SAN FRANCISCO – As well as he pitched Monday night to earn his first major league win, Jake Irvin had a moment when it looked like things might fall apart on him.

Irvin opened the top of the fourth by allowing a leadoff single to the Giants’ Thairo Estrada. He then walked Joc Pederson. On the MASN broadcast, analyst Kevin Frandsen speculated Nationals pitching coach Jim Hickey was about to make a mound visit to settle the young right-hander down.

That didn’t happen, but when Irvin threw a curveball outside to J.D. Davis to fall behind in the count 1-0, the mound visit happened. It came not from Hickey or anyone else in the Nats dugout. It came from Keibert Ruiz, who trotted out from his position behind the plate to chat with Irvin, joined by first baseman Dominic Smith and third baseman Jeimer Candelario.

In the dugout, Davey Martinez was thrilled.

“His mound visit was spot-on,” the manager said. “He went out there, talked to Jake, slowed him down a little bit. That’s part of maturity. That’s part of seeing something in Jake that he wanted to confront him with. And it was a perfect moment.”

The Nationals went into the season touting much-improved defensive play, insisting that would help make their pitching staff better. Sixteen games into the 162-game marathon, there appears to be some truth to that line of thinking.

Though they’ve still made their share of mistakes in the field, including 12 errors (tied for most in the majors) and several fly balls lost in the sun, the Nats have played a much crisper brand of baseball. The eye test says that, but so do some actual defensive metrics.

FanGraphs’ all-encompassing defensive rating has the Nationals right in the middle of the pack, ranked 15th out of 30 major league clubs. They rank 17th with minus-1 Defensive Runs Saved. They rank 16th in Defensive Efficiency, converting 69.1 percent of all batted balls into outs.

By those measurements, the Nats are an average defensive team. Which may not sound like much, until you remember they were one of, if not the worst defensive teams in baseball last year.

The biggest improvement has come in the infield. Their worst position is shortstop, with zero DRS (CJ Abrams’ three Opening Day errors didn’t help there). Their best position is third base, with 3 DRS thanks to Jeimer Candelario’s smooth play through the season’s first 16 games.

The Nationals played their worst defensive game since Opening Day on Sunday afternoon. And yet their 7-6 win over the Guardians might not have been possible without a couple of stellar defensive plays in the ninth inning.

First, the bad: The Nats were charged with three errors, two of them coming during a four-run top of the third that turned a 2-0 lead into a 4-2 deficit.

That inning actually began with a fly ball dropping between Lane Thomas and Victor Robles in right-center field, not officially an error but a cheap double for Mike Zunino on a ball that had an expected batting average of just .050. Two batters later, CJ Abrams booted a sharp grounder to short for his first error since the trifecta he committed on Opening Day.

Then with runners on the corners and Cleveland’s Steven Kwan taking off from first, Keibert Ruiz tried to back-pick Miles Straw at third base, only to watch as Jeimer Candelario was late to get to the bag and let the ball carom off his glove and down the line. Straw wound up scoring, with Candelario charged with the error on the play.

“I wasn’t surprised; we had the sign (for that particularly play),” Candelario said. “He was right there on the base. Actually, I was a little far from the base, because we’ve got to wait for the pitch to go to home. What if the hitter hit the ball to third base? So, I’ve got to be able to cover and then go.”

After a week of close calls, narrow losses and virtually zero late-inning offense, the Nationals' fate Sunday afternoon came down to a bang-bang play at the plate and a subsequent four-minute review by league headquarters in New York to determine if they had just scored the tying run or not due to the opposing catcher blocking a runner's path to the plate on a sacrifice fly to shallow center field.

And when the announcement finally came via crew chief Marvin Hudson, the Nats and their fans finally had reason to celebrate. A celebration that only increased when they scored the go-ahead run moments later and then hung on in the ninth for a hard-earned, 7-6 victory over the Guardians.

The winning run scored on Joey Meneses' two-out RBI single in the bottom of the eighth, but the critical moment came just before that, when Stone Garrett was ruled safe at the plate because Cleveland catcher Mike Zunino had blocked his path.

"It was definitely very emotional," Meneses said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "Usually in a game where you have a big call like that go in our favor, it turns the tide and everything turns in our favor as well. I knew if they called him safe, it was going to be something real big for our team."

Thanks to that reversed call, the Nationals snapped a four-game losing streak and avoided a weekend sweep at the hands of the Guardians, who were well on their way to winning yet another tight game in which the home team could not mount a late rally.

ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Nationals pitching staff did an excellent job containing Shohei Ohtani the hitter Monday night. Now we’ll find out how the Nationals lineup fares against Ohtani the pitcher.

It’s the biggest attraction in baseball right now, Ohtani pitching and serving as the Angels DH on the same night. And tonight, we’ll get our first look at that phenomenon when the Japanese right-handed pitcher/left-handed hitter takes the mound before what should be a raucous crowd.

Only one member of the Nats has ever faced Ohtani before: Jeimer Candelario, who went 2-for-9 against him as a member of Tigers. Everyone else will be going in blind but hoping to keep putting the bat on the ball like they’ve done the last four days, both here and in Colorado, and trying to manufacture their way to enough runs to win.

They’ll need another good start from Josiah Gray, who was excellent last time out but suffered a hard-luck 1-0 loss to the Rockies due to a fly ball lost in the sun. The right-hander pitched here last season and fared all right, allowing three runs in 5 1/3 innings and earning the win. He’ll have to keep the ball in the yard to be successful tonight against an Angels lineup that has Anthony Rendon back after the former Nats great was a late scratch Monday with a sore shoulder.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES ANGELS
Where: Angel Stadium
Gametime: 9:38 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 63 degrees, wind 6 mph out to center field

DENVER – The runs would come, the Nationals insisted. As would the power, so long as they continued to have good at-bats. They just needed to start hitting the ball in the air and hitting the ball with authority in the right moments.

And then Alex Call and Jeimer Candelario backed up the sentiment with back-to-back homers to open tonight’s game at Coors Field, setting the tone for the Nats’ best offensive game of the young season, a 10-5 victory over the Rockies.

Call and Candelario set the tone with their early blasts. CJ Abrams provided the real punch later on with a three-hit, two-triple, three-RBI night. Everyone in the Nationals lineup recorded at least one hit by the sixth inning, with the team totaling 19 by night’s end.

"I think it's only a matter of time before we can open up like that," Call said. "I don't know if we're going to get 19 hits every night, but we have a great team in here and we're confident in all our guys. It was great to see everybody swing the bat really well."

Oh, and MacKenzie Gore pitched well again, allowing just two runs over six innings to improve to 2-0 with a 2.38 ERA in the first two starts of his Nats career. The left-hander is the only pitcher on the staff with a win to date.

The Nationals understand they’re not going to hit many home runs this season. That’s just not in the cards with this particular lineup, which features nobody who hit more than 17 homers last year.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t deliver the occasional extra-base hit, some doubles or even a triple. Or, you know, hit the ball in the air every once in a while.

Even that seemingly simple act proved difficult tonight during a 6-2 loss to the Rays. Tampa Bay rode six dominant innings from starter Drew Rasmussen and effective work from their bullpen to cruise to victory on a 70-degree Monday evening in the nation’s capital. The evening would’ve been perfectly pleasant if only the home club was able to give those who attended any valid reason to believe a rally was possible.

Instead, a paid crowd of 10,754 – officially the second-lowest in Nationals history, ahead of only the 9,261 who were announced as attending the first half of a makeup doubleheader against the Diamondbacks last April – was left to watch the lineup flail away at Tampa Bay’s admittedly excellent pitching staff to little avail.

Rasmussen, the Rays’ No. 4 starter despite an 11-7 record and 2.84 ERA last season, cruised through six scoreless innings on a scant 66 pitches. The right-hander allowed two singles, didn’t issue a walk and struck out seven, pulled by manager Kevin Cash only because the organization is being careful with all of its starters early in the season.

Jeimer Candelario was sitting at his locker following Sunday’s game, phone in hand, watching the highlight of one of his defensive gems from the Nationals’ 4-1 win over the Braves, when reporters approached him.

Perhaps caught by surprise, Candelario quickly turned off the phone, as if he didn’t want anyone to know he was watching his own highlight reel. Not that anyone could blame him for wanting to bask in the glow following a spectacular game at third base.

“We knew that going in. We knew he was going to make plays,” said MacKenzie Gore, the pitcher who most directly benefitted from the stellar glove work. “We’re going to play good defense. We did that in the spring, and that’s what we did today. We had double plays. Candy was making plays all around. It was fun to watch.”

After a sloppy Opening Day and a less-than-crisp Game 2 to the season, the Nationals infield was flawless during Sunday’s win. They turned three double plays, including a critical 4-6-3 started by Luis Garcia to escape a sixth-inning jam. They saw Ildemaro Vargas, filling in for CJ Abrams at shortstop for the day, handle his three chances with no problems.

But most of all, they watched Candelario put on a dazzling show throughout the afternoon at third base.

MacKenzie Gore had been waiting for this, longer than he ever wanted. Same for the Nationals. And their fans, as well. From the moment the Nats and Padres consummated one of the biggest trades in baseball history, the notion of Gore making his D.C. debut had been front and center on many people’s minds. Alas, a bout of elbow inflammation delayed that debut until this afternoon.

At last, though, precisely eight months to the day since the trade that sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell to San Diego for a horde of prospects, the premier pitcher in the deal took the mound on South Capitol Street in a regular season game. And then delivered on the promise of what he could be for this franchise for years to come.

With 5 1/3 strong, at times dominant, innings against one of the toughest lineups in the majors, Gore led the Nationals to their first victory of 2023, a 4-1 triumph before an appreciative crowd of 21,440 that finally had reason to cheer for something positive and for someone with the potential to be a cornerstone of this roster rebuild.

"It's been a long time," the lefty said. "I've been looking forward to it. It was a lot of fun."

Gore allowed just one run on three hits. He struck out six. And though he walked four, he still managed to throw 60 percent of his pitches for strikes and show off the dazzling repertoire that has made him a top pitching prospect since the Padres drafted him third overall in 2017.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Opening Day is one week away. At this point, we should have a pretty clear idea who’s making the roster, who’s filling what slot in the starting rotation and how the back end of the bullpen is set up.

We should also have a pretty clear idea what the Opening Day lineup is going to look like. Except, when it comes to the Nationals, we don’t.

Davey Martinez hasn’t even offered up that many clues so far this spring. That’s mostly because he had been without a couple of lineup lynchpins in Joey Meneses and Jemier Candelario, who both spent considerable time away from the team while competing in the World Baseball Classic. But it’s also because the Nats manager doesn’t appear to have entirely decided how he wants to arrange his hitters one through nine yet.

“We have so many different options,” Martinez said Wednesday.

There are perhaps two ways to interpret that. The cynic would suggest the manager wouldn’t have so many different options if he merely had a better lineup filled with established major league hitters. The optimist would offer that the Nationals’ plethora of interchangeable parts is a good sign of versatility and a way to show opposing clubs different looks on a daily basis.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Jeimer Candelario has 606 games of major league experience, zero of which have come in the postseason.

So when the Nationals third baseman stepped into the box at loanDepot Park in Miami one week ago for his first at-bat representing the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, he had to take a moment to soak in the atmosphere and appreciate just how special this was.

“Oh, my gosh,” he said. “It was really fun. … It was packed. I’ve never seen that before. It was really loud. I even asked the umpire, and he told me: ‘I’ve been in the World Series two times. This is more loud.’”

Candelario returned to the Nats on Friday, the Dominicans’ WBC run having come to a surprisingly quick end after they were beaten by Puerto Rico in pool play. The experience, though, will stick with the 29-year-old forever.

Selected as a late replacement for injured Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Candelario found himself as part of a lineup stacked with star power: Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Julio Rodríguez, Wander Franco and more. And he wound up as one of his country’s most productive hitters in the tournament, going 6-for-12 with a double, two walks and a 1.154 OPS that was bested only by Soto among the team’s regulars.

There’s still time for things to change – for the team to sign another player or two, for others to make the club off minor-league deals, for someone to get hurt – but with eight days to go until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, we have a pretty good idea what the Nationals’ payroll is going to look like this season.

What it’s going to look like: A lot less than we’ve been accustomed to seeing from this franchise over the last decade.

Monday’s announcement that Victor Robles had avoided arbitration and agreed to a $2.325 million salary was the final significant piece to the puzzle. At this point, everybody who figures to make the Nats’ Opening Day roster either has a set salary or will be making close to the league minimum of $720,000.

And when you add up the salaries of the projected 26-man roster, plus a couple guys who will probably begin the season on the injured list, you get a grand total of $99,291,667. That’s a dramatic drop-off in salary commitments in the span of only two years.

The 2021 Nationals boasted an Opening Day payroll of $183,122,247, which ranked sixth out of 30 Major League Baseball clubs, according to Cot’s Contracts. That marked the ninth consecutive season they ranked among the top 11 teams in the sport in Opening Day payroll, the highest number coming in 2019 when they ranked fourth with a payroll of $197,203,691.

Though there’s still time for more additions before pitchers and catchers report to West Palm Beach – in a mere five weeks, by the way – the Nationals have now assembled what could be their Opening Day 2023 lineup.

They entered the offseason with three holes to fill: Third base, left field and either first base or designated hitter. In Jeimer Candelario, Corey Dickerson and Dominic Smith, they’re hoping they have adequately addressed those needs while constrained to a very tight budget. Those three free agents have a combined $9.25 million salary for the upcoming season, less than Josh Bell alone made last year.

Will that be enough? We’ll see. The success of the Nationals lineup may have less to do with those players’ performances than the performances of returning regulars Joey Meneses, Keibert Ruiz, CJ Abrams and Luis García.

But this is what Davey Martinez has to work with now. The question is how best to arrange this lineup.

Based on what Martinez did late last season, what he’s said this offseason and what’s now available to him, here’s one possible (probable?) batting order for Opening Day …

During the course of six seasons with the Tigers, Jeimer Candelario established himself as an everyday player, then established himself as a proven hitter, then fell back to earth with a disappointing 2022 campaign. That one down year prompted Detroit to cut ties with him last month, making him a free agent for the first time.

It was something of a humbling experience for the 29-year-old, but it also opened the door for him to come to Washington and attempt to re-establish his credentials as a proven big league hitter.

“It’s going to be a fresh start with the Nationals,” Candelario said Tuesday in a Zoom session with reporters. “I know who I am, and I know what I can do. Right now, this is a big opportunity for me playing every single day at third base. It’s a big opportunity for me. I know what I can do.”

What Candelario can do is lead the league in doubles, which he did in 2021 with 42. He can produce an impressive .297/.369/.503 slash line, which is what he did during the shortened 2020 season. He can play a solid third base, which is what he did in 2022 when he ranked ninth out of 16 qualifying players at his position in defensive runs saved. And he can play first base if needed, which is what he has done 64 times in a career that dates back to 2016 with the Cubs.

The Nats just need him to prove he can do some or all of that again in 2023. They were confident enough in that possibility to give him a guaranteed $5 million contract two weeks ago, one of only two non-minimal major league deals they’ve been willing to hand out so far this offseason.

We don’t really know yet what effect Major League Baseball’s ban on the infield shift will have on hitters next season, but teams are taking the change into consideration as they make roster decisions this winter.

That includes the Nationals, whose first offensive addition of the offseason could be among those who benefit from the lack of a shift.

Jeimer Candelario is coming off a down year in Detroit, one in which his batting average fell 54 points, his on-base percentage fell 79 points and his slugging percentage fell 82 points from the 2021 season, when he hit .271/.351/.443 and led the American League with 42 doubles.

So, why did the Nationals target the 29-year-old corner infielder after the Tigers didn’t tender him a contract last month? In part because they saw peripheral numbers this season that suggested he was especially hurt by the shift.

“We had a list of 9-10 guys that we thought could fit,” manager Davey Martinez said last week at the Winter Meetings. “And we looked at Jeimer and his numbers and the amount of ground balls he did hit to the pull side, and we thought: ‘Hey, it could definitely help him.’ ”

The additions of Jeimer Candelario and Stone Garrett aren’t going to dramatically alter the Nationals’ 2023 lineup. The two players, signed as free agents Tuesday, aren’t big enough bats to turn one of the majors’ least-productive batting orders into one of the sport’s best.

What the signings do provide the Nats, though, are depth and options for manager Davey Martinez, especially in the case of Candelario.

The 29-year-old switch-hitter, non-tendered by the Tigers two weeks ago, is coming off a rough season in which he hit a weak .217 with 19 doubles, 13 homers, 50 RBIs and a .633 OPS. That’s roughly comparable to what the Nationals got from all of their third basemen in 2022: a .237 average, 26 doubles, 12 homers, 64 RBIs and a .613 OPS.

If the Nats get the 2022 version of Candelario, they will have wasted $5 million. If, however, they get anything resembling the 2020-21 versions of him, they’ll get a significant upgrade, not to mention a guy who doesn’t have to play exclusively at third base.

In those two previous seasons, Candelario hit .278 with a .356 on-base percentage, .458 slugging percentage and .814 OPS. On a 162-game basis – you have to do this to account for the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign – he averaged 43 doubles, 19 homers and 77 RBIs. Do you think the Nats would take that? Uh, yeah.

This offseason is already a nice change of pace from the previous two winters. It’s not even December yet and the hot stove is already heating up.

The Nationals made their first major league signings yesterday, announcing a one-year deal with veteran third baseman Jeimer Candelario and a major league deal with outfielder Stone Garrett. Both will compete for starting spots come spring training.

The Tigers non-tendered the 29-year-old, switch-hitting Candelario at the deadline a few weeks ago after a disappointing 2022 season in which he hit only .217 with a .633 OPS and -0.1 WAR by FanGraphs' reckoning.

But Candelario has a longer track record of success, particularly in the 2018, 2020 and 2021 seasons. He tied for the major league lead with 42 doubles and produced 3.9 WAR two seasons ago and hit a career-high 19 home runs to go along with 2.2 WAR in 2018, his first full season in Detroit.

Assuming he reverts back to a former version of himself, Candelario should be a solid pickup for this rebuilding Nats team. He brings seven years of major league experience and will reportedly make a $5 million base salary in 2023, with another $1 million in incentives. He was projected to make $7 million in arbitration before being non-tendered, per MLB Trade Rumors, so he’s coming at a low cost.

The Nationals made their first major league acquisitions of the offseason today, signing free agent Jeimer Candelario to a one-year deal to add an experienced third baseman coming off a rough season to a lineup that needs plenty of added production, then signing power-hitting outfielder Stone Garrett to a major league deal.

Candelario contract guarantees the 29-year-old a $5 million salary, with another $1 million available in incentives, according to the New York Post's Jon Heyman. Garrett, who appeared in 27 games for the Diamondbacks after making his major league debut this summer, gets a league minimum deal but is under the club's control for six years.

A switch-hitter originally signed by the Cubs in 2010 as an amateur free agent, Candelario went to the Tigers in a July 2017 trade deadline deal that sent veterans Alex Avila and Justin Wilson to Chicago. Over the ensuing six seasons, he hit .243 with 124 doubles, 65 homers, 245 RBIs and a .728 OPS.

Candelario peaked during the 2020-21 seasons, posting a combined slash line of .278/.356/.458 for a well-above-average OPS-plus of 125. He tied for the major league lead with 42 doubles to go along with 16 homers in 2021 and finished that season with 3.8 bWAR.

Candelario’s production dropped significantly this season, though. In 124 games, he batted just .217/.272/.361 with 19 doubles, 13 homers and 50 RBIs, his bWAR plummeting to 0.6. Entering his final year of arbitration and due to earn a raise from his $5.8 million salary, the Tigers chose not to tender him a contract at the Nov. 18 deadline, making him a free agent.