Can the Nats better maximize Turner and Soto's production?

Trea Turner and Juan Soto are hitting as well as humanly possible right now. Of that, there's no debate. They enter tonight's game against the Phillies ranking first and second in the majors in batting average, first and fourth in OPS.

They're also hitting first and second in the Nationals lineup, a decision manager Davey Martinez made recently to give Soto as many plate appearances as possible and help give both guys as many pitches to hit as possible.

So how come the Nats aren't scoring more runs or winning more games? There are all sorts of reasons, most of them having nothing to do with the batting order, but it does feel like they're not maximizing every ounce of production they could be getting from their two big hitters right now.

To wit: Turner is an unfathomable 15-for-20 during the current road trip. But 10 of those 15 hits have come with nobody on base. (And three of the five that did came Friday night in Boston during the team's lone win.)

Soto, meanwhile, is coming up to bat with Turner on base a ton. But during this trip, he has come up to bat with multiple runners on base only twice. All three of his homers have been two-run blasts, scoring Turner and himself.

For more than a century, conventional lineup construction dictated that a team's best run producers should bat third or fourth, giving them the most opportunities to drive in the high on-base percentage hitters at the top of the order. Over the last decade, that philosophy has changed in some corners, with more sluggers now batting second to ensure more plate appearances over a full season.

But in the Nationals' current predicament, is Martinez tempted at all to move Turner and Soto down a slot and hope more of their torrent of hits come with runners on base?

"Absolutely," Martinez said today during his pregame Zoom session with reporters from Philadelphia. "As you know, I don't sleep at night, and I've run about 15 different batting orders (in my mind). Just don't have very many options right now."

He's doesn't, and that's the real problem here.

Martinez toyed with the idea of batting Turner third during the offseason and early in spring training, but he wasn't convinced Victor Robles was ready to handle the move up from ninth to first or second. And with Robles currently batting .237 with a .311 on-base percentage, he certainly hasn't earned the right to move up in the order.

The most logical choice to take over leadoff duties in front of Turner and Soto is Adam Eaton, who has mostly hit second for the Nationals but has ample experience leading off. Eaton, though, sports the same .237 batting average as Robles and is reaching base at an even lower .291 clip.

"He was swinging so much out of the strike zone," Martinez said of Eaton, whose walk rate is a career-low 7 percent and whose strikeout rate is 18.8 percent, his highest since 2015. "We're trying to get him back in the strike zone now. ... He's been hitting the ball a lot better. If he starts taking his pitches and accepting his walks, we can get him back up to the top of the lineup and see what happens."

The drop in opportunities for the team's two best hitters has been noticeable. Only 17.4 percent of Turner's plate appearances have come with runners in scoring position, down from 19 percent last year. A full 30.6 percent of his plate appearances have come with nobody on and at least one out, up from 28.6 percent last year.

The difference is more striking in Soto's case. Only 24 percent of his plate appearances have come with runners in scoring position, down from 32.5 percent last year. Only 11.5 percent have come with multiple runners on base, down from 17.8 percent last year. (Yes, the loss of Anthony Rendon is a major factor.)

So unless someone else from the current lineup steps up and earns the right to move up, Martinez has little choice but to stick with his potent one-two combo and hope they can produce enough on their own.

"If we had a guy that was walking and hitting a little bit, you could stick him in there and move those guys maybe to two and three," he said. "I thought about doing that. Or even, if we had a couple guys, three and four. ... But right now, those guys are doing well hitting one and two. We need some guys at the bottom of the order just to get on base for them and see what happens."