SAN DIEGO – The Nationals didn’t make a big deal of this three-game series against the Padres before the opener started. But if you looked at the standings, maybe they should have.

The Nats sat just a half-game behind the Padres for the last National League wild card spot entering tonight’s series opener. And although it’s still only June, the results of these three games will have an effect on those standings.

A victory would have vaulted the Nats into a playoff position with two games left to play at Petco Park. A loss would still keep them within striking distance.

After playing tight ballgames in Colorado, the Nats endured another one tonight in San Diego, this one ending in a 7-6 loss in 10 innings in front of an announced crowd of 39,164.

With two outs in the 10th inning of a 3-3 game, Keibert Ruiz pulled a second-pitch fastball from Padres reliever Enyel De Los Santos to score the automatic runner from second and give the Nats their first lead of the night.

SAN DIEGO – Harold Ramírez walked into the Nationals clubhouse at Petco Park with blue hair and a wide smile. He looked like the only kid ever to be excited on his first day at his new school. It’s because he was back in a major league clubhouse for the first time in three weeks.

The Nationals selected Ramírez’s contract from Triple-A Rochester before opening a three-game series against the Padres. The 29-year-old, who was designated for assignment by the Rays on June 7 and released on June 13, signed a minor league deal with the Nats on June 15 and needed just seven minor league games before joining a big league roster again.

“I really feel very excited to be here in the big leagues to be here with the Nationals,” he said in the visiting dugout after taking his first batting practice with his new team. “I just really want to give my 100 percent and take advantage of this opportunity.”

While not in the starting lineup tonight, he is available off the bench as a right-handed pinch-hitter for manager Davey Martinez, who says Ramírez will get opportunities against lefties.

“We picked up Harold. So he was down with us in Rochester, trying to get him going. He started swinging back really well,” Martinez said. “We needed a right-handed hitter. He's a veteran guy that hits lefties really well. So he's gonna get an opportunity to definitely play against lefties. And also if he starts swinging the bat, I can use him in our lineup. So we're gonna go over here. We wanted to bring him in today. He'll pinch-hit today for us. But get him acclimated and get him in as soon as possible.”

SAN DIEGO – Hello from beautiful, sunny Southern California! The Nationals are set to begin a three-game series here against the Padres after winning two of three in Colorado against the Rockies. And they have escaped the extreme heat of both Denver and Washington, D.C. to San Diego, where it is forecasted to be in the mid-70s all week.

Don’t look now, but this series actually has some playoff implications. Yes, it is still June, but entering today, the Nats are only a half-game behind the Padres for the final National League Wild Card spot. With a series victory, they could leave town firmly in a postseason position and at or above .500.

The Nationals are sending Patrick Corbin back to the mound for his 16th start of the year. Although he has only been charged with one run in each of his last two outings, it should be noted that Josiah Gray will be making his fourth rehab start with Triple-A Rochester in the coming days. As he gets closer to his return, the Nats get closer to having to make a decision on their veteran left-hander, who needs another solid outing to make a case for keeping his rotation spot.

Matt Waldron makes his 16th start of the year for the Padres. The right-handed rookie is 5-6 with a 3.46 ERA and 1.164 WHIP this season. He’s currently on a dominant stretch of five straight quality starts in which he’s gone 3-1 with a 1.35 ERA. Waldron hasn’t given up more than two runs in a start since May 5 against the Diamondbacks.

Harold Ramírez is reportedly meeting the Nationals here in San Diego. No roster move has been announced yet, so we’ll see if he makes it in time for today’s game. The Nats signed the veteran outfielder to a minor league contract after he was designated for assignment by the Rays and cleared waivers earlier this month.

DENVER – Jake Irvin had never pitched at Coors Field before. The Nationals’ trip here last season came right in between the right-hander’s major league debut in D.C. and his second start in San Francisco, so he had no personal experience to go off as he prepared for Sunday’s outing against the Rockies.

So Irvin sought out a teammate with loads of experience pitching at high altitude: Patrick Corbin, who has made 13 career starts here. (All three as a member of the Nationals were quality starts, to boot.)

As he stood at his locker following a dominant performance late Sunday afternoon, Irvin noted the words of wisdom he received from Corbin.

“Obviously the elements are a little different than any of the other parks we play in,” he said. “I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Pat, because coming in here I asked him – he had pitched in Arizona for a while, so he played here a lot. He said you can’t really be intimidated by the ballpark and the conditions. Just pitch your game. That advice really helped.”

Irvin certainly stuck to his usual gameplan, relying primarily on fastballs and curveballs. And he executed that plan brilliantly, striking out 10 over six innings of one-run ball to keep the game close before the Nats rallied to win 2-1 in the ninth.

DENVER – For two nights, the Nationals shrugged off their hitting woes and took full advantage of Coors Field and everything it has to offer. And then when it came time for today’s series finale in the best hitter’s park in America, they reverted right back to the form they displayed earlier in the week when they swung at almost everything the Diamondbacks threw at them and emerged with very little to show for it.

Until it mattered most at day’s end and the bats finally woke up just enough to do the impossible.

Held to one hit for eight innings, the Nationals strung together three of them in the ninth, getting clutch RBI knocks from Lane Thomas and Joey Meneses to storm back and beat the Rockies, 2-1, with Kyle Finnegan atoning for his disastrous bottom of the ninth Saturday night to notch the save on Sunday afternoon.

"You look at the last few games and know that the last few innings ... you feel like no one's going to win 1-0," Thomas said. "I think at no part in that game did we think we weren't going to score at least one. We were able to get it done." 

Unable to do anything at the plate for nearly the entire day, aside from Jacob Young’s sixth-inning infield single, the Nats finally put it together in the ninth against Colorado left-hander Jalen Beeks. Young got it started with another infield single, and though he was wiped out on CJ Abrams’ chopper to third, Abrams got himself into scoring position on a wild pitch.

DENVER – The 2024 Nationals established their offensive identity way back in April. Knowing they couldn’t match most other clubs in the power department, they decided to take advantage of their above-average speed and try to become the majors’ best baserunning team.

And for eight good weeks, they delivered in that department. The Nats racked up an astounding 77 stolen bases through their first 47 games, getting caught only 14 times for an impressive 84.6 percent success rate.

Since then, the numbers have plummeted and left the Nationals as the majors’ least effective baserunners. Over their last 29 games, they’ve stolen 27 bases but have been thrown out 24 times, a hard-to-believe 52.9 percent success rate that ranks far and away at the bottom of the league during the last month.

And it perhaps reached a low point Saturday night during an agonizing 8-7 loss to the Rockies that garnered attention for Kyle Finnegan’s walk-off pitch-clock violation in the bottom of the ninth but featured plenty more miscues along the way.

The Nats attempted four stolen bases in the game and were thrown out three times, including CJ Abrams and Lane Thomas in back-to-back plate appearances in the top of the seventh, just as the team was taking a 7-5 lead.

DENVER – It’s a new day at Coors Field, and the Nationals are grateful for that, because it means they don’t have to dwell on Saturday night’s disastrous, 8-7 loss to the Rockies, a game that saw them run into four outs on the bases, then give up runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, the last of them scoring on the first walk-off pitch clock violation in major league history. Good times.

The good news: In spite of all that, the Nats still have a chance to win the series this afternoon. Jake Irvin gets the ball, and he’ll take his crack at trying to keep the ball in the yard here on what is going to be a hot, dry afternoon made for offense. Irvin had his first rough outing in a while last time out, allowing four runs in five innings to the Diamondbacks. He makes his first career start in Colorado, having missed this assignment last year right after he was called up for his debut.

At the plate, the Nationals will try to keep the good offensive vibes going against Kyle Freeland, just activated off the 60-day injured list after missing two months with an elbow strain. The veteran left-hander was awful in his first four starts in April, going 0-3 with a 13.21 ERA before landing on the IL. You would think he’ll be limited today.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Coors Field
Gametime: 3:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 93 degrees, wind 6 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
RF Lane Thomas
LF Ildemaro Vargas
1B Joey Meneses
DH Nick Senzel
C Keibert Ruiz
3B Trey Lipscomb
2B Luis García Jr.
CF Jacob Young

DENVER – The Nationals and Rockies engaged in a good, old-fashioned Coors Field Saturday Night Special. The kind of night when anything can and will happen, and whatever happened in the first six innings doesn’t mean diddly squat because there’s still too much time for too much else to happen the rest of the way.

This game had five home runs. It had four runners caught stealing. It had multiple substitutions, either for injury or strategy. It had an ejection over one of countless erratic calls by plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. And it ultimately had the Nats’ top two relievers desperately try to replicate what they’ve done with ease everywhere else in Coors Field, the toughest pitcher’s park in America.

And then it ended in the most unimaginable manner possible: a pitch clock violation by Kyle Finnegan with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, handing the Rockies an 8-7 victory in historic fashion.

It was the first major league game to end on such a violation since baseball adopted the rule last year.

"It sucks," Finnegan said. "We played a great game and deserved to win, and I wasn't able to do my job."

DENVER – Tanner Rainey knew the significance of what he had just done. In closing out the Nationals’ 11-5 win over the Rockies on Friday night, he not only had been given the chance to pitch at the end of a victory instead of a loss for the first time in months. He also was given the chance to pitch multiple innings for the first time in nearly two years, his final appearance before undergoing Tommy John surgery.

“It’s not necessarily a milestone,” the reliever said, “but it’s something cool to have back under my belt.”

It’s been a painful season to date for Rainey, and not because his surgically repaired elbow has hurt at all. In his long-awaited return from that 2022 procedure, the 31-year-old former closer had seen himself plummet to the bottom of the Nats’ bullpen depth chart.

Rainey hadn’t pitched in a game the Nationals won since April 27 in Miami. And though this wasn’t exactly the definition of a high-leverage situation, a six-run lead in Colorado is probably more akin to a three- or four-run lead elsewhere.

Rainey took the mound for the bottom of the eighth and promptly retired the side, striking out a pair and needing only 13 total pitches to do it. So when he returned to the dugout, manager Davey Martinez asked how he felt about going back out for the ninth as well.

DENVER – The Nationals exploded for 11 runs on a season-high 19 hits Friday night against the Rockies. Can they carry any of that success over into tonight’s game and keep the positive offensive vibes going?

Davey Martinez’s bunch seemed to find the right balance between aggressively hitting fastballs in the zone and working the count when there wasn’t the perfect pitch waiting for them. They went 7-for-8 with 15 total bases when they put the first pitch of an at-bat in play, but they also drew five walks, showing the kind of patience they didn’t have the previous series against the Diamondbacks.

The Nats are facing statistically the Rockies’ best starter tonight in Cal Quantrill. The right-hander boasts a 3.43 ERA in 15 starts, which is no small feat pitching in this ballpark. He doesn’t strike a lot of guys out (6.3 per nine innings) but he doesn’t give up homers either (only eight in 84 innings). His two primary pitches are a sinker and a splitter, so the Nationals have to make sure they’re not chasing him down in the zone and pounding the ball into the ground.

Mitchell Parker makes his 13th major league start tonight, hoping to keep his streak alive by limiting Colorado to three or fewer earned runs. The lefty was really good against the Marlins last time out, allowing one run over six innings without walking anybody. Parker’s challenge tonight: Don’t leave the curveball or splitter up in the zone in the thin air.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Coors Field
Gametime: 9:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 84 degrees, wind 9 mph in from left field

DENVER – DJ Herz’s start Friday night bore no resemblance to his previous outing, when he took Nationals Park by storm and struck out 13 Marlins batters over six innings of one-hit, shutout ball.

In this game at Coors Field, the rookie left-hander lasted only 3 2/3 innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on seven hits, all while throwing 76 pitches before getting the hook from manager Davey Martinez.

There was one similarity, though, and it was an important one that could bode well for future starts. As he did against Miami, Herz did not issue a walk against Colorado. He forced the Rockies to beat him, not giving them any help along the way.

“I thought it was good for the most part,” he said after the Nats’ 11-5 victory. “I’m happy about the amount of strikes, and the no walks again. Every time they scored, we answered, so it was good to see the run support and everybody hitting the ball tonight. It was really fun.”

Herz was hit hard, serving up three homers during a seven-batter span between the third and fourth innings. But two of those were solo shots, and the other was a two-run homer only because of third baseman Nick Senzel’s throwing error moments earlier. Herz didn’t create jams by losing control.

DENVER – Nobody in the clubhouse wanted to admit it this afternoon, but surely everyone was thinking it. If ever there was a place built to snap a moribund lineup out of its funk, it had to be Coors Field, right?

The Nationals arrived in the Mile High City reeling from a three-game series against the Diamondbacks in which they scored a total of five runs and saw a grand total of 287 pitches. (Somehow, they still won one of those three games.) But spirits remained high, because a weekend set with the Rockies felt like just what the doctor ordered.

And indeed it was, because in the series opener in the best hitter’s park in America, the Nats put forth one of their best offensive performances of the year, cruising to an 11-5 victory behind a season-high 19 hits.

"They responded really well," manager Davey Martinez said. "We talked a lot about know yourself. Know who you are. Know what pitches you want to attack. Stay on the fastball. We did well today."

Everybody in the lineup reached base once, and all but Nick Senzel reached multiple times. But Lane Thomas led the way with an RBI single, a two-run double and an RBI triple, the red-hot right fielder coming up just short of his first career cycle when he grounded out and then struck out in his final two at-bats.

DENVER – CJ Abrams is back in the Nationals’ lineup tonight, his left wrist taped up as he tries to protect a ganglion cyst that developed earlier in the week and kept him from playing the last two days.

“I’m not really sure what that is,” he said. “But it can’t get worse, so I’m good for tonight.”

The cyst is on the palm side of Abrams’ wrist, under the skin but pushing up slightly to create a small bump. He first noticed it prior to Wednesday’s game, at which point the Nats scratched him from the lineup. He also sat out Thursday’s series finale against the Diamondbacks but was showing signs of improvement that led him to believe he’d be OK for tonight’s game against the Rockies.

Because the cyst is on his left wrist, Abrams has no issues throwing. He simply has to deal with a little bit of discomfort when he bats.

“I still don’t know,” he said when asked how it occurred. “Just swinging, I guess. That’s when it hurts the most.”

DENVER – The Nationals couldn’t hit a lick in three games at home against the Diamondbacks. Maybe a three-game series at Coors Field against the Rockies will do the trick.

If ever there was a ballpark – and an opposing pitching staff – that could snap a team out of its offensive funk, this is that combination. There’s no better place to hit in baseball, and the Rockies give up a major-league-worst 5.87 runs per game (leaps and bounds more than the next-worst pitching staff: the White Sox, at 5.17).

As of this writing, we’re still waiting to see tonight’s lineup, so we don’t know if CJ Abrams is ready to return or if he still needs another day off due to the cyst on his left wrist. Obviously, the Nats would love to have their leadoff man and shortstop playing for them. Whether Abrams plays or not, they’ll still need much more production from others in the lineup, including Lane Thomas, Jesse Winker and Keibert Ruiz.

DJ Herz takes the mound for the Nationals, and it will be fascinating to see how he does tonight on the heels of his brilliant, 13-strikeout gem against the Marlins. It really does seem to boil down to Herz’s ability to keep the ball in the strike zone. And that’s all the more important here, where you simply can’t afford to give away free passes and allow small rallies to turn into big rallies.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Coors Field
Gametime: 8:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Slight chance of rain, 80 degrees, wind 7 mph in from left field

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – The Nationals have a plethora of top outfield prospects getting closer to the major leagues.

Top prospect James Wood just rejoined Triple-A Rochester’s roster after a three-week stint on the injured list. And he’s now reunited with the Nats’ No. 2 prospect Dylan Crews, who just earned his first promotion to Triple-A and hit his first home run with Rochester in his second game.

Robert Hassell III remains at Double-A Harrisburg, where he finds himself on the IL after a strong start to the season. And Daylen Lile has moved up from High-A Wilmington to get his first taste of Double-A ball.

But there is another top outfield prospect that may seem like he’s getting left behind.

Elijah Green still finds himself at Single-A Fredericksburg, unable to yet move out of the lower levels of the minor leagues now in his second full season in the Nats system.

The Nationals’ aggressiveness at the plate has been on display all season. They want to swing at strikes, get on base and steal bases to score runs.

The approach of swinging at strikes is all well and good on paper. But you have to do some damage with those hitter’s pitches to make it meaningful.

They’ve had some trouble with it this week against the Diamondbacks. It didn’t work at all on Tuesday while seeing a grand total of 96 pitches during a 5-0 shutout. It barely worked Wednesday when they needed Jesse Winker’s two-run home run to rescue them in a 3-1 win after seeing only 104 pitches.

And it didn’t work again Thursday in a 5-2 loss to the Snakes as the Nats dropped their first series in their last four attempts in front of an announced crowd of 21,158.

The Nationals offense was once again doomed by not doing too much in the strike zone.

Josiah Gray was back in the Nationals clubhouse this morning after making his third rehab start with Double-A Harrisburg last night.

Gray, on the 15-day injured list since April 9 (retroactive to April 6) with a right elbow/forearm flexor strain, threw 79 pitches over five innings in last night’s outing, his second with the Senators. He gave up two runs on three hits and three walks with five strikeouts.

Results aside, the right-hander said he felt good.

“I felt good, felt really good,” he said at his locker. “I got five innings there, (about) 80 pitches. Everything was really crisp. Changeup, curveball, fastball, cutter were on point and everything felt in control. Felt that I was throwing my best stuff out there. So I'm just looking forward to the next step and seeing where we go from there.”

Gray wasn’t sure what his next steps would be at the time. He was going to meet with manager Davey Martinez and the Nats training staff before today’s matinee finale against the Diamondbacks. The Nationals embark on a nine-game cross-country road trip tonight, and Gray didn’t know whether or not he would be going with them.

The Nationals have a chance today to win their fourth straight series after getting swept at home by the Mets earlier this month. A win over the Diamondbacks would also give them 10 wins in 13 games during that same stretch. And a win would also bring them back to .500 and keep them firmly in a National League wild card spot.

Not to put too much pressure on a single game in June, but a victory to close out this series against the defending NL champs before embarking on a nine-game road trip that will take them all over the country would be huge for this team.

But they’ll likely have to do it without CJ Abrams, who was a late scratch from yesterday’s starting lineup and underwent an MRI on his left wrist. We should get some more insight into that surprising injury later this morning.

With or without Abrams, the Nats will look for better offensive results against Arizona pitching. Right-hander Ryne Nelson makes his 13th appearance (12th start) for the visitors. Although his overall numbers aren’t that impressive (4-5, 5.49 ERA, 1.640 WHIP), he’s coming off a six-inning outing against the White Sox in which he held them to one run and struck out eight. He also completed 7 ⅔ innings of two-run ball against the Giants earlier this month on just 80 pitches, so the Nats need to work the count better than they have lately.

MacKenzie Gore makes his 15th start this afternoon. The left-hander is coming off a dominant performance against the Marlins that included seven innings of one-run ball, 10 strikeouts and a dust-up in the dugout. Here's hoping that today will produce similar results on the field without the dramatics off it.

For 14 innings across nearly 23 hours, they swung and swung and kept swinging and kept making outs. And then with one mighty swing, Jesse Winker changed the agonizing narrative that had defined the first half of the Nationals’ series against the Diamondbacks and got his team back on track.

Winker’s two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth snapped the Nats out of their scoreless funk. And thanks to a tack-on run provided by Ildemaro Vargas, another effective start by Patrick Corbin and another strong showing by the back end of the bullpen, they emerged with a cathartic 3-1 victory.

"Good teams, that's what they do," manager Davey Martinez said. "They're not going to hit every day. I talk about it all the time: Hitting is hard. And you're going to go through those lapses where it's like that, where you score two or three runs but you've got a chance to win. That's what I love about this team: They don't give up."

It wasn't a perfect day at the yard for the Nationals, who had to scratch shortstop CJ Abrams from the lineup shortly before first pitch with a left wrist issue. Martinez said Abrams, who isn't sure how he hurt himself, is getting an MRI to determine the extent of the injury.

Shut out on four hits and no walks Tuesday night even with a healthy leadoff man, the Nationals totaled just two hits and one walk through five innings this afternoon against Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt, whose pitch count remained ridiculously low thanks to another string of first-pitch outs made by an overly aggressive lineup.

The sun was blazing, straight overhead, no shade in sight, as Mitchell Parker fired pitches from the mound and then reacted to field bunts and other assorted ground balls hit to his left and right.

No other Nationals pitchers were out there this afternoon. This was a personal PFP (pitchers’ fielding practice) session for Parker alone, a response to three misplays he made during his last two starts.

When he was done, Parker walked out to right field for his standard between-starts throwing session in the bullpen. And by the time he returned to the clubhouse, his shirt was completely soaked through.

“There was no negative to it,” the rookie left-hander said afterward. “During the (last misplay Sunday), I kind of figured this was going to be happening. Luckily, we’re going to get to it before it becomes a bigger issue. I appreciate the work to get out there and work on it. It’s a good thing.”

Parker has been perhaps the biggest positive surprise to the Nats’ season to date. In 12 starts to date, he’s 5-3 with a 3.06 ERA and 1.079 WHIP, having yet to be charged with more than three runs in any outing.