PHOENIX – Hello from the Valley of the Sun, where the temperatures have been in the 110s all week. Fortunately, it won’t be anywhere close to that inside Chase Field tonight when the Nationals open the second half of the season against the Diamondbacks.

The All-Star break allowed Davey Martinez to rearrange his rotation however he preferred, and he chose to open up tonight with Patrick Corbin, followed by Aníbal Sánchez on Saturday and Erick Fedde on Sunday. That means the team is using this opportunity to give Josiah Gray an extended break before he presumably pitches next week at the Dodgers, perhaps saving up some of his innings to ensure he’s good to finish the season.

So it’s Corbin tonight facing his former team, though not for the first time. He’s made two previous starts against the Diamondbacks (once in 2019, once earlier this year) and was rocked in each of them to the tune of 14 earned runs in only 7 1/3 innings.

The Nationals go up against right-hander Zac Gallen, with a lineup that includes César Hernández leading off and Keibert Ruiz batting second ahead of Juan Soto, Josh Bell and Nelson Cruz. We’ve seen Martinez tinker with the top two spots in his lineup a lot in recent weeks. Until he finds something that works, he may have to continue to tinker.

The bullpen has a couple new (but actually familiar) faces for this series. Víctor Arano was activated off the injured list, his first appearance on the active roster since he hurt his knee back on June 5. They also recalled Hunter Harvey from Triple-A Rochester, bringing back the hard-throwing right-hander quickly after sending him down before the All-Star break. They were able to do that because he’s replacing an injured teammate: Tyler Clippard, who was placed on the 15-day IL (retroactive to July 19) with a left groin strain.

PHOENIX – The All-Star break should be a time for rest and relaxation, a chance to get away from it all and clear your mind before gearing back up for the second half of the season. For the Nationals, this All-Star break wasn’t at all about rest, and nobody was able to relax.

The last four days have seen the franchise under the bright spotlight of the baseball world, all because of the sudden possibility Juan Soto could be dealt before the Aug. 2 trade deadline, with just about every other team in the sport trying to figure out if it has enough top prospects who could be packaged together to get the Nats to say yes.

There also, of course, was the MLB Draft, which began Sunday night and continued through Tuesday, using up a large chunk of front offices’ time and energy during what traditionally has been a welcome break from the grind.

Now, though, the break is over. The second half begins tonight. And for the Nationals, that means the focus potentially turns back to the field. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Let’s not forget these guys lost 15 of their last 17 games heading into the All-Star break. And one of those wins came Sunday in the first-half finale, in a bullpen game started by Erasmo Ramirez against a Braves team that seemed content to just coast into the break.

The All-Star break has come and gone. The first half of the season is no more. Everybody’s enjoying one more day of relaxation before regathering Friday and commencing the second half.

For the Nationals, this is going to be a second half of change and promise, and perhaps some heartbreak as well. A lot could happen in these next few weeks leading up to the Aug. 2 trade deadline, after which the roster may look even less like the one that was trying to win championships not that long ago.

There will be no shortage of storylines to monitor the rest of the way. Here are five particularly important ones …

1. Is this really it for Soto in D.C.?
There was zero reason to even broach this subject one week ago. Of course Juan Soto would be finishing out the season with the Nationals, perhaps putting forth another monster second half and making an MVP case for himself, no matter the team’s record. That all changed Saturday with The Athletic’s report that Soto had turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension with the Nats, who now were going to explore the possibility of trading him.

It’s a bombshell development, one that could fundamentally change the way the rest of this season plays out for the Nationals. That doesn’t mean general manager Mike Rizzo is definitely going to trade Soto by Aug. 2. Given how complicated such a trade would be, there’s probably a good chance he doesn’t do it yet and re-explores the market over the winter (when the franchise may have some more stability on the ownership front, by the way).

Look down upon the first half of the Nationals’ season from 30,000 feet in the air, and you can’t find much of anything to gloat about. How can you try to put a positive spin on a worst-in-baseball 31-63 record, a roster filled with ineffective stopgaps and all kinds of uncertainty at every level of the organization?

You can’t.

Look at the last 3 1/2 months under a microscope, though, and you can find individual reasons for optimism, not to mention more than a few reasons for pessimism. The Nats as a whole are a disaster, but some of the parts are worth appreciating.

So as we take one last look back at what’s taken place so far in 2022 before turning our attention to what’s still to come after the All-Star break, let’s focus not on the big picture but a bunch of little pictures, both good and bad …

GOOD: JUAN SOTO’S PERFORMANCE
All that concern about Soto’s first-half struggles, his lack of power and his low batting average? Yeah, he’s going to be just fine, thank you very much. Back on June 17, he was batting .220, slugging .440 and owning an .807 OPS that would be really good for anyone else but not for his lofty standards. Then he began a streak of 26 consecutive games reaching base, best in his career, during which he has hit .338/.505/.663 with seven homers and 27 walks. That surge allowed the 23-year-old to enter the All-Star break with a .901 OPS. (And perhaps helped him win the Home Run Derby.)

The 2022 MLB Draft concludes today before tonight’s All-Star Game. The Nationals have 10 picks this afternoon, one in each of the remaining rounds.

Through the first 10 rounds, the Nats drafted two third basemen, one shortstop, three outfielders, one catcher, two right-handers and one left-hander. They selected three high school players, highlighted by 18-year-old outfielder Elijah Green out of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., with the No. 5 overall pick Sunday night, and seven players from the college ranks.

“There's gonna be some kids out there that maybe got their feelings hurt a little bit,” assistant general manager and vice president of scouting operations Kris Kline said on Zoom call with reporters at the conclusion of yesterday’s selections. “Maybe you want to circle back and they may really want to play. So we'll go back and talk to them about, you know, the guys that said no, we'll go back and talk to all of them that said no, and ask them where they stand, how they feel now. And put the board together to the best of our ability. But that being said, I thought this first two days of the draft was really, really good. A really positive thing for the organization that's kind of in a rebuilding process. Guys did a great job.”

With their first pick of the day, the Nats selected right-hander Luke Young out of Midland College in Texas with the 321st overall pick in the 11th round. He’s listed as 6-foot-3 and 170 pounds.

A reliever for Midland, the 20-year-old went 9-4 with a 3.95 ERA, 110 strikeouts, 27 walks and only three home runs allowed over 79 ⅔ innings this year.

The All-Star break, for better or worse, is all about the future of the Nationals. Juan Soto’s potentially dwindling future with the organization. Elijah Green and all the other 2022 draft picks’ potential future with the organization.

These are franchise-altering days, developments that could determine whether this team has a chance to be a winner again in the near-term or not for many more years to come.

But those guys alone aren’t going to decide the outcome. They’re going to need others to surround them, especially younger players who come up through a revamped farm system.

So it’s also a good time to take stock of that farm system, one that still ranks near the bottom in baseball according to most publications that produce such rankings but undoubtedly is home to a handful of potential high-end building blocks who could make a difference, some sooner than others.

De Jon Watson, in his first year as the Nationals’ director of player development, recently met with beat writers to provide insight into many of the organization’s top prospects. Here’s what he had to say about them, along with a midseason update on each …

It was Juan Soto’s chance for redemption. After falling to eventual repeat champion Pete Alonso in the semifinals of last year’s Home Run Derby at Coors Field, this year’s event gave the Nationals slugger the chance to be a part of a star-studded field and win it all.

It’s hard to deny Soto twice. And with the eyes of the sporting world focused on Hollywood (including super agent Scott Boras sitting in the front row behind home plate), one of the game’s biggest stars stood on top of it all in more ways than one.

Soto won the 2022 Home Run Derby tonight at Dodger Stadium, beating Mariners rookie Julio Rodríguez 19-18 in the finals. Soto joins Bryce Harper, who beat Kyle Schwarber in an electric finale in 2018 at Nationals Park, as the only Nats players to win the Home Run Derby.

“It feels amazing,” Soto said on the broadcast after the win. “All of the hard work I put in and everything. It just feels amazing.”

After hitting the clinching home run, Soto launched his bat in the air in celebration and was mobbed by his father, Juan Sr., and brother, Elian, other Dominican players from across the major leagues, and Nationals manager Davey Martinez, who joined Soto this week as part of the National League coaching staff.

The second day of the 2022 MLB Draft is underway, with the Nationals set to make eight picks between the third and 10th rounds this afternoon.

They started this year’s draft by selecting 18-year-old outfielder Elijah Green out of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. The son of former NFL tight end Eric Green, he is said to potentially be “an impactful superstar,” according to longtime assistant general manager and vice president of scouting operations Kris Kline.

In the second round, the Nats selected left-hander Jake Bennett out of the University of Oklahoma. They got their big starting pitcher in Bennett, who is listed as 6-foot-6 with a wingspan over 70 inches on the mound. The Nats previously drafted Bennett out of Bixby (Okla.) High School in the 39th round of the 2019 draft, but the southpaw decided to follow high school teammate and current top prospect Cade Cavalli to Norman. They are now reunited in the Nats farm system.

Then they turned their attention to the eight picks on Monday, and by the end of the afternoon, the Nats had eight more prospects for their minor league system.

“I thought it went really, really well," Kline said on a Zoom call with reporters after the conclusion of the 10th round. "It was one of those drafts where it was a position-player-heavy draft. And so the pitchers you wanted, you either got them or you didn't. You ID'd them early. Some of them were hurt. Some of them were healthy and got hurt. Some were hurt and got healthy. It was just one of those years.”

The Nationals hadn’t held a top-10 pick in the draft in 11 years. Not since Anthony Rendon dropped down the board and landed in their lap with the No. 6 pick in 2011 had they been in a position to choose a player as early in the draft as they did Sunday night, when they used the fifth overall pick on Florida high school outfielder Elijah Green.

Which brings an added amount of pressure to an organization that hasn’t struck gold with a first-round pick in a long time and knows it needs to get this one right.

“I think there’s more pressure when you pick at the bottom,” longtime vice president of scouting operations Kris Kline insisted late Sunday night. “Obviously, every year you’d like to pick at the bottom, because that’s a reflection of how your major league team is doing. But we’re going through a process here of rebuilding.”

The Nats’ track record with early first-round picks is solid. Who wouldn’t take Ryan Zimmerman, Ross Detwiler, Aaron Crow, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Drew Storen and Rendon? Sure, Detwiler and Storen aren’t on the same level as the big names there, but each made it to and stuck in the big leagues for a while. (Detwiler’s still pitching for the Reds, some 15 years after he was drafted.) And Crow, though he didn’t sign with the Nats, ultimately made an All-Star team with the Royals before his career fizzled out.

The Nationals’ track record with late first-round picks is anything but solid. Of their last nine selections, only Lucas Giolito (16th in 2012) has produced more than 1.5 Wins Above Replacement in the big leagues, and he’s done it for the White Sox. Erick Fedde (18th in 2014) has established himself as a back-of-the-rotation starter on a rebuilding club. Carter Kieboom (28th in 2016), Seth Romero (25th in 2017), Mason Denaburg (27th in 2018) and Jackson Rutledge (17th in 2019) all have been too injured and/or ineffective to make it so far. Cade Cavalli (22nd in 2020) and Brady House (11th in 2021) are hoping to be part of the organization’s next contending roster.

Owners of a top-10 pick for the first time in 11 years, the Nationals tonight drafted Elijah Green, making the 18-year-old outfielder the first high schooler they’ve selected this low in their history.

Green, of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., is a 6-foot-4, 225-pound athletic force who profiles as a center fielder with right-handed power and a strong arm. The son of former NFL tight end Eric Green, he was considered by many experts to have the biggest upside of any player in this draft, though his young age and raw skills also make him less of a sure thing than some of the college prospects who were also under consideration.

A right-handed hitter, Green batted .462 (36-for-78) with 11 doubles, two triples, nine homers, 32 RBIs, 15 stolen bases, a .592 on-base percentage and 1.000 slugging percentage during his senior year at IMG Academy.

“This was always one of the goals of my life,” he said in a Zoom call with D.C. reporters. “To be called by the Washington Nationals is truly a blessing. I’m going to go out there, work hard and hopefully bring a championship back to Washington.”

Owners of the No. 5 pick, the Nationals found themselves with the unexpected option of drafting either Green or Georgia Tech catcher Kevin Parada, only one of which figured to be available when their turn came up. But when the Rangers surprisingly drafted right-hander Kumar Rocker (one year after the Mets chose not to sign the former Vanderbilt ace) with the third pick, the Nats suddenly were in an advantageous position.

Salvation for the Nationals came not from Juan Soto or Josh Bell. It came not from Josiah Gray or Keibert Ruiz or Luis García. It did not come from any member of their rotation.

No, when the Nats needed to put a stop to a pair of nine-game losing streaks – one of them overall, one of them specifically to the Braves – they turned to the bottom of their lineup and five members of their bullpen.

Yes, it’s true. The Nationals won a ballgame today, toppling the Braves 7-3 to close a wretched final stretch of a wretched first half of the season on an uplifting note at last. 

"It's been a long time," Soto said with a laugh, "but finally we did it."

The formula to produce this curly W bore no resemblance to the one they used to try to win any other game in the last week-plus.

Needing fresh arms to get them through today’s first-half finale, the Nationals called up Cory Abbott from Triple-A and optioned Hunter Harvey to Rochester.

Abbott, who has been a starter in the minors, is available to pitch multiple innings in relief this afternoon, which is already a bullpen game. Erasmo Ramirez will start, going two or three innings before manager Davey Martinez begins summoning a parade of other relievers the rest of the game.

Harvey’s demotion has less to do with performance and more to do with the fact he still has options and his recent lengthy stint on the injured list with a pronator strain in his forearm. The right-hander gave up two runs while throwing 28 pitches during Saturday’s loss to the Braves, the first time he’s been scored upon in seven big league appearances this season (sandwiched around the IL stint).

“He’s been a guy that’s been injured,” Martinez said. “He’s got four days off (the All-Star break) down there coming up. We’re just going to give him a little breather and get him back. We want him to pitch multiple innings, work on his breaking ball a little bit more, and then we’ll get him back up here as soon as we can.”

The Nationals found themselves in this predicament due to Tuesday’s rainout against the Mariners. That created a doubleheader Wednesday, and thus a stretch of six games in five days to close out the season’s first half.

The first half of the season comes to a close today, and not a moment too soon for a Nationals club that has sunk to new depths previously thought unreachable. They enter today’s game on a nine-game losing streak (their first since 2008), having also lost nine straight to the Braves over the last month, having lost 15 of their last 16 games overall and owning the majors’ worst record at 30-63. (Oh, and there’s also that little matter about Juan Soto.)

So it’s against that backdrop they’ll try to snap the losing streak and somehow head into the All-Star break on a positive note. But to do that, they’ll need to score a lot more runs than they’ve been scoring, especially early. They’ll have to do that against Spencer Strider, the Atlanta rookie who completely overwhelmed them in a start here last month. So, good luck with that.

And then to add one more challenge to the afternoon, the Nationals are going with a bullpen game today. This is their sixth game in five days, so they were either going to have to call up a fill-in starter from the minors or go with all bullpen arms. They could’ve activated Josh Rogers off the 15-day injured list, but the lefty will be making another rehab start today for Triple-A Rochester. So they’ll have to make do with a bunch of guys out of their bullpen. On the bright side, they don’t have another game to play until Friday at Arizona, so Davey Martinez doesn’t have to worry about holding anyone back.

ATLANTA BRAVES at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Chance of storms late, 85 degrees, wind 6 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
2B César Hernández
C Keibert Ruiz
RF Juan Soto
1B Josh Bell
SS Luis García
LF Yadiel Hernandez
DH Maikel Franco
3B Ehire Adrianza
CF Victor Robles

If money alone isn’t going to be enough to keep Juan Soto in Washington for the long haul – and today’s revelation that Soto recently turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension suggests it is indeed about more than just money, at least at this juncture of the process – the best thing the Nationals can do to convince their young star to stay is to start winning ballgames.

That, as it turns out, is an even more daunting task these days than coming up with a contract number Soto will accept.

Today’s 6-3 loss to the Braves, which included a 1-hour, 49-minute rain delay in the eighth inning, was the Nationals’ ninth consecutive loss, their ninth in a row to Atlanta, their 15th in their last 16 games overall. This is their first nine-game losing streak since 2008, when they lost a club-record 12 in a row. At 30-63, they own the worst record in the majors and would need to go an unlikely 33-36 the rest of the way just to avoid finishing with 100 losses.

All of which begs the question: Why would Soto agree to a new deal, even if it set records, before seeing some evidence of improvement from the franchise he helped win a World Series only three years ago?

“I mean, at the end of the day, you’re going to get what you deserve, we all know that,” manager Davey Martinez said before the game. “And for me, I hope it’s here. Because I love the kid. I don’t ever think that he’s anything else but a Washington National, and that’s the way I’m going to view it right now. He is a Washington National.”

Juan Soto expressed frustration today that terms of the Nationals’ latest contract proposal to the star slugger were made public, leading to a new report that the club will “entertain” offers for him leading up to next month’s trade deadline.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported Soto recently turned down a 15-year, $440 million offer from the Nationals, a deal that would be the largest in major league history in total value but wouldn’t rank nearly as high in average annual salary. A source familiar with the discussions confirmed those figures, adding the offer included no deferred money but was back-loaded to leave the highest salary figures in the final years of the deal.

Soto declined to discuss details of talks that have been ongoing for months and have included multiple offers, redirecting those questions to agent Scott Boras, but acknowledged his frustration that this latest proposal became public.

“It feels really bad to see stuff going out like that, because I’m a guy who, my side, keeps everything quiet and try to keep it to them and me,” Soto said in a brief session with beat reporters inside the Nationals clubhouse prior to today’s game against the Braves. “They just make the decision and do what they need to do.”

Soto, who can’t become a free agent for another 2 1/2 seasons, has been on a recent tear at the plate, having reached base in 24 consecutive games, just having a career-high hitting streak end at 16 games and raising his OPS an even 100 points (from .795 to .895) heading into the final weekend of the season’s first half.

Will today be the day? Will the Nationals end their dual eight-game losing streaks (one of them overall, one of them against the Braves)? Will they actually be able to play this late-afternoon game as scheduled, given the likelihood of thunderstorms in the area? All we can do is wait and see on all counts.

The challenge, as always, is stiff, because the Nationals simply haven’t been able to get both a quality pitching performance and early run production against the Braves during these last eight games they’ve played against them. They guy they’re facing today, Max Fried, is very good. But the Nats have actually enjoyed some modest success against the lefty: In their last head-to-head encounter, they scored four runs in 5 2/3 innings off him, and that was with Juan Soto out of the lineup.

At the same time, though, the Nationals need a good start from Paolo Espino, who has not been great in recent outings. Over his last three starts, the wily veteran has allowed 10 runs on 17 hits while totaling only 12 innings. That includes a four-inning start Sunday in Atlanta in which he allowed two runs on six hits and was pulled with his pitch count at 65.

ATLANTA BRAVES at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Thunderstorms, 82 degrees, wind 6 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
LF Lane Thomas
2B César Hernández
RF Juan Soto
1B Josh Bell
DH Keibert Ruiz
3B Maikel Franco
SS Alcides Escobar
C Tres Barrera
CF Victor Robles

The Nationals took the field tonight for the 92nd time this season. An enthusiastic, Friday night crowd of 30,409 settled in for what everyone hoped would be an entertaining, hopefully competitive, maybe even victorious ballgame from the local club.

And then the top of the first – featuring another throwing error by Luis García, another poorly played grounder by Maikel Franco and another towering home run served up by Patrick Corbin – came and went, and anybody who has been paying any attention to this team knew none of those hopes would become reality.

An 8-4 thrashing at the hands of the Braves once again revealed to the world who exactly these Nationals are. They are a team that has lost eight straight games. They are a team that has lost eight straight games to Atlanta. They are a team that has lost 24 of its last 26 games to division opponents. And they are a team that has lost 14 of its last 15 games overall.

That last cover-your-eyes fact may be the toughest to accept of all, because this is the first team in Nationals history to lose 14 of 15 within a single season. The 59-win 2008 and 2009 clubs did it over a stretch that included the end of the earlier season and the start of the subsequent season. But neither did it within its own season.

"They've got to understand that this organization was a winner for a long time," manager Davey Martinez said. "This happens to the best of the best. But we've got to battle back. We've got to keep playing. Forget about what happened today, come back tomorrow and go 1-0. That's the mentality. "

Sean Doolittle will have season-ending surgery to repair the partial tear of his elbow ligament that he hoped to return from this year, believing the operation will allow him to return healthy in time for spring training.

The surgery, an internal brace procedure in which a collagen-soaked wrap is placed around the ulnar collateral ligament, is less invasive than Tommy John surgery, with recovery expected to be five to seven months instead of 12 to 18 months. By having it done now, Doolittle sees a path to be ready for the start of the 2023 season.

“I feel really good about it,” the left-hander said. “I don’t feel good about getting surgery. I feel really good that this is the right course of action for me right now at this point in my career, at this point in this process with my elbow. As far as I’m looking at it, 2023 starts right now. I’m viewing this as a long, extended ramp-up into the season next year.”

Doolittle initially landed on the injured list in April after five consecutive scoreless appearances with what was deemed a partial tear of the UCL. With consultation from doctors, he attempted to avoid surgery with a rehab program that included a platelet-rich plasma injection. He began building up his arm strength again, and last week threw off a bullpen mound for the first time and was pleased with how he felt physically during it.

But as he continued to ramp up, he began experiencing the same elbow soreness he had in April, and that was a red flag to him. A new MRI was taken and sent to doctors, who found no more serious tear but not enough healing of the original tear to believe it was wise to continue pitching.

How do the Nationals end a seven-game losing streak and a seven-game losing streak to the Braves? How do they win for only the second time in their last 15 games and for only the eighth time in 42 games against National League East opponents this season? How about scoring some early runs and playing with a lead for a change?

It hasn’t been happening with any regularity, and it has been a real problem. Even though the rotation has done a decent job and the bullpen has done a very good job this month, the lineup continues to be feeble with runners in scoring position, aside from a few big hits late in games that typically come too little too late.

So perhaps tonight there could be an early barrage of runs off Braves starter Ian Anderson, who enters with a 4.98 ERA and 1.512 WHIP. This is the third time the Nationals have faced the right-hander in the last month. They scored four runs in four innings off him June 13, then were held to two runs in 5 1/3 innings Sunday in Atlanta. Each time, he walked four batters, so patience is key.

Patrick Corbin starts for the Nats, and you know the drill at this point. If he can locate his fastball early and make his slider look like a strike, he’s got a chance to be successful. If he doesn’t, we’ve seen what the results look like.

ATLANTA BRAVES at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 7:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 84 degrees, wind 6 mph right field to left field

The restaurants and condos and everything else that has sprung up around Nationals Park since 2014 felt unfamiliar to Tyler Clippard, who never got to enjoy the benefits of a reinvigorated Navy Yard during his first stint with the Nationals.

Once he jogged in from the home bullpen Thursday night to cheers from an appreciative fan base that remembers what he meant to this organization and found himself on the mound again, that’s when everything seemed right with the world.

“It felt like I was home,” Clippard said. “It was a familiar feeling, for sure. Having the curly W on me gives me a lot of confidence, for whatever reason. I just feel good out there. That’s how I felt today. It was a lot of fun.”

It certainly helps when you also pitch two scoreless innings, which is exactly what the 37-year-old did in his 415th career appearance for the Nationals, but his first in eight seasons. After bouncing around between eight different franchises since 2015, Clippard rejoined the Nationals this spring on a minor league contract, then spent the last three months making his case at Triple-A Rochester to be called up.

The call finally came Wednesday, when Clippard made the long drive to D.C. and arrived in time for the nightcap of a split doubleheader against the Mariners, having spent much of that time reminiscing about the path that led him back here.