 ERA in his first three starts as a National.

That grounder toward second, though, did not turn into a 4-6-3 double play. García was shaded a bit toward the hole and couldn’t get there, so the ball rolled through for an RBI single.

And then the wheels fell off, both for Irvin and for the Nationals, who would ultimately suffer an 8-2 loss to the Mets that could’ve produced a far different outcome with just a little bit of better luck for the home team in the second half of a pseudo Mother’s Day doubleheader.

The Nationals pulled out all the stops to win the opener of today’s pseudo doubleheader, using five relievers en route to a 3-2 victory over the Mets. What does that leave for the nightcap? We’ll have to wait and see.

Jake Irvin makes his third career start, hoping to pick up where he left off last week in San Francisco, when he reached the seventh inning in impressive fashion. This is a very tough Mets lineup the right-hander is facing; he’ll have to throw strikes to avoid a high pitch count and an early exit.

If Irvin has any trouble, the Nationals have some length in the bullpen in the form of Cory Abbott. Turns out the team brought both Abbott and Joan Adon here from Triple-A Rochester, waiting to decide which pitcher would make more sense to add as the 27th man for this game. They decided to go with Abbott, who has bullpen experience, over Adon, who does not.

The lineup, meanwhile, will do its best against a guy named Max Scherzer, who returns to his old stomping grounds wearing blue and orange instead of his more familiar red and white uniform. Scherzer has made only one start since his 10-game suspension for sticky hands, and this start was pushed back due to neck spasms.  

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 77 degrees, wind 77 mph in from left field

With only seven innings of baseball to play in the opener of today’s pseudo-doubleheader at Nationals Park, every moment of consequence was magnified just a bit more. Big outs, even early in the game, were a little bit bigger. Big hits, whether early or late, carried a little bit of extra significance.

And CJ Abrams found himself delivering the two biggest hits of all, propelling the Nationals to victory long after the game technically began.

Abrams twice drove in the go-ahead run, producing a two-out RBI single in the fourth, then blasting a leadoff homer in the seventh for the decisive run in a 3-2 win over the Mets.

"When it's time, I can step up," said Abrams, who entered the day batting .343 with an .852 OPS in "high-leverage" situations, according to Baseball-Reference. "I've got confidence in myself and in my team. We're doing good."

In the completion of Saturday night’s controversial suspended game, the Nats got 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball from five members of their bullpen, with Hunter Harvey churning out five big outs in the seventh and eighth, and Kyle Finnegan pitching the ninth to seal the narrow victory in his first appearance since a blown save in Arizona eight days ago.

So, here we are again. After a fiasco of a Saturday afternoon and evening, the Nationals and Mets are back at it this afternoon for what amounts to nearly a full doubleheader. Today’s originally scheduled 1:35 p.m. game has been pushed back to 4:35 p.m., with Jake Irvin and Max Scherzer still expected to start. But first, the teams have to complete Saturday’s game, which was suspended with one out in the top of the third, the Nats leading 1-0.

The Mets were threatening when the game finally went into a rain delay, with Michael Perez’s double to deep center leaving runners on second and third with one out and Brandon Nimmo due to bat. Trevor Williams had been on the mound for the Nats, but he won’t be back out there today. Davey Martinez was still contemplating Saturday night how to approach this. The hunch here: He’ll try to use one of his better relievers to get out of the jam in the third, then turn to his multi-inning relievers in the fourth inning and beyond.

Joey Lucchesi won’t return for the Mets, either, so Buck Showalter will need to decide who to use out of his bullpen for a clean bottom of the third, with Luis García due to lead off. There are at least 16 innings of baseball that need to be played today; it’s going to be a challenge for both clubs to get through it in one piece.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS (resumption of suspended game)
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 12:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 72 degrees, wind 7 mph in from center field

NATIONALS
RF Lane Thomas
*2B Luis García
DH Joey Meneses
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Alex Call
1B Dominic Smith
3B Jeimer Candelario
LF Stone Garrett
SS CJ Abrams

Against all odds, today’s game at Nationals Park began on time, with Trevor Williams getting Brandon Nimmo to fly out on his very first pitch at 4:05 p.m., only a few minutes after a steady rain began to fall from the sky.

The intensity of that rain only increased over the ensuing 38 minutes as the Nats took a 1-0 lead, then as the Mets put two runners on base with one out in the top of the third. At that point, with the infield soaked and outfielders unable to get any kind of solid footing chasing down fly balls, crew chief Paul Emmel finally called for the grounds crew to roll out the tarp, putting the game into a rain delay.

More than two hours later, the rain had stopped, the tarp was pulled and the grounds crew furiously got to work prepping that previously soaked infield. And kept prepping. And kept prepping. Never to the satisfaction of those who had the final say on whether or not to resume the game.

And then, finally, nearly four hours into the delay, the announcement was made: The field could not be made playable again, so the game was suspended, the Nationals still leading 1-0, both starting pitchers having long since run out of time to return.

They’ll now have to resume the game from this point at 12:35 p.m. Sunday, with only tickets from today’s game accepted. They’ll then have to play Sunday’s originally scheduled 1:35 p.m. game, now moved to 4:35 p.m. Fans holding those tickets can only attend the later game.

Bullpens are an ever-evolving beast, even in good times. Few relievers hold a single role from Opening Day through Game 162, aside from a handful of the most established closers in the sport.

This has already proven the case for the Nationals, who only a few weeks ago seemed to have established a bullpen hierarchy but have since been forced to mix and match on a nightly basis while manager Davey Martinez tries to find the right combination late in close games.

“Honestly, it’s basically right now the matchups we’re looking at more than anything,” Martinez said this afternoon, prior to the Nats’ game against the Mets.

It wasn’t like that not long ago. Martinez had pretty much stuck with a plan that included Mason Thompson setting up Hunter Harvey for the eighth inning and setting up Kyle Finnegan for the ninth inning. But Thompson, after a dominant April, has hit a rough spot since, getting scored upon in four of his last five appearances. Finnegan, meanwhile, hasn’t enjoyed a clean inning since April 27, and he hasn’t pitched at all since blowing a save exactly one week ago in Arizona.

Add in some recent struggles from Carl Edwards Jr., who took the loss Friday night in relief of MacKenzie Gore, and what looked like a real club strength a few weeks ago now looks far less stable.

It’s not exactly a beautiful day for baseball in the nation’s capital. Rain is expected all afternoon, so there’s a reasonable chance the second game of his four-game series between the Nationals and Mets doesn’t start on time. Will it be played at all today? Well, according to my sources (aka the same weather app all of you use), it’s supposed to rain from 2-7 p.m., then clear up after that. So, this late-afternoon game could very well turn into a night game. Stay tuned.

The Nats are looking to bounce back from a tough, one-run loss Friday night in which their starter lasted only four innings. They’ll need more than that from Trevor Williams, who faces his former team for the second time this season. Williams wasn’t great two weeks ago at Citi Field, allowing four runs on nine hits in five innings. The Nationals could sure use a more efficient outing from the right-hander today.

Williams was opposed that night by Joey Lucchesi, and he’ll again be opposed by the Mets left-hander today. The Nats got to Lucchesi for three runs in 5 1/3 innings, with Alex Call homering. Call is batting fifth today, ahead of Dominic Smith, Jeimer Candelario and Stone Garrett (who gets the nod in left field).

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Rain, 68 degrees, wind 9 mph in from left field

NATIONALS
RF Lane Thomas
2B Luis García
DH Joey Meneses
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Alex Call
1B Dominic Smith
3B Jeimer Candelario
LF Stone Garrett
SS CJ Abrams

Jake Alu has waited for this moment his whole life, just like any ballplayer. After four seasons of college ball and the last four seasons of professional ball in the minor leagues, he has finally made the major leagues.

The moment came on Sunday, when the Nationals learned Victor Robles needed to go on the 10-day injured list with back spasms and they needed to call up someone from Triple-A Rochester.

Alu was first in line, hopping on an early cross-country flight Monday morning and meeting the team in San Francisco ahead of their three-game series against the Giants. His lifelong dream finally came true when he entered the visitors clubhouse and stepped on the field at Oracle Park.

“It's been an incredible time. It's been a whirlwind these last three days,” Alu said Friday after the Nationals returned home to start a series against the Mets. “Getting the call and getting called into (Rochester manager Matt LeCroy’s) office and getting told you're going to the big leagues, it's a lifelong goal. It's a dream. Glad that it happened.”

He got to soak in the moment on Monday, watching the Nationals’ victory from the dugout. But he got his first official taste of the big leagues on Tuesday, when he was in the starting lineup as the left fielder batting ninth.

It was unrealistic to expect MacKenzie Gore to repeat a career-best outing this time against the Mets. That’s a difficult feat to accomplish on any given night, much  less twice against the same team in about a two-week time frame.

And sure enough, tonight’s outing was unlike when the young left-hander took the mound at Citi Field on April 26 and shoved for six innings of one-run ball with four hits and two walks while matching a career high with 10 strikeouts.

Though not as impressive tonight, Gore still gutted through four scoreless innings. Unfortunately, it was all for naught as the Nationals bullpen broke down, leading to a 3-2 loss to the Mets in front of an announced crowd of 31,904 at Nats Park.

Gore’s high pitch count did him in early. He needed 37 pitches to get through the first inning, in which he faced six batters while giving up a single and two walks with two outs. He needed 22 pitches to complete the second while giving up two hits. Then he needed 25 pitches to get out of the third after another couple of singles.

The Mets did what they could not do while striking out 10 times two weeks ago: wore Gore down with long at-bats. They took balls out of the strike zone and fouled off tough pitches to extend their time at the plate.

The Nationals have returned home from a six-game West Coast road trip and received good news on the injury front after yesterday’s off-day.

Jeimer Candelario, dealing with a right ankle issue, is back in the starting lineup for tonight’s series opener against the Mets, batting sixth and playing third base. He had left Wednesday’s win against the Giants after sliding awkwardly into second base and having his right foot get caught in the dirt, twisting his ankle. After the game, he was seen with the ankle wrapped up, and manager Davey Martinez said the Nats would have to wait until today to see how he felt.

Today’s report, obviously, came back positive.

“He just slid and fell funny on it,” Martinez said during his pregame media session at Nationals Park. “It was kind of sore, but he said he feels good today. ... Everything's good.”

The Nats do have plenty of backup options just in case Candelario needed an extra day of rest. Ildemaro Vargas, Michael Chavis and Jake Alu all have experience playing third base.