Homestand offers chance for Nats to go into break on a tear

Their 4-2 week against a pair of division rivals was important. But so was their just-completed, 5-1 week on the road against a couple of cellar dwellers.

And all of that merely leads into this final week of the season's first half, in which the Nationals have a golden opportunity to keep up their sustained momentum against some very beatable competition and perhaps even head into the All-Star break in playoff position for the first time in 2019.

On paper, the Nationals' upcoming homestand against the Marlins and Royals won't draw a whole lot of attention. These games aren't going to lead the nightly highlight shows on MLB Network. And aside from Thursday's annual Independence Day morning game, they may not draw huge crowds to South Capitol Street, either, with plenty of folks leaving town for the holiday.

But that doesn't make this week of baseball any less significant for the Nationals, who as you know by now can't afford to take any matchup lightly after digging themselves out of a gargantuan hole over the last six weeks.

The Nats have won 23 of their last 33, a dramatic turn of events that has allowed them to climb from 12 games under .500 to one game over and on the cusp of the pennant race. And another very good week to close out the first half could get them over that hump and officially into the mix.

When they take the field tonight to face the Marlins, the Nationals will be 1 1/2 games out of the National League wild card race, only two games out of the No. 1 wild card seed. That's a staggering fact given where they stood back on May 23 at the low point of the season (only 1 1/2 games better than the worst team in the NL).

And if they take care of business this week, they could reach the All-Star break in playoff position.

A 4-2 homestand would leave the Nationals at 46-43. They'd probably still trail the Rockies or Phillies or Cubs or Brewers by a slim margin, but they'd be right in the thick of things. A 5-1 homestand would make them 47-42, and that might just be enough to leapfrog those fellow wild card contenders.

A perfect 6-0 week? Let's not get too crazy here, but for what it's worth that would complete a historic run by the Nats. They would be on a 29-10 run since the low water mark in New York in late May, and that would represent the best 39-game stretch in club history.

Yep, better than any 39-game stretch the four division champion teams ever strung together. Better than the best stretch the inaugural 2005 club had en route to a 50-31 record at the midway point.

That would be quite something. It hasn't happened yet, of course. The Nationals need to come out this week and pick up right where they left off last week. The Marlins, as we've seen, have some very good young pitching that can make any game competitive. The Royals don't look terribly imposing from a distance, but as the Tigers showed over the weekend it doesn't take much to make a three-game series highly competitive.

The Nats have pulled off a daunting task. They've resurrected themselves from the dead and gotten themselves over the .500 mark. But if you think the next task is going to be any easier, you don't fully appreciate the rigors of a 162-game baseball season.