The post-trade-deadline portion of the 2025 Nationals season began tonight with a dud that neither offered much new hope for an August bounceback nor answered one of the great unknown questions now confronting this team: Who’s the closer now?

Interim manager Miguel Cairo chose to keep that information private when asked this afternoon, promising we’ll all find out together the next time the Nats take a lead into the ninth inning. It certainly didn’t happen tonight during a 16-9 thumping at the hands of the Brewers that felt like it was decided by the middle of the third, with the home team scoring five runs in the ninth to make it look a bit closer.

Mitchell Parker was battered around by the same Milwaukee lineup that put a hurting on him earlier this month at American Family Field, the left-hander charged with eight runs on 12 hits in four-plus innings.

That left the remnants of a Nationals bullpen that lost its three most reliable arms in the last 48 hours to cobble together five innings before this game could be completed. The four relievers who pitched tonight collectively gave up eight runs of their own to turn this one into a complete laugher (aside from those in the crowd of 25,194 who booed during the later innings).

The 25 hits allowed by the Nats shattered the previous club record of 22, set on five different occasions over the last two decades.

"That team is a pain-in-the-butt team," Cairo said of the best-in-baseball Brewers. "They make contact. They put the ball in play. They find a way to create runs."

The home clubhouse underwent a lot of change since the Nats last played here over a week ago. The lockers that previously belonged to Kyle Finnegan, Michael Soroka, Amed Rosario, Alex Call, Andrew Chafin and Luis García were either empty or taken over by the six players who were called up from Triple-A Rochester to replace them.

Those who remain tried to go about their business as usual, whether those who wondered if they might be traded Thursday (MacKenzie Gore, Josh Bell) or those who knew they were safe all along (James Wood, CJ Abrams).

"We still have a job to do," Parker said. "We still have to go out there, and we want to win every game. It's still a job. It doesn't change it, any of the outside stuff. You just control what you can control and go out there and try to win."

Parker was solidly safe entering the trade deadline, but the 25-year-old faces perhaps a more pressing question right now: How solid is his place in the Nats’ rotation after another laborious outing?

The lefty entered with a 4.91 ERA, having already given up seven or more runs in two of his last four starts. One of those came July 11 in Milwaukee, when the Brewers plated six of their seven runs in the third inning. They nearly duplicated the feat tonight with a five-spot in the third.

Parker had already served up a solo homer to Blake Perkins (the Nationals’ 2015 second-round pick) in the top of the second. He proceeded to open the top of the third with four consecutive singles, the last of them on a bunt to the right side of the infield. And just when it appeared he might get out of the inning with minimal damage, he gave up back-to-back, two-out doubles to the No. 8 and No. 9 hitters, three more runs scoring to complete the five-run rally.

"The (blowup) innings suck," Parker said. "I wouldn't wish those on anyone. I've been out there for enough of them now to know that they suck."

Needing more length than that out of his starter, Cairo left Parker in the game and got a scoreless top of the fourth out of him. He wasn’t nearly as fortunate in the top of the fifth when Danny Jansen led off with a single and Perkins followed with a two-run homer to left, his second of the night and the season.

That was it for Parker. He departed with eight earned runs on 12 hits (tied for most in club history by any pitcher not named Patrick Corbin) and an ERA that now sits at 5.35. The Nationals don’t have any viable replacements for him at the moment, and they already need to settle on a new fifth starter to replace Soroka sometime next week. But on the heels of a better-than-expected rookie season in 2024, Parker isn’t helping his cause to remain a part of the team’s 2026 rotation plans.

"It's crazy, we were talking about it: It's always one inning that he gives up three or four runs, or five runs," Cairo said. "And after that, he comes back and throws a good inning. We've got to figure out how we're going to fix that. That's what we're here for. We have to figure out how he can keep his composure and keep working inning-by-inning. It won't be easy, but it's going to be a challenge, and we've got to do our job."

Remarkably, Parker was still more effective than two of the relievers Cairo sent to the mound later in the evening. Ryan Loutos entered with a 9.82 ERA in eight appearances earlier this summer. He departed with an 11.88 ERA after allowing five of the 10 batters he faced in the top of the seventh to score tonight (two of them unearned). Andry Lara then served up a two-run homer to Andrew Vaughn in the top of the eighth, raising his ERA in seven big league games to 6.97.

Trailing 16-4 when the bottom of the ninth arrived, the Nationals did put up some fight and scored five runs before making the game's final out. It made no difference in the outcome, but it was perhaps another reminder of what awaits over the season's final two months. It's too late for this young roster to do anything about the team's record. It's not too late to make an impression that could pay dividends down the road.

"There's plenty of opportunity," said rookie right fielder Daylen Lile, who tripled and doubled and drove in two runs. "We've got two months left. All we've got to do is stay behind each other, keep competing and give our best every day, 110 percent. Then we can look ourselves in the mirror and say we gave it our all."