The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Reinstated LHP John Means from the 15-day Injured List (left forearm strain).
• Placed RHP Grayson Rodriguez on the 15-day Injured List (right shoulder inflammation), retroactive to April 30.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Eddie Rosario led off the top of the fifth with a single to center field, a relatively nondescript moment that meant even less moments later when he was wiped out on a 5-4-3 double play off the bat of teammate Riley Adams.

That was April 17, the finale of the Nationals’ series at Dodger Stadium. Thirteen games have passed since then. Thirteen games in which Rosario has not delivered another base hit.

He’s taken 25 at-bats since. He has produced zero hits. He’s now batting .088 for the season, his OPS an abysmal .299.

“It’s probably the worst month of my career, by far,” he said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I’ve never felt like I’ve been in this position. I’ve hit balls very well, and it seems like every time I hit a ball well, it’s right at someone. I keep working hard, going out there and try to have good approaches. But I just can’t wait for this month to be over with.”

Rosario has never hit well in April. It’s by far the worst statistical month of his long career. He’s a .206 hitter with a .620 OPS in April. In no other month is his OPS worse than .735.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Whether they realized it or not, a win tonight by the Nationals would’ve been rather significant. Not because the outcome of their series opener against the Rangers would make or break this season, but because of what it would’ve meant on a psychological level.

A win would’ve made them 15-14 to wrap up the month. It would’ve marked the first time they owned a winning record at any point in a season since July 1, 2021 (the night Alex Avila strained both his calves playing second base in an emergency). And it would’ve marked the first time they ended April with more wins than losses since 2017, when Dusty Baker was still managing and Davey Martinez was still Joe Maddon’s right-hand man with the Cubs.

So tonight’s 7-1 loss to the Rangers, while hardly devastating in the big picture, was nonetheless disappointing for a club that arrived in town flying high after a four-game sweep of the Marlins.

"You look back, and there's some games we could've won and been above .500," Martinez said. "But overall, we're playing good baseball. We're playing hard. ... It's nice to win games in April. Now we're going into May. I break the season down, and I always tell myself: If we win 15 games a month, that's pretty good. So, let's win 16 next month."

The Nationals did get another strong start from MacKenzie Gore, who struck out seven in five innings and was charged with only two runs. But they could not supply their emerging ace with more than minimal run support, scoring in the top of the first against Jon Gray but not again after that.

One of the biggest potential influencers in tonight’s game was doing important work on the field before batting practice. Craig Kimbrel stretched while holding a weighted ball, played catch and walked to the bullpen for a lengthy session. The Orioles needed proof that the tightness was gone in his upper back and he could be a consideration in a save situation.

On Wednesday, as it turned out.

Manager Brandon Hyde was giving Kimbrel another game to recover after the veteran closer was removed Sunday in the ninth inning, his third appearance in five days. But don’t tell the Yankees your plans. Let them think he’s ready.

Let him appear to demonstrate that he could take the ball in the ninth and see how the game played out.

Don’t worry about putting the cart before the horse. Figure it out before knowing whether a lead would require protecting.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Nick Senzel is on the kind of power streak most players only dream about. Trey Lipscomb has been red-hot since returning from Triple-A. So how do the Nationals keep both players in the lineup?

For now, the answer is to have Senzel serve as designated hitter while Lipscomb handles third base.

That’s the alignment again tonight for the Nats’ series opener against the Rangers, the fourth straight lineup card Davey Martinez has filled out with Lipscomb at third and Senzel as DH.

“It works out really well for us right now,” Martinez said. “Nick’s starting to swing the bat really well. Lipscomb’s playing really well both sides of the ball. So we’ll keep it like this for a while.”

Senzel, whose season debut was delayed by a fractured thumb suffered during pregame drills on Opening Day, enters tonight with five homers in his last six games. And he nearly hit another homer Monday night in Miami, the ball landing at the wall in deep left-center for a double.

With Monday’s 2-0 win over the New York Yankees, the Orioles improved to 18-10, achieved a first-place tie atop the division and improved to 7-3 in series-opening games.

Win the first one and the chances to win the series go up, said Captain Obvious. And the Orioles are 6-3 in series play in 2024.

With one win the next three days they would at least split this four-game series. Should they do that or better, they will extend an impressive streak. The Orioles have gone 15 straight AL East series without losing one. That is the longest streak in club history behind a 13-series non-losing streak from 1969. Since early last April, they have won 11 and split four other AL East series.

Gunnar Henderson’s leadoff homer in the last of the first Monday was his third leadoff homer of this year and fifth of his career. With 10 homers, he is tied with the Angels’ Mike Trout for both the AL and MLB lead. Two other players have hit nine homers and three have hit eight.

At his current homer pace, Henderson would hit 58 homers this year. Last night he became the third player in club history to have hit 10 or more before May 1. Brady Anderson hit 11 in 1996 and Frank Robinson hit 10 in 1969. At 22 years, 306 days, Gunnar becomes the youngest player in MLB history with 10 home runs before May 1 (previously: COL’s Trevor Story, 23-167 on 4/30).

ARLINGTON, Texas – Hello from Globe Life Park, home of the defending World Series champions. The Nationals come to town flying high after a four-game sweep of the Marlins, but the challenge over the next three days will be markedly more significant. If they can pull off another win tonight, though, it’ll be notable for a couple of reasons: 1) The Nats would own a winning record at any point in the season for the first time since July 1, 2021, and 2) They would finish April with a winning record for the first time since 2017 (when Dusty Baker was manager).

The Nationals have been getting excellent starting pitching through this run, so they’ll hope that continues tonight with MacKenzie Gore. Though he didn’t have his best stuff last week, Gore impressively held the Dodgers to only one run in six innings. He should enter this start with confidence.

At the plate, the Nats will try to keep the pressure on by not only getting on base but advancing once they’re on. We saw how effective they could be running over the weekend in Miami. Look for more of the same tonight against Texas starter Jon Gray and catcher Jonah Heim, who has thrown out only 3-of-18 base stealers so far this year.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at TEXAS RANGERS
Where: Globe Life Park
Gametime: 8:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF Jesse Winker
1B Joey Meneses
2B Luis García Jr.
C Keibert Ruiz
DH Nick Senzel
RF Eddie Rosario
3B Trey Lipscomb
CF Jacob Young

Craig Kimbrel is feeling much better after leaving Sunday’s game against Oakland with tightness in his upper back. However, his availability for tonight remains in question.

Manager Brandon Hyde couldn’t provide much of an update during his media session.

“Not really sure,” Hyde said. “He’s going through some treatment stuff right now and then I’m going to talk to him here in a little bit. But as of right now at 3:42, I’m not really sure.”

Kimbrel did some stretching exercises on the field, played catch and had an extensive bullpen session. He appeared to be throwing with maximum effort.

Hyde is going with a closer by committee during Kimbrel’s absence, with Danny Coulombe getting the last three outs last night for his third career save.

Jorge Mateo gets the start at second base tonight for the Orioles and James McCann is behind the plate.

Heston Kjerstad stays on the bench against a left-hander, former Orioles Rule 5 pick Nestor Cortes. He’s been in the lineup once since the Orioles recalled him last Tuesday.

Colton Cowser is in left field and batting ninth. Jordan Westburg is the third baseman.

Dean Kremer is making his sixth start. He’s posted a 4.61 ERA and 1.061 WHIP in 27 1/3 innings.

Kremer struck out 10 batters over 5 1/3 innings in his last start in Anaheim. He has a 5.04 ERA and 1.410 WHIP in nine career starts against the Yankees.

MIAMI – It was unfair and unrealistic to think Mitchell Parker would continue his dominant start to his major league career much longer. At some point, major league hitters would catch up to the 24-year-old.

Even the lowly Marlins, who own the second-worst record in the majors, have good big-league hitters in their lineup. And with two starts worth of video on Parker, it wasn’t going to be an easy walk in loanDepot park for the lefty.

And so it was that Parker ran into his first bit of adversity in his third major league start. But he continued to impress by battling it and grinding through four innings, allowing the Nationals to win their second game in a row against the Marlins. The win was mainly fueled by Jesse Winker’s grand slam, resulting in the Nats' 11-4 rout in front of an announced crowd of 12,695.

“Winker with the big blow," manager Davey Martinez said after the win. "He put us up top and I think the guys kind of loosened up a little bit. We started swinging our bats. ... It was a good day offensively, a good day. So we gotta come back and do it again tomorrow.”

Parker displayed great command in his first two starts by striking out 12 and issuing zero walks, which were an issue for him since he entered the Nats system as a 2020 fifth-round pick. The free passes came back to haunt him in the first inning as he issued the first two of his big league career to help Luis Arraez reach third base.

The Orioles are close to testing the age-old baseball theory that teams never can have too much pitching.

Cole Irvin must wonder how he plays into the experiment.

Kyle Bradish is leaving his injury rehab assignment and starting for the Orioles next week. John Means makes his final rehab appearance on Sunday, which sets up his return.

The process of elimination could make Irvin vulnerable to a bullpen shift, but the timing would be peculiar given his recent dominance. A whole new meaning to leaving on a high note.

Irvin stated his case again today at high volume to be left alone. After tossing 6 2/3 scoreless innings last weekend in Kansas City, he shut out the Athletics for seven in a 7-0 victory before an announced crowd of 28,364 at chilly and damp Camden Yards.

MIAMI – The Nationals had another new face in their clubhouse at loanDepot park today as Alex Call joined the team from Triple-A Rochester to take the roster spot of the now-injured Joey Gallo.

Gallo landed on the 10-day injured list this afternoon with a left shoulder AC sprain and Call was recalled as another outfielder off the bench.

“Joey's been dealing with a left shoulder. He has an AC joint sprain,” manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame session with the media. “So we just want to get it to calm down a little bit and get him some strength back in there. Alex Call has been playing really well. I thought about just bringing another right-handed bat up, we're really left-handed heavy. So having him will help.”

Gallo, signed to a one-year, $5 million contract this offseason, was brought in to provide some power to a Nats lineup that was last in the National League in home runs last year. But the first baseman/designated hitter/outfielder has struggled to begin the year, slashing .122/.286/.311 with a .597 OPS, five doubles, three homers, five RBIs, 15 walks and a major league-leading 43 strikeouts.

The 30-year-old has struck out 22 times in his last 28 at-bats over his last 10 games.

Kyle Bradish is coming back to the Orioles, and a little faster than anticipated.

Manager Brandon Hyde said Bradish is returning to the major league rotation. The right-hander’s injury rehab assignment will end early.

Bradish started last night for Triple-A Norfolk and held Gwinnett to one run in five innings, with one walk and six strikeouts. He’s stretched out to 77 pitches.

The assignment technically began on April 16 with three scoreless innings at Double-A Bowie, and the 30-day period would have carried Bradish into the middle of May. However, he threw a live batting practice session on April 11 at High-A Aberdeen, which sped up the process to get him ready.

“He threw the ball really well last night and our medical team talked to him this morning,” Hyde said. “Our pitching guys, as well. He feels great. We’re just looking right now kind of when to slot him in, but he’s going to be with us soon.”

MIAMI – It took until the eighth inning, but the Nationals finally got the big hit they needed in order to get the series-opening win against the Marlins, a team they have struggled to beat over the past two years.

Now the question is: Can they build upon Joey Meneses’ clutch two-run hit and build an earlier lead today?

They will try to do so against Edward Cabrera, who is off to a 1-0 start with a 3.27 ERA and 1.455 WHIP in 11 innings over two starts. The right-hander has also struck out 17 batters while only issuing four walks. The 26-year-old is 2-1 with a 3.86 ERA and 1.048 WHIP in four starts against the Nats, including 1-0 with a 3.60 ERA and 1.000 WHIP in his lone start against them last year.

If the offense can’t get going, it will be up to Mitchell Parker to keep the Nats in the game. The young lefty has been outstanding over his first two starts, going 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA, 0.583 WHIP, 12 strikeouts and no walks.

To the bats’ credit: Parker has been staked to early leads in each of his two starts.

Colton Cowser stays in left field this afternoon and Jorge Mateo gets the start at second base, as the Orioles attempt to bounce back from last night’s 3-2, 10-inning loss to Oakland.

James McCann is catching, with Adley Rutschman serving as designated hitter.

Anthony Santander is batting .303/.425/.606 (10-for-33) with five doubles, one triple, one home run, four RBIs, five walks and four runs scored in his last nine games since April 16. He’s in right field today and batting cleanup.

Ryan Mountcastle has registered a .937 OPS when batting third this season, more than .150 points higher than his OPS when hitting in all other spots (.756), per STATS. He’s the first baseman.

Left-hander Cole Irvin, trying to hold onto his spot in the rotation, is coming off his finest outing with the Orioles. He shut out the Royals over 6 2/3 innings Sunday in Kansas City. They batted .133 against his fastball.

Before Friday’s game, the Orioles made a tough decision. They decided to send 20-year-old Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 ranked prospect in the sport, back to the minor leagues.

After he showed the club a hot bat in spring training and also at the start of the Triple-A season for Norfolk, he struggled in his first shot at the big leagues.

Just a couple of days before the Orioles would have guaranteed he would stay with the club at least for seven big league seasons, they called him up, showing this was not about service time. But the kid struggled. He played solid defense and showed plenty of capabilities at second base. But he failed to hit big-league pitching. At least this time, going 2-for-34 with 18 strikeouts.  

"Again, ultimately, do I like the way that this has gone in April totally? No, and I feel responsible for that,” Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said before the game. “But it’s possible, just like it was for Grayson (Rodriguez) or Colton Cowser or any of these guys, that this was sort of a necessary development episode to be exposed to this before you’re fully ready for it. And now the work that you put in, you kind of know exactly what you need to do when you get back up there, and that’s valuable.

“It comes at a cost to get that negative feedback, but it’s valuable, and I guarantee you Jackson’s going to channel that well.”

The Orioles scored twice last night in the opening game of another homestand, a paltry output by their standards but also exhibiting two ways they can go about their offensive business.

They collected three singles in the third inning, the last two with two outs, keeping a rally alive and passing the bat to the next guy.

Cedric Mullins launched a changeup onto the flag court in right field in the fourth to break a tie. They also can flex their muscle.

This is a special group, with numbers early on that haven’t been posted here in a long time.

The game began with the Orioles leading the American League with a .260 average, .459 slugging percentage and .780 OPS. The last time they finished a season first in all three categories was also the first time they were crowned champions.

MIAMI – Almost exactly a year ago, Cade Cavalli walked into the visiting clubhouse at loanDepot Park and was reunited with his Nationals teammates for the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery that ended his 2023 season in spring training.

At that time, he was in street clothes, having just made the trip down from the team’s facility in West Palm Beach where he had begun his lengthy rehab, and quickly changed into his Nats gear to be a part of the team again with a wide smile across his face.

On Friday, Cavalli made the same walk into the Nats clubhouse, only this time he was already in his Nats workout gear, which was covered in sweat from his latest bullpen session. And he still had that same wide smile across his face (although this time with a little more facial hair).

“It's been great. I'm extremely grateful to be where I'm at in the process,” Cavalli said of his rehabilitation in front of his locker with a No. 9 jersey hanging inside. “Just fully healthy and feeling very close to normal. And we got lives (live BP) on Monday for the first time, so I'm really looking forward to that. It'll be fun seeing batters.”

Cavalli, the Nats’ first-round pick in 2020 from the University of Oklahoma, has been throwing 60-pitch bullpen sessions and was scheduled to throw 75 in his latest one before facing live hitters for the first time. His fastball has been consistently hitting 96 mph, which is what it was averaging pre-injury in his one and only major league start to date on Aug. 26, 2022.

It’s easy to look at the Nationals’ offensive woes right now and lament their lack of power. This is a team that has hit only 21 home runs in 24 games, the fifth-lowest total in the majors.

Davey Martinez would love more homers from this team, no doubt. But he also knows this lineup wasn’t built with home runs in mind. What the Nats manager really wants, more than anything else, are any hits that score runs, whether singles, doubles, triples or homers. Or even a non-hit that still scores a run.

“We had a chance today to score a run, just by moving a guy over (and) the next guy hit a fly ball,” Martinez said following Thursday’s 2-1 loss to the Dodgers. “Those are the little things that matter. If we do that, it’s a tie game right now. We have to get back to that.”

Indeed, the Nationals, for all their issues, have consistently given themselves a chance to win games this month by putting runners in scoring position. They just haven’t consistently shown an ability to get those runners home.

Consider Thursday’s loss, when they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Or Tuesday’s loss, when they went 3-for-9 but drove in only one run in the process.

It wasn’t his best, nor his most overpowering performance. Most of the afternoon, to be honest, felt like an uphill climb for MacKenzie Gore, with long at-bats, high pitch counts and traffic on the bases.

This may have been one of the most important starts of the young left-hander’s career, though. Because on a day when he wasn’t at his best, he still found a way to surrender minimal damage to one of the toughest lineups in baseball. And was given the chance to extend himself beyond the limits the Nationals normally impose on him.

That Gore’s gutsy start still came during a loss – 2-1 to the Dodgers – stings in the moment. Unable to mount any kind of sustained offensive attack the last three days, the Nats wound up getting swept by Los Angeles, putting a real damper on the positive momentum they created in winning three of their previous four series.

"We're playing well," manager Davey Martinez said. "We're playing good defense. It's not easy to hold that team over there to just two runs. We've just got to hit."

The Nationals scored a grand total of four runs in these three games, delivering a grand total of only four hits with runners in scoring position the entire series. And because of that, they wasted a really strong outing today by their young lefty.