It was a frustrating three days for the Nationals in Miami, where they lost three straight to the Marlins by a grand total of four runs. They continue to play close games, but they’re still learning how to consistently win a majority of those games.

They’ll give it another try this weekend with an interleague series against the Tigers, a team that’s also rebuilding and is also performing a little better than expected so far this season. Detroit is 19-22 despite a run differential of minus-48. (For comparison’s sake, the Nats are 18-26 with a run differential of minus-24.)

Like the Nationals, the Tigers don’t hit a lot. They’re last in the American League in runs, hits and on-base percentage, second-to-last in homers, walks, slugging percentage and OPS. Catcher Jake Rogers leads the team with five homers. Shortstop Javier Báez leads the team with 19 RBIs. Veteran left-hander Matthew Boyd, in his second stint with Detroit, is on the mound tonight. He was roughed up by the Mariners in his last start, allowing five runs and failing to get through the second inning.

Jake Irvin makes his fourth career start for the Nats, hoping to do what he’s done through the majority of his first three and just avoid the one bad inning that plagued him last week against the Mets.

Joey Meneses is back from his paternity leave and the Nationals have optioned Jake Alu back to Rochester to make roster room.

MIAMI – The Nationals can’t seem to catch the Marlins for whatever reason. They came into this afternoon needing a victory to avoid a three-game sweep.

Although Trevor Williams pitched a quality start and Jeimer Candelario continued with his hot bat, the Nationals fell again to the Fish by a score of 5-3 in front of an announced crowd of 7,752 at loanDepot Park.

“Tough game," manager Davey Martinez said after the loss. "We tried to make a comeback there, just couldn't finish it. We just didn't hit enough this series. I thought we pitched pretty good. Just the bats got cold on us. So we gotta come back and start swinging the bats, get the ball in the strike zone. We had one ending there where I thought things were gonna snap out of it and then we hit into a double play. So tough series, like you said, and we just gonna come back tomorrow and be ready to play.”

This has become all too familiar for the Nats. They have now lost six of their last seven series against Miami dating back to last year, and have been swept four times.

The Nationals had trouble with Marlins rookie right-hander Eury Pérez, who was making just his second major league start. The 20-year-old is the Marlins’ top-ranked prospect, the No. 7 ranked prospect in all of baseball and the No. 2 ranked right-handed pitching prospect in the sport, per MLB Pipeline. He came in with a fastball that sits at 94-97 mph and peaks at 100, a deceptive upper-80s changeup, an upper-70s curveball and a mid-80s slider.

MIAMI – Aníbal Sánchez’s career was one that was well traveled. Sixteen major league seasons brought him many personal accomplishments, which all led to the ultimate prize in his last true full campaign.

So when the 39-year-old finally made the decision to retire and he sat down to write out his announcement before posting it on his Instagram account, he had a lot to look back on and be proud of.

“I think just yesterday when I post my (announcement) and I noticed everybody that I'm retiring, I saw 17 years pass in two minutes and a half. It was incredible,” Sánchez said Wednesday afternoon in the Nationals dugout at loanDepot Park with media members from both Washington and Miami surrounding him and his family looking on. “Sounds easy, but it's not like that. The most thing that I'm proud of me through my whole career, I past bad moments and I had always the power to come back and keep going in my career.”

Sánchez retired after 16 major league seasons. He spent parts of seven with the Marlins, parts of six with the Tigers, one with the Braves and the last three with the Nationals. He is the owner of a no-hitter, one of the most impressive postseason performances in history and a World Series championship ring.

“I think for me, every single day I come to the field and most of the things that I say to the guys is just working hard,” he said. “It's a sport for everybody else, but it's work and a job for us. So take it serious, work hard and we're going to have time for everything. For having fun, for working out, for preparing our game, for being outside and making it a good show for the fans and also make some wins for the team.”

MIAMI – Cade Cavalli’s face lit up as he entered the Nationals clubhouse at loanDepot park this morning. It was the first time he was going to be around his teammates since they broke camp in West Palm Beach back in March.

If only for a few days, the young right-hander is leaving the monotony of rehabbing his right elbow at the Nats' spring training facility after Tommy John surgery and join the team for a weekend back in D.C.

Cavalli arrived with a suitcase and equipment bag in tow. He quickly changed out of his street clothes and into his Nationals gear. Though he won’t pitch this year, he was a part of the team again.

“I'm gonna fly with the team tonight to D.C. and spend the weekend there with them,” Cavalli said with the joy clearly across his face. “It'd be great to be able to get back to D.C. and hang around the guys for more than one day. So I'm really excited about it. It's gonna be a great change of scenery for me. And then right back to Florida, and we're getting right back after it.”

It’s only two months into a lengthy rehab process, but Cavalli has made significant strides that have him and the organization optimistic about his recovery and return next year.

MIAMI – After dropping the first two games here against the Marlins, the Nationals need a win this afternoon to avoid a sweep.

That’s a position they are all too familiar with from last year. The Nationals lost five of their six series against the Fish in 2022, putting themselves in position to get swept in all five, and actually losing each game of the series three times.

They’ll rely on former Marlins draft pick Trevor Williams to help get the job done. Williams, who was a second-round pick by the Marlins in 2013, brings a 1-1 record, 4.23 ERA and 1.304 WHIP to his ninth start of the season. Having pitched in the National League his entire career to date, and with the Mets the previous two seasons, he has substantial history against Miami, going 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA in nine appearances (four starts).

Eury Pérez gets the call for his second major league start for the home team. He is young, but has a big presence on the mound as the 20-year-old right-hander is listed at 6-foot-8 and 220 pounds. Signed as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2019, he is the Marlins’ top-ranked prospect, the No. 7 ranked prospect in all of baseball and the No. 2 ranked right-handed pitching prospect in the sport, per MLB Pipeline. He had a 2.32 ERA over six starts with Double-A Pensacola before getting the call to the majors, skipping Triple-A ball.

Pérez gave up two runs on four hits and two walks with seven strikeouts over 4 ⅔ innings in his major league debut Friday against the Reds. He has a fastball that sits at 94-97 mph and peaks at 100, a deceptive upper-80s changeup, an upper-70s curveball and a mid-80s slider.

MIAMI – It had been 46 days since Corey Dickerson’s last at-bat in a major league game. He was 0-for-3 with a walk over the Nationals’ first two games of the season before landing on the 10-day injured list with a left calf strain.

So, forgive him for not wasting any time in giving the Nats a big swing when he stepped to the plate for the first time last night, his first game since being activated off the IL on Monday.

Dickerson jumped on the second pitch he saw from Marlins starter Edward Cabrera, a 97 mph sinker right down the middle of the plate and crushed it 432 feet into the right-field upper deck of loanDepot Park. The ball left his bat at 109 mph, the fastest exit velocity by any hitter last night to go along with the furthest distance of any hit ball.

“That was one of those that I finally got my timing the way I wanted working on it down there (on his rehab assignment),” he said after the 4-3 loss. “And yeah, it's one of those you don't forget. But it's also good to have just a hard hit ball just so you can remember. That's good going forward. You can keep that in the back of your mind and know that you did it and you're not having to search for it. You know it's in there. So just get your work in and compete.”

All of his frustrations from the past month and a half let out on his first swing. That poor baseball.

MIAMI – MacKenzie Gore had to grind through his last start on Friday against the Mets. He needed 96 pitches to get through four scoreless innings.

Manager Davey Martinez said before Gore’s start tonight that the young left-hander needed to pound the strike zone to be more efficient with his pitches.

Gore was able to stay in the zone, but that wasn’t always a good thing. Unfortunately, one of those pitches was left too much in the zone and helped stake the Marlins to a 4-3 win over the Nationals in front of an announced crowd of 8,451 at loanDepot Park.

The southpaw started off strong with a 1-2-3 first inning that included a strikeout on 13 pitches and had a 2-0 lead by the time he took the mound in the second.

But he walked Bryan De La Cruz and gave him second base on a wild pitch. Jean Segura then singled to center to put runners on the corners and set up Yuli Gurriel’s sacrifice fly to left field.

MIAMI – There was a noticeable change in the Nationals clubhouse at loanDepot Park this afternoon. Jake Alu had a locker and Joey Meneses didn’t.

At first, it seemed like a curious development. But it turns out to be a joyous roster move.

The Nationals announced that Meneses has been placed on the paternity list with his fiancé, Mitzy Guzman, giving birth to the couple’s first child, Joseph, today. Alu rejoins the Nats to take his spot on the roster.

“Joey went on their (paternity) list today,” manager Davey Martinez said to begin his pregame media session. “His wife's expecting, so we will find out more here hopefully soon. Jake Alu is on his way. So when we get him here, we'll make that move.”

Meneses is eligible to return to the active roster on Saturday against the Tigers.

MIAMI – The Nationals will try to bounce back after last night’s heartbreaking loss to the Marlins when Hunter Harvey surrendered a two-run walk-off home run to Jorge Soler.

There are still two games left to play in this series and the Nats will have another good chance to get a win tonight with MacKenzie Gore on the mound. The young left-hander is 3-2 with a 3.29 ERA and 1.463 WHIP over his first eight starts, while still sporting an impressive 11.2 strikeout-per-nine-innings rate. Gore gutted through four shutout innings Friday against the Mets, a high pitch count of 96 shortening his outing. He’ll try to keep it down tonight in his first career start against the Marlins.

Edward Cabrera gets the start for the Fish. The 25-year-old right-hander is 2-3 with a 5.35 ERA and 1.670 WHIP over his first eight starts. He has struggled to get deep into games this year, only pitching into the sixth once. Cabrera is 1-1 with a 3.94 ERA and 1.063 WHIP in three career starts against the Nats.

The Nationals are planning to platoon left field with Corey Dickerson getting the starts against right-handers and Stone Garrett starting against lefties. With Cabrera on the mound for Miami, Dickerson returns to the lineup for the first time since being reinstated from the injured list on Monday, but as the designated hitter. He only appeared in the first two games of the season, as a pinch-hitter on Opening Day and as the starting left fielder on April 1 before hurting his calf in the eighth inning.

A roster move is expected to come before the game. Jake Alu has a locker in the Nats clubhouse and Joey Meneses doesn’t. Meneses’ wife is pregnant and due soon, so he should land on the paternity list. Ildemaro Vargas is playing left field while Dickerson is the DH.

MIAMI – Last night’s outing probably would have gone very differently for Josiah Gray if it had occurred last year. And for the worse.

Then 24, Gray had to learn on the fly during his first full major league campaign while being entrusted to take the ball every fifth day as part of the Nationals rotation. While there were some positives to take away (he stayed healthy throughout the course of the season while pitching a career-high 148 ⅔ innings over 28 starts), there were some learning curves as well (he led the major leagues with 38 homers and led the National League with 66 walks).

But last night’s start, while nothing too exciting to write home about, showed the important improvement Gray has made so far this season.

If it were a start in 2022, it would have likely been an outing that would have gotten away from Gray and fast. Especially against the Marlins, against whom he went 0-3 with a 5.67 ERA and a 1.560 WHIP in six starts last season.

But now in 2023, he was able to take the good and the bad and turn it into his fourth quality start in his last five outings.

MIAMI – The Nationals have found enough offense to play .500 ball since the first week of the season. Without a lack of a true power source, it was a serious question of how they would generate runs this season.

Since that 1-6 start, they have found that their style of baseball is good enough to win games and score runs in a variety of ways, even without a lot of longballs.

That style was on full display tonight in what appeared to be a 4-2 win over the Marlins. But a walk-off two-run home run by Jorge Soler off Hunter Harvey in the ninth turned it into a 5-4 loss in front of an announced crowd of 8,811 at loanDepot Park.

Pitching against a team for whom his father recorded 51 saves, Harvey entered the ninth trying to protect the Nats' two-run lead that they had built in the previous inning. He recorded a flyout and a strikeout on 10 pitches, needing just one more out for his second career save.

But a double by Garrett Cooper and an RBI single by Luis Arraez made it a one-run game, too close for comfort. Pinch-runner Jon Berti stole second base to put the tying run in scoring position, which was ultimately unnecessary thanks to Soler's 10th homer of the season.

MIAMI – The Nationals are getting closer to activating Chad Kuhl off the 15–day injured list while he continues his recovery from right foot metatarsalgia. Though they still have time to decide, the question is now becoming: How will they adjust the pitching staff when he’s finally ready to return?

Kuhl is eligible to come off the IL now, having been placed back on May 1 but retroactive to April 30. His biggest step in his rehab was throwing 65 pitches over four innings in a simulated game yesterday afternoon and reporting that he felt great today.

“Chad came out of his simulated game feeling good,” manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame session with the media ahead of tonight’s opener against the Marlins. “So we're gonna reevaluate and see what the next step would be for him.”

The right-hander, who was only in the Nats rotation because of Cade Cavalli’s Tommy John surgery coming out of spring training, is 0-2 with a 9.41 ERA and 1.955 WHIP over five starts this season. The Nationals have only won one of the games started by him, and that was largely thanks to the 10 runs they scored while he pitched just 3 ⅔ innings on April 22 in Minnesota.

The Nationals are still evaluating the situation and how they’ll move forward with him and the rotation.

MIAMI – Hello from loanDepot Park, where they make sure to stylize that with a lowercase L. I don’t understand why because even now in its third season since the name change from Marlins Park, I still read it as if it’s a capital I. But I digress …

Josiah Gray will get the ball to start this quick three-game road trip in South Beach. He’s been fantastic through his first eight starts of the season, sporting an improved 3-5 record, 2.96 ERA and 1.336 WHIP. The right-hander will look to continue that trend tonight as he hopes to fare much better against the Fish than he did last year: In six starts against Miami, Gray went 0-3 with a 5.67 ERA and a 1.560 WHIP.

To be fair, the Nationals as a team did not do well against the Marlins last year (or anyone in the National League East for that matter). They finished 4-15 against the Marlins in 2022 and started off by losing 12 of the first 13 matchups.

Former Nationals third-round pick Jesús Luzardo makes his ninth start of the season for the home team. You’ll remember him being included in the 2017 trade to the Athletics for Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson. He was then traded to Miami for Starling Marte in 2021. The left-hander is 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA and 1.412 WHIP on the season, but 0-2 with a 7.58 ERA and 1.895 WHIP in four career starts against the Nats.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot Park
Gametime: 6:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

No, Joey Meneses hasn’t come close to duplicating his remarkable two-month debut for the Nationals late last season. But the 31-year-old hasn’t come close to falling completely flat, either.

It may have taken him a while to find his swing again, but Meneses is now producing at the plate in a manner that suggests his out-of-nowhere August and September of 2022 wasn’t a total mirage. With a four-hit, three-double, four-RBI performance Monday in a 10-3 thumping of the Mets, he raised his batting average to an even .300, his OPS to a respectable .722.

“That’s what I’m looking for,” Meneses said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I’m just getting that confidence that I had last season and I’m helping the team on the offensive side.”

Meneses still isn’t hitting for a ton of power. The man who wowed the baseball world with 13 homers and a .563 slugging percentage in his first 56 major league games has hit only two balls out of the park while slugging .394 in his first 40 games this season.

But there are encouraging signs, and they keep growing in number each day. Over his last 27 games, Meneses is batting .345 with 20 RBIs and an .809 OPS. He is starting to pull the ball in the air with some consistency for the first time this year, from his go-ahead homer 10 days ago in Arizona to two of his run-scoring doubles in Monday’s win.

There is little reason to believe that, come season’s end, the Nationals and Mets will be anywhere near each other in the National League East standings. The rebuilding Nats are supposed to finish at the bottom of the division. The $330 million Mets are supposed to challenge for the division title and play deep into October.

But the season is now 25 percent complete, and the difference between the two clubs is 1 1/2 games. In part because the Nats have now beaten the Mets in four of their seven head-to-head matchups after today’s 10-3 thumping in the finale of a wraparound series on South Capitol Street.

"It was a good series," manager Davey Martinez said. "These guys, they've been playing hard. Let's forget about the first week of the season (when they went 1-6 against the Braves and Rays). We've been playing really well. I want them to take that into consideration. Not just playing one team. But understanding where we're at and what we're doing. It's been fun. They're playing with a lot of energy."

The Nationals have more than held their own against New York, taking two of three last month at Citi Field and now splitting this four-game series. They’ve done so with quality pitching, some improved offensive punch and a whole lot of CJ Abrams.

Abrams was back at it this afternoon, launching a solo homer into the second deck in right field in the sixth inning, his latest blast in a recent power surge by the 22-year-old shortstop. Abrams now has hit four homers this season, three of them against the Mets, two of them in the last two days. He’s suddenly tied with Lane Thomas and Jeimer Candelario for the team lead in homers, and he leads the team with 22 RBIs despite typically batting ninth.

The Nationals entered the season planning to utilize Corey Dickerson as their starting left fielder, certainly against opposing right-handers. More than six weeks later, they’ll finally be able to implement that plan.

Dickerson was activated off the 10-day injured list this afternoon, and though he’s not in the lineup for the team’s series finale against the Mets, he is eligible to play for the first time since straining his left calf on April 1. Utility man Jake Alu was optioned to Triple-A Rochester to clear a spot on the active roster.

Dickerson hurt himself in the season’s second game, his first start after signing a $2.25 million contract with the Nationals over the winter. The veteran outfielder, who turns 34 next week, spent more than a month rehabbing the injury, then departed Friday for a quick rehab assignment in Rochester, where he went 2-for-10 with a double, a walk and four strikeouts over three games.

Owner of a career .287/.331/.504 offensive slash line against right-handed pitching – those numbers have dropped a bit to .280/.326/.418 over the last three seasons – Dickerson will get a chance to be the player the Nats believed they were getting all along when they signed him.

“What I’ve known of him, he’s such a streaky hitter that he can go on a roll where he can hit in the middle of the lineup, or even the top of the lineup,” manager Davey Martinez said. “I’ve seen him work unbelievable at-bats, 10-, 12-pitch at-bats, and then rocket a ball to left field. He also has a little juice. Right now, having his bat against right-handed pitching is very nice.”

It’s been a long, often frustrating weekend at Nationals Park. And yet, there’s still a chance for the home team to emerge with an encouraging end result.

If the Nationals can win today’s finale of their four-game, wraparound series with the Mets, they’ll have continued their trend of playing .500 baseball over an extended stretch. They would split the series and improve to 17-17 since their 1-6 start to the season. Nothing to complain about there, right?

They’re going to need to do more in the clutch today than they did yesterday, when CJ Abrams drove in all four of their runs across 16 innings of play while the rest of the team went 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position. They won’t be facing Max Scherzer today; it’s left-hander David Peterson, who enters with a 1-5 record and 7.68 ERA.

Speaking of 1-5 records, Patrick Corbin starts for the Nats. That record isn’t entirely indicative of how he’s pitched. Over his last five starts, the lefty has a 3.56 ERA, 1.088 WHIP and 21 strikeouts to only three walks. And yet he’s gone 0-3 in those games, with the Nationals winning his two no-decisions.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. NEW YORK METS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 75 degrees, wind 8 mph out to center field

Not that Mason Thompson truly expected to dominate to such a dramatic extent all season, but the Nationals reliever had every reason to believe he was capable of continuing to pitch at a high level all year long after a brilliant April.

In his first 10 appearances of the season, Thompson sported an 0.96 ERA, 0.589 WHIP and a staggering 17-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Then came a three-inning save at Citi Field on April 25, a milestone moment for the Nationals right-hander cause for concern for anyone worried about the health of the 25-year-old’s arm. And sure enough, in six appearances since, Thompson has been roughed up. He’s given up runs in five of those six outings. He’s allowed a whopping 15 batters to reach base in only 3 2/3 innings of work. He’s walked as many batters (four) as he’s struck out.

What happened?

“I’m just not getting the ball where I need to get it right now,” Thompson said Sunday after his latest rough appearance in the Nationals’ 8-2 loss to the Mets. “Just leaving too many pitches over the plate, and they’re taking advantage of it.”

When the ball left Brandon Nimmo’s bat and started rolling toward the second base position, Jake Irvin could’ve been excused for believing he had just escaped a fifth-inning jam and was about to head back to the dugout having completed yet another impressive outing in this most unexpected run of them.

If Luis García fields that routine grounder and starts a 4-6-3 double play, the inning is over and Irvin is done for the day, the proud owner of a sparkling 0.67 ERA through the first three starts of his career, best in Nationals history.

Yes, better than Stephen Strasburg, who had a 1.86 ERA in his first three career starts. Yes, better than Max Scherzer, who had an 0.83 ERA in his first three starts as a National.

That grounder toward second, though, did not turn into a 4-6-3 double play. García was shaded a bit toward the hole and couldn’t get there, so the ball rolled through for an RBI single.

And then the wheels fell off, both for Irvin and for the Nationals, who would ultimately suffer an 8-2 loss to the Mets that could’ve produced a far different outcome with just a little bit of better luck for the home team in the second half of a pseudo Mother’s Day doubleheader.

With only seven innings of baseball to play in the opener of today’s pseudo-doubleheader at Nationals Park, every moment of consequence was magnified just a bit more. Big outs, even early in the game, were a little bit bigger. Big hits, whether early or late, carried a little bit of extra significance.

And CJ Abrams found himself delivering the two biggest hits of all, propelling the Nationals to victory long after the game technically began.

Abrams twice drove in the go-ahead run, producing a two-out RBI single in the fourth, then blasting a leadoff homer in the seventh for the decisive run in a 3-2 win over the Mets.

"When it's time, I can step up," said Abrams, who entered the day batting .343 with an .852 OPS in "high-leverage" situations, according to Baseball-Reference. "I've got confidence in myself and in my team. We're doing good."

In the completion of Saturday night’s controversial suspended game, the Nats got 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball from five members of their bullpen, with Hunter Harvey churning out five big outs in the seventh and eighth, and Kyle Finnegan pitching the ninth to seal the narrow victory in his first appearance since a blown save in Arizona eight days ago.