New challenge awaits Nationals in L.A.

The Nationals flew west Wednesday night, all the way west for their first trip outside the eastern time zone since 2019. They were a fairly exhausted group, certainly more exhausted than you'd normally expect only three games into the season. Those first three games, of course, were anything but normal.

Manager Davey Martinez wanted everyone to have a full day off in Los Angeles, a chance to sleep, a chance to recover, a chance to breathe some fresh Southern California air and prepare for what comes next.

What comes next? Possibly an even tougher challenge than they just faced in D.C.

The schedule-makers were not kind to the Nationals this season. The original slate had them opening at home against the Mets and Braves, then hitting the road to face the Dodgers and Cardinals. They saw the entire Mets series postponed following their COVID-19 outbreak, but that only led to three games in 25 hours against the defending National League East champs.

And now all they have to do is face the defending World Series champs over the weekend. In their home opening series. Starting with this afternoon's game in which the Dodgers will raise their championship banner and pass out rings to all players and staff members.

Talk about rubbing salt in your wound. A Nats club that never had a chance to hold that kind of celebration in front of fans last year now must bear witness to the Dodgers rejoicing with their fans.

That's all ceremonial, though. The real challenge comes when the baseball begins and a still-depleted Nationals roster must find a way to compete with the most loaded roster in the sport.

We don't know yet if any of the Nats' nine quarantined players will be both cleared and in uniform in time for today's 4:10 p.m. EDT opener. If somehow a few of them are, it will have involved an impressive coordination between Major League Baseball, the D.C. Department of Health and longtime traveling secretary Rob McDonald.

To our knowledge, none of the affected players were on Wednesday night's charter. And MLB protocols state that any players who fly commercially must go through a full round of intake testing before they are cleared to physically join the team. Could the Nationals work something out?

"That's something that we're trying to work through right now," Martinez said during his Wednesday morning Zoom session with reporters, prior to the doubleheader. "We're trying to figure out how we can get these guys there if they're allowed to meet us in L.A. All this stuff is still up in the air. We sat around last night talking about all kind of different things."

Here's what we do know: Joe Ross has been named today's starter, which suggests that neither Patrick Corbin nor Jon Lester was expected to be cleared and in uniform today. The club hasn't named its other starters for the series, but Max Scherzer would be on normal rest Sunday's finale. Unless Corbin or Lester is ready to go Saturday, that leaves only Austin Voth as a fully rested starter.

The lineup, for now, is still lacking Josh Bell, Kyle Schwarber, Josh Harrison, Yan Gomes and Alex Avila. With Walker Buehler starting for Los Angeles today, the challenge to score runs is magnified if none of those regulars are in uniform.

And then there's the bullpen, which would love to have closer Brad Hand against the Dodgers' left-handed sluggers (Corey Seager, Max Muncy) but they might catch a break if Cody Bellinger isn't ready to play after injuring his calf earlier in the week.

All of this adds up to a lopsided matchup on paper. Though as we saw this week on South Capitol Street, even a depleted Nationals roster has a few tricks up its sleeve.