Game 123 lineups: Nats at Padres

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals are playing some competitive baseball these days. They’ve gone 3-3 over their last six games, but two of the losses were by one run and the other one went to extra innings. They’ve managed to do that despite a lackluster (and depleted) lineup, thanks to quality pitching. During this six-game stretch, their staff ERA is an impressive 2.95, and they’ve surrendered only 34 hits in 55 innings.

The challenge today, then, is for Patrick Corbin to keep that run going. The bar for Corbin, obviously, isn’t very high. But he did at least give his team a chance in his last start, allowing four runs over six innings to the Cubs. As much as the Nats bullpen has been used this week, Davey Martinez would love to get six decent innings from his starter today. He could then go to the trio of Hunter Harvey, Carl Edwards Jr. and Kyle Finnegan (in some order) to close things out, because none of them pitched during Saturday night’s 2-1 loss.

The Nationals lineup remains depleted. Luke Voit hasn’t played since Thursday due to back spasms. Yadiel Hernandez is on the 10-day injured list with a calf strain. Keibert Ruiz gets a well-deserved day off after catching the first three games of the series. We’ll see if anyone else can step up and produce against Padres left-hander Sean Manaea, who doesn’t tend to go very deep in games. He hasn’t topped the 100-pitch mark since June 28, and he hasn’t reached the sixth inning since July 31.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 75 degrees, wind 9 mph out to right field

NATIONALS
CF Victor Robles
LF Alex Call
1B Joey Meneses
DH Nelson Cruz
RF Lane Thomas
2B César Hernández
SS CJ Abrams
C Tres Barrera
3B Ildemaro Vargas

LHP Patrick Corbin

PADRES
1B Wil Myers
RF Juan Soto
3B Manny Machado
2B Brandon Drury
DH Josh Bell
SS Ha-Seong Kim
LF Jurickson Profar
C Jorge Alfaro
CF Jose Azocar

LHP Sean Manaea