HOUSTON – Davey Martinez walked into Minute Maid Park this afternoon and couldn’t help but think about the last time he was here.

“Pretty cool,” the Nationals manager said. “It was four years ago, but it brings out good memories. I was sitting around with some of the guys who were here in ’19. There’s not many of us left. But we were reminiscing a little bit. It was fun.”

Indeed, there aren’t too many members of the Nats’ current roster or staff that were part of the 2019 World Series. Martinez is one of the last remaining, uniformed links to the franchise’s lone World Series title, so he found himself today sharing stories of that glorious late October week with young players who weren’t even in the major leagues at that point, let alone a part of this organization.

The next three nights, with the Nationals facing the Astros here for the first time in four seasons, offer everyone a chance both to reminisce about better days and to think about what it will take for this franchise to return to that kind of prominence.

There’s only one player on the active, 26-man roster who appeared in the 2019 World Series. And by sheer coincidence he takes the mound for tonight’s series opener.

HOUSTON – Hello from Minute Maid Park, where tonight the Nationals will take the field for the first time since Oct. 30, 2019. You probably remember some details about that night.

The guy who won that game is the only player on the Nats’ current active roster, and would you believe he starts tonight’s series opener against the Astros? Patrick Corbin gets the nod on normal rest, with the team using Monday’s day off to skip over Jake Irvin’s turn in the rotation and give the rookie a chance to work on some things. Corbin won’t be pitching in relief tonight, of course. He’ll be trying to hold in check a tough Houston lineup, albeit one that doesn’t bear much resemblance to the one from 2019, either.

The Nationals lineup, which broke out for six runs Sunday in Atlanta, has a familiar look against Astros right-hander Hunter Brown. Davey Martinez can only hope Joey Meneses, Jeimer Candelario and Dominic Smith pick up where they left off at Truist Park.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at HOUSTON ASTROS
Where: Minute Maid Park
Gametime: 8:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

NATIONALS
RF Lane Thomas
2B Luis García
DH Joey Meneses
3B Jeimer Candelario
LF Corey Dickerson
C Keibert Ruiz
1B Dominic Smith
SS CJ Abrams
CF Alex Call

Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

It’s hard not to as the Nationals make their first visit to Houston since winning the 2019 World Series in Game 7 at Minute Maid Park. And I don’t really like reminiscing too much about something that happened four years ago.

There have been three different World Series champions since the Nats won it all. And in that time, the Nats have had three straight last-place finishes in the National League East.

The team looks completely different now, too. There is only one player from that 2019 roster currently on the Nats’ active 26-man roster: Patrick Corbin, who coincidentally was credited as the winning pitcher in Game 7 after three shutout innings of relief and will start tonight’s series opener. There are only three other players from that team on this 40-man roster: Stephen Strasburg, Tanner Rainey and Victor Robles, all recovering from injuries.

There are a couple of guys still with the organization. Sean Doolittle and Matt Adams are on minor league deals, trying to work their way back to the majors. But a lot of the big-name players are now gone.

It was only a matter of time before James Wood made a big splash at Double-A Harrisburg.

After getting the promotion for High-A Wilmington on May 28, he only collected one hit over his first three Double-A games.

He’s been on a tear ever since.

Since the start of June, the Nats’ top prospect is 11-for-37 with four doubles, three home runs, eight RBIs and a walk with the Senators.

This past weekend proved to be Wood’s biggest yet.

ATLANTA – It was raining heavily here this morning. There was a point when the forecast didn’t look conducive to playing baseball.

But the rain cleared out, the tarp was removed from the infield and this afternoon’s finale between the Nationals and Braves went off without a hitch.

And as the clouds cleared out for sunny skies, so did the clouds that have been hovering over this Nationals team this last week.

The Nats snapped their six-game losing streak, and in the process also snapped the Braves’ seven-game winning streak, with a 6-2 victory in front of 36,744 fans at Truist Park.

Just as I wrote this morning that the Nats were in search of more power, they found it.

ATLANTA – The Nationals are going to use these couple of off-days over this week to give one of their young starters some extra rest.

Jake Irvin will have his next start skipped in the rotation, with the Nats listing Patrick Corbin, Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore as the probable starters for the upcoming three-game series against the Astros.

Thursday’s postponement due to poor air quality in D.C. and tomorrow’s scheduled off-day as the team travels to Houston mean the Nats have two off-days over a five-day span.

“We have an opportunity to do some different things, and to give him a break was nice,” manager Davey Martinez said of the decision to skip Irvin before today’s series finale against the Braves. “We're gonna eventually have to do that with all of our young guys here soon. We had these days off coming up, so we thought we'd give Jake a breather. But you know, he can be available out of the bullpen as well. We just want to not have him start and then he'll get back in the rotation next time around.”

Irvin, the Nats’ No. 19 prospect per MLB Pipeline, impressed over his first two major league starts. He allowed just one run in 4 ⅓ innings in his debut against the Cubs and then shut out the Giants over 6 ⅓ innings in his second outing.

ATLANTA – The Nationals need a stopper and they need one badly. Or do they need more offense and need that badly?

They could use both as they try to snap this six-game losing streak and escape Atlanta with at least one win today.

Trevor Williams will attempt to be the stopper. The right-hander is 2-4 with a 4.15 ERA and 1.335 WHIP in his first 12 starts. He has completed five innings in all but two of his outings, with one being cut short due the rain-prompted suspension of the Nats' May 13 game against the Mets.

This is his first time facing the Braves in 2023, but he is 1-1 with a 3.28 ERA and 1.150 WHIP in eight career appearances (four starts) against Atlanta.

The offense has a tough task in trying to get going against Bryce Elder. The 24-year-old right-hander leads the National League with a 2.26 ERA, while posting a 4-0 record and 1.144 WHIP over his first 12 starts.

ATLANTA – However close the first two games between the Nationals and Braves this weekend were, one thing has been abundantly clear: One team has power in full supply and one is seriously lacking.

You can probably guess which team is which.

The Nationals were doomed by this stark difference yesterday. The Braves hit two home runs, both two-run shots. The Nationals hit one, a leadoff homer by Stone Garrett in the top of the ninth in what ended up being a 6-4 loss.

Digging a little deeper shows the power difference is more than just home runs.

The Braves barreled four balls from Nationals pitching: Two doubles and the two homers. The Nationals barreled just one: Luis García’s deep fly ball in the first inning that was a sacrifice fly instead of a two-run homer.

ATLANTA – A major difference between the Nationals and Braves is power at the plate. The Braves have it. The Nationals do not.

The Nats have hit the second-fewest homers in the majors and fewest in the National League. Meanwhile, the Braves have hit the third-most in the majors and second-most in the NL.

That difference was pretty glaring in today’s 6-4 loss in front of 40,799 at Truist Park.

When the offense doesn’t have a lot of pop, you need pitching that also keeps the ball in the field of play and doesn’t give up a lot of free baserunners so that those one-run shots don’t turn into multiple runs.

MacKenzie Gore has done a much better job of limiting walks recently. After giving up multiple in nine of his first 10 starts, he had given up just one over his last two starts coming into today’s rematch with the Braves.

ATLANTA – After last night’s tough 3-2 loss in the series opener, the Nationals are making some significant changes to their lineup for this afternoon’s second game against the Braves.

Against rookie left-hander Jared Shuster, who the Nats knocked around for four runs on six hits and five walks in their first meeting on April 2, lefty bats Dominic Smith and CJ Abrams and switching-hitter Keibert Ruiz are all out of today’s starting lineup.

In their places: Michael Chavis is starting at first base and batting seventh, Ildemaro Vargas is playing shortstop and batting eighth and Riley Adams is catching and batting ninth. And as has been typical against a lefty starter, Stone Garrett is starting in left field instead of Corey Dickerson, batting fifth.

“It was just the plan coming into the series,” manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame meeting with the media. “I'm trying to keep everybody involved. Get some guys days off. We're getting to a point where it's starting to warm out there. It's tough to play 162 games, so I want to keep these guys fresh and get these other guys in and get them some at-bats. So we'll see how they do. Riley has been playing well. I wanted to get Chavy in there and Vargas has been playing well as well. And Garrett, he platoons with Corey in the outfield, so he gets a chance to play today.”

It’s Smith’s first day off since April 27 against the Mets in New York, when Joey Meneses started at first and Garrett was the designated hitter. The veteran first baseman has struggled to the tune of a .265/.347/.301 slash line, .648 OPS, five doubles, one home run and 14 RBIs in 59 games. And while he has played strong defense for the majority of the season, he was unable to make a run-saving play on a chopper last night, which allowed the tying run to score in the eighth inning.

ATLANTA – Sixty-two games down, 100 to go.

The Nationals will try to bounce back from last night’s tough loss and end a couple of streaks today: Their own five-game losing streak and the Braves’ six-game winning streak.

For the third time in his young career, MacKenzie Gore will face the Braves, the team he made both his major league and Nationals debuts against. He delivered the Nats their first win of the season back on April 2, striking out six over 5 ⅓ innings of one-run ball in a 4-1 victory.

Gore has done a good job of getting deep into games and limiting walks in his last two starts. Against the Royals and Phillies, the young lefty completed 13 innings with 17 strikeouts to just one walk. He’ll aim to continue that trend against a tough Braves lineup.

In a repeat of that April 2 pitching matchup, lefty Jared Shuster will make his seventh major league start for the Braves. The 24-year-old is 2-2 with a 4.99 ERA and 1.337 WHIP to start the season. He gave up four runs on six hits and five walks while taking the loss his first time against the Nats.

ATLANTA – The Nationals have worked diligently with Josiah Gray on his mechanics since the end of last year.

In 2022, the right-hander’s first full season in the bigs, he gave up a major league-worst 38 home runs and a National League-worst 66 walks en route to a 5.02 ERA and 1.359 WHIP.

The team wanted their young starter to finish his pitches straighter toward the plate instead of flying open toward the first base line. And for the most part this year, he’s much improved.

After his rough season debut against the Braves, in which he gave up five runs on three home runs, Gray went through an eight-start stretch of giving up just 11 earned runs and two homers over 47 ⅔ innings for a 2.08 ERA and struck out more than double the amount of batters he walked.

But over his last six starts, including the five innings he completed in last night’s 3-2 loss to the Braves, some old habits are starting to creep back. Gray walked four Friday night, the fifth time in his last six starts he’s surrendered three or more free passes. He now has a 1.470 WHIP over that stretch.

ATLANTA – The Nats are in the middle of a brutal stretch. Tonight began the fifth of six straight series in which they are facing division leaders, defending pennant winners and reigning world champions.

No one is going to feel sorry for them. But this 3-2 loss to the Braves in front of 40,297 at Truist Park felt pretty painful, with a one-run lead turning into a one-run deficit in the bottom of the eighth.

“Tough loss," manager Davey Martinez said after the game. "We played well 'til the bottom of the eighth. As I always say, when you give good teams extra outs, they're gonna get you. And that's what we did in the bottom of the eighth.”

With the Nationals six outs away from a series-opening victory, Kyle Finnegan ran into some tough luck in the bottom of the eighth as the Braves scored two runs (one earned) to take the lead and extend Atlanta’s streak of five straight come-from-behind victories and six straight wins overall.

Finnegan took a liner from Sean Murphy off the lower half of his body for a leadoff infield single. Then another single by Eddie Rosario just got past Luis García and the batter advanced to second on an error by Lane Thomas in right field to put two in scoring position.

ATLANTA – The Nationals have escaped the haze that engulfed the Washington, D.C. area and forced a postponement of yesterday’s series finale against the Diamondbacks. Now they find themselves outside downtown Atlanta to take on the Braves for three games, their first against the division leaders since the opening series of the season.

The Nationals enter this weekend having lost seven out of their last nine. For what it’s worth, the Braves also struggled to end May, going through a stretch of losing seven of 11, before turning it around to win six of their last seven, including a three-game sweep of the Mets here this week.

With yesterday’s postponement, Davey Martinez gave his starters an extra day of rest, with Josiah Gray now starting tonight’s opener. The right-hander’s 3.09 ERA is the lowest in the rotation, but he has struggled as of late. He did not complete six innings in any of his last three starts, giving up seven runs over 14 ⅓ innings (4.40 ERA) in the process.

Gray’s worst outing of the year came against these very Braves in his first start, in the Nats’ second game of the season. He gave up five runs and three home runs – including one each to the first two batters he faced – over seven innings while taking a 7-1 loss. In his career, he is 1-2 with a 3.33 ERA and 1.037 WHIP over five starts against Atlanta. He has, though, pitched well here at Truist Park, going 1-0 and allowing just one earned run in 10 innings over two starts.

The Braves are sending 20-year-old right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver to the mound for his first major league start. The Braves' No. 4 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, Smith-Shawver impressed in his big league debut, pitching 2 ⅓ scoreless innings with three strikeouts Sunday against the Diamondbacks. He had a 1.09 ERA, 0.939 WHIP, 12.3 strikeout-per-nine rate and 3.75 strikeout-per-walk rate over seven starts between High-A and Triple-A to begin this season on the Braves farm.

ATLANTA – Before their finale against the Diamondbacks was postponed due to poor air quality yesterday, the Nationals announced they were sending Victor Robles to Triple-A Rochester on a rehab assignment.

Robles has been sidelined since he hurt his back by sliding into second base in Arizona on May 6. Up until recently, he had been very limited in what rehab work he could actually do. But has he started to improve, he was able to do more and more physical activity and is now ready to play in games.

“Victor will play tonight in Rochester and we'll see how he gets through it,” manager Davey Martinez said during his media session before tonight’s series opener against the Braves. “He'll probably get maybe four, maybe five innings. So we'll see how he gets through it.”

Robles is hitting third and playing center field for the Red Wings tonight in Worcester.

Needing a bounceback season, the 26-year-old was off to a solid start to the season before his injury. In 31 games, he was hitting .292 with a .388 on-base percentage and .748 OPS. He scored 13 runs, hit four doubles, one triple and eight RBIs and stole a team-high eight bases while walking at the highest rate of his career (9.4 percent).

Victor Robles is ready to start playing in games again. Another week or so and he should be ready to play for the Nationals again.

Robles will join Triple-A Rochester on a rehab assignment Friday, the final step in the outfielder’s recovery from a back injury that has sidelined him more than a month.

“Hopefully everything goes well and we get him back here soon,” manager Davey Martinez said.

Robles departed Thursday and is expected to play four innings for Rochester, which is on the road at Worcester, on Friday. Given the amount of time he has missed, he will likely build up his workload over several days and could spend a full week on the rehab assignment before the Nats decide to activate him off the 10-day IL.

“He’s got to go out there and play, start getting some at-bats,” Martinez said. “I want to see him do everything that he normally does. If he gets an opportunity to steal some bases, take the extra bases, play good defense, all that stuff.”

With smoke from Canadian wild fires getting worse in the region, Major League Baseball postponed today’s scheduled series finale between the Nationals and Diamondbacks, citing the health risks current conditions pose for players, fans and stadium workers alike.

The teams were able to play Tuesday and Wednesday night as planned under a hazy sky that wasn’t nearly as bad as it was in Philadelphia and New York, where games were postponed Wednesday. They were supposed to finish the three-game series at 1:05 p.m., but the air quality is considerably worse today, with Washington officially categorized as “Code Purple.”

The decision whether to play or not was made by MLB, with consultation with both teams and the MLB Players Association, and was announced about 90 minutes before first pitch.

“This postponement was determined following conversations throughout the day with medical and weather experts and the two impacted clubs regarding clearly hazardous air quality conditions in Washington, D.C.,” the league said in a press release.

This was to be the last time the Nationals and Diamondbacks faced each other this season, but Arizona will now be forced to come back to Washington for a June 22 makeup game at 1:05 p.m., a common off-day for both teams. The Nats begin a West Coast trip to San Diego and Seattle the following day. The D-backs will make a side trip to D.C. in between series at Milwaukee and San Francisco.

Perhaps if other things had progressed in a different manner the rest of the night, Lane Thomas’ throw in the top of the fifth Wednesday would’ve carried more weight. In the end, the play had no bearing on the outcome of the Nationals’ game, a 6-2 loss to the Diamondbacks.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t feel significant in the moment, though. Or that it wasn’t noticed by everyone at Nationals Park.

When Corbin Carroll lined a hit to right to open the top of the fifth, Arizona looked like it was poised to start another rally against Patrick Corbin and perhaps cash in this time after being shut out since taking a quick 3-0 lead in the first. And when Thomas couldn’t cleanly field the ball on a hop, Carroll looked like he was destined for a leadoff double.

Until Thomas retrieved the ball and fired it toward second base, where CJ Abrams made a nice scoop and applied the tag to Carroll in time for the out.

It was a big play in what was a 3-2 game at that moment. And it was only the latest by Thomas, who has really come to his own in right field this season.

They got a quality start out of Patrick Corbin despite another roughshod first inning that set an ominous tone for the evening. They kept it close for most of the proceedings, remaining within one clutch hit of tying the game or taking the lead. Until the bullpen failed to keep it close late in its latest subpar showing.

And so the Nationals found themselves on the wrong end of a 6-2 loss to the Diamondbacks, done in by one of their weaker offensive performances in a while, the three-run hole Corbin dug them into from the outset and the three tack-on runs Carl Edwards Jr. and Jordan Weems surrendered late.

Make it seven losses in nine games for a Nats club that was feeling pretty good about its ability to compete and play .500 ball for more than a month not that long ago but has since regressed while facing stiffer competition.

They aren’t facing the Tigers and Royals anymore. The Nationals have now dropped three straight series to superior opponents, first the Dodgers, then the Phillies and now the Diamondbacks, who will be looking for a three-game sweep Thursday afternoon.

Then comes a road trip to Atlanta and Houston that could threaten to derail much of the forward momentum the Nats had built through most of May. They're a season-worst 11 games under .500, hoping not to keep plummeting. 

The Nationals, for the second straight day, designated a struggling reliever for assignment, with Erasmo Ramírez suffering that fate this afternoon in the wake of a particularly ragged appearance during Tuesday’s loss to the Diamondbacks, and Cory Abbott recalled from Triple-A Rochester to take his spot.

Ramírez joined fellow right-hander Andrés Machado, who was designated for assignment Tuesday, in getting dropped from the active roster. Machado officially cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Rochester today. Because he had already been through that process over the winter, he had the option to declare himself a free agent but instead chose to remain in the organization.

Ramírez will face a similar decision in the next few days. The 33-year-old got the news after retiring only two of the six batters he faced in the top of the sixth Tuesday night, having hit the first batter he faced on the first pitch he threw, nearly hitting the next batter on his next pitch and then committing a balk when he turned to make a pickoff attempt to first base but never threw the ball because nobody was covering.

That outing left Ramírez with an unsightly 6.33 ERA and 1.556 WHIP in 23 games this season, a dramatic drop in effectiveness from the previous year. In 60 games in 2022, Ramírez produced a 2.92 ERA and 1.077 WHIP, earning the team’s Pitcher of the Year Award for his performance.

“It’s tough. Erasmo meant a lot to this team, and to me,” manager Davey Martinez said. “This guy worked really hard to get back to the big leagues and had an unbelievable year last year. This year, he just couldn’t find himself.”