SEATTLE – Hello from the great Pacific Northwest, where the Nationals make only the fourth visit in club history but their second in as many years. They’ve had very good results here, no matter the era, sweeping a three-game set in 2008, taking two of three in 2014 and then splitting a quick two-game series last August. Now they’re back for three with the Mariners, who, like the Padres, had high expectations entering the season but are currently under .500.

Seattle does have a legit ace on the mound tonight in Luis Castillo, who currently ranks sixth in the American League in ERA (2.89), 10th in WHIP (1.053) and seventh in strikeouts (101). The electric right-hander will pose a real test for a Nationals lineup that bust out for nine runs during Sunday’s win in San Diego but as you already know has been in a real rut for quite a while.

Trevor Williams gets the start, looking to build off possibly his best outing of the season, in which he shut out the Cardinals for six innings and earned his fourth win in the process. Davey Martinez let Williams pitch into the seventh in that game, and he may be tempted to push him again tonight because multiple relievers (most notably Hunter Harvey and Mason Thompson) figure to be unavailable tonight after pitching each of the last two days.

The Nats bullpen will have another new face tonight, though: The club called up Amos Willingham from Triple-A Rochester. The 24-year-old right-hander, a 17th round pick in the 2019 draft out of Georgia Tech, has worked his way up the organizational ladder since, and now gets his first promotion to the big leagues. To clear a roster spot for Willingham, the Nationals optioned Paolo Espino back to Triple-A after only one appearance.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SEATTLE MARINERS
Where: T-Mobile Park
Gametime: 9:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 72 degrees, wind 5 mph out to right field

SAN DIEGO – Jeimer Candelario ranks among the league leaders in doubles, on pace now for 50 of them by season’s end. Ask the Nationals’ No. 3 hitter about his offensive approach, though, and his answer has less to do with how he gets to second base and more to do with what happens once he’s there.

“Getting in scoring position, for me, is really, really important,” he said. “Because I’ve got a chance to score. That’s how you win ballgames. We’ve got Meneses hitting fourth, and he’s a guy that can put the barrel on the ball. I want to be able to score for him and for the team.”

Candelario knows of what he speaks. Everybody loves to see him hit doubles, but nobody loves it more than the guy who bats behind him and has gone above and beyond to drive him in as well as anyone in the majors.

Joey Meneses’ season totals may not turn heads. He’s batting a healthy .293, but slugging a mere .381. One of baseball’s best (and most surprising) power hitters after he debuted at age 30 last August, he has managed only two home runs through the Nats’ first 77 games this season.

Meneses, though, is doing one thing exceptionally well this year: He’s driving in runs at a remarkable rate when given the opportunity.

SAN DIEGO – As he stalked off the mound, MacKenzie Gore looked directly at Juan Soto, who was looking directly back at the Nationals left-hander. Words were spoken. Heads were nodded. Competitive juices flowed.

There was no disrespect from either party, just an acknowledgment that one had bested the other on this afternoon and that there surely will be future meetings between these two ballplayers forever connected via trade.

"I like him," Gore insisted. "He talks some junk, and he's competitive. I've never played against him much, but I like him."

If future encounters between the two produce the same results as today, the Nats will happily take it.

Gore’s high-energy strikeout of Soto – his third of the afternoon against the former D.C. star – may have come in the fifth inning of what wound up an 8-3 Nationals victory thanks to a parade of late-game hits by the visitors. But it was still the signature moment of a day that included a number of exciting moments but none as important in the long-term picture for this franchise.

SAN DIEGO – If ever there was a time for Mason Thompson to rediscover his early season form, this was it.

With Carl Edwards Jr. on the injured list with a sore shoulder, the Nationals desperately needed someone else to step up and prove worthy of joining Kyle Finnegan and Hunter Harvey in the back of their bullpen, and manager Davey Martinez specifically mentioned Thompson as the best candidate to do that.

So far, so good.

Thompson has tossed nine innings since June 4, all of them scoreless. He’s allowed only four singles and two walks in that time while striking out 10. And his best performance of this run might well have come Saturday night, when he recorded five outs across 1 2/3 innings in relief of Josiah Gray, bridging the gap to Finnegan and Harvey during a 2-0 victory over the Padres.

“It feels great,” the right-hander said. “For me, I always knew that I was one step away. Physically, I felt pretty good out there. I felt like maybe just one little mechanical tweak might get me back on track. Now I’ve kind of got back in that groove. For me, I just need to keep going out there and keep doing the same thing.”

SAN DIEGO – It’s another beautiful day in beautiful San Diego, and nothing would make this weekend any more beautiful for the Nationals than a surprising series win over the Padres. They put themselves in such a position thanks to Saturday night’s 2-0 victory, in which they got two early solo homers and then rode Josiah Gray and their top three relievers the rest of the way.

A duplicate performance might be too much to ask for, but a quality start out of MacKenzie Gore is not too much to ask for. The young lefty has shown plenty of promise this season, but he hasn’t shown consistency. Gore has allowed two or fewer runs in eight of his 15 starts, but he has allowed five or more in two of his last three outings. Emotions will be high today as he faces his former team (against whom he lasted only 4 2/3 innings last month in D.C.). He’ll have to channel those emotions into a better performance today.

The Nationals will try to score more than two runs off Seth Lugo, who gets the start for the Padres. The 33-year-old right-hander is no stranger to the Nats, having faced them for years as a member of the Mets bullpen. He’s now starting in San Diego, where he’s allowed two or fewer runs in three of his last four outings.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 70 degrees, wind 12 mph left field to right field

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

SAN DIEGO – How’s this for a formula for success on a lovely Saturday evening at Petco Park: Get two early solo homers from your power-starved lineup, then ask your pitching staff to shut out the Padres’ potent bats the rest of the way?

OK, so that may not have been Davey Martinez’s preferred plan entering the day. Given his team's major league worst minus-44 home run differential entering the day, why would it have been? But as this game proceeded, it became clear this would be the only way the Nationals were going to emerge victorious.

And when they pulled it off, topping the Padres 2-0 behind some of the best pitching they’ve seen all year, it felt as sweet as any of their previous 28 victories this season.

"That," Martinez said, "was a good one."

Jeimer Candelario and Lane Thomas provided the early offense, with Candelario homering in the first and Thomas homering in the third to give their team the lead. Josiah Gray turned in 5 1/3 scoreless, if not exactly efficient, innings to maintain that two-run lead. And then Martinez entrusted the game’s final 11 outs to the three remaining healthy relievers he trusts in high-leverage spots: Mason Thompson, Kyle Finnegan and Hunter Harvey.

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals parted ways with Chad Kuhl today, designating the struggling right-hander for assignment and recalling Paolo Espino from Triple-A Rochester to take his roster spot.

The club had been hoping Kuhl might turn things around as a long man in their bullpen, but the 30-year-old was in a sustained rut, his ERA climbing to 8.45 following a four-run appearance during Friday night’s blowout loss to the Padres.

The move was particularly tough for manager Davey Martinez on a personal level, given how much the Nationals have done to help Kuhl’s wife, Amanda, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. The Kuhls established the “Cancer Isn’t Kuhl” campaign in April in partnership with Washington Nationals Philanthropies and have raised tens of thousands of dollars for breast cancer treatment and research since.

“The toughest part of my job is letting guys go when you start building these relationships with them,” Martinez said. “It’s hard. I know he gave it his all. It just didn’t work out.”

Initially signed to a minor league contract in January, Kuhl came to big league camp this spring and earned a spot in the Opening Day rotation after top prospect Cade Cavalli needed Tommy John surgery. A six-year major league veteran with the Pirates and Rockies, he struggled from the get-go and had a 9.41 ERA in five starts before landing on the 15-day injured list with a foot ailment.

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals’ lineup is in a bad place right now. That group has averaged 3.3 runs, 8.6 hits and a measly 1.2 walks over the last 18 games, only three of which the team has won. So what’s the cure for an anemic offense? Maybe a rookie knuckleballer making his major league debut?

That’s the unusual situation the Nats find themselves in tonight, with the Padres giving the ball to right-hander Matt Waldron and hoping for the best. The 26-year-old (who throws a knuckleball about 50 percent of the time) was just 1-6 with a 7.02 ERA and 1.650 WHIP in 14 games at hitter-friendly Triple-A El Paso, but with Michael Wacha dealing with shoulder trouble, San Diego is giving him a chance to see what he can do in the big leagues for the first time. This feels like a game that is either going to go wonderfully or horribly for the Nationals, nothing in between.

Josiah Gray’s task tonight is keep the Padres lineup in the yard, something Patrick Corbin and the bullpen couldn’t do Friday. After showing significant progress in this department in April and May, Gray has fallen back into his old pattern from last season, serving up six homers in his last four starts, including two in five innings Monday against the Cardinals.

Speaking of the Nationals bullpen, there has been a roster change. Chad Kuhl was designated for assignment following another rough performance Friday night, and Paolo Espino has been recalled from Triple-A Rochester to take over as a long man in a bullpen that needs more reliable arms.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 8:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 67 degrees, wind 11 mph left field to right field

SAN DIEGO – Very little went right for the Nationals on Friday night. Such is the case when you lose a game like they did, 13-3 to the Padres.

The focus of the game story was Patrick Corbin, whose fifth-inning meltdown turned a competitive game into a blowout. But the left-hander was far from the only reason the Nats were shellacked by San Diego.

The lineup once again did very little for most of the night. Through five innings, they managed three hits and failed to score a run. They did finally get to Joe Musgrove in the sixth on a two-out double by Jeimer Candelario and an RBI single by Joey Meneses. And then they scored two more runs in garbage time in the top of the ninth.

But most telling was Musgrove’s final line: seven innings, six hits, one run, zero walks, seven strikeouts, 90 pitches, 67 strikes.

The Nationals once again drew zero walks, a recurring problem that seems to be getting worse by the day. They’ve drawn a grand total of 22 walks over their last 18 games, barely more than one per game. They haven’t drawn more than two walks in a game since June 13 in Houston. They haven’t drawn more than three walks in a game since May 28 in Kansas City.

SAN DIEGO – If there was one thing the Nationals could cling to as evidence of improvement from Patrick Corbin this season, it was the fact he has almost always pitched well enough to give his team a chance.

That’s admittedly a low bar for acceptable pitching performances. But the Nats had no choice but to set the bar low with Corbin, given his immense struggles the last three seasons. If he was at least doing enough to give them a chance to win, that would have to be considered a success, right?

What, then, to make of Corbin’s performance tonight, in which the left-hander most certainly did not give his team a chance during a 13-3 blowout loss to the Padres?

A six-run bottom of the fifth foiled whatever possibility remained for Corbin to leave the mound with the Nationals in a reasonable position. That frame included every manner of calamity, some of them not the left-hander’s fault but plenty of them still falling on his shoulders.

A four-run bottom of the seventh off Chad Kuhl, now the owner of an 8.45 ERA, didn’t help matters. Nor did the two-run homer Thaddeus Ward surrender to Juan Soto (who reached base four times in five plate appearances) in the eighth.

SAN DIEGO – The path that ultimately brought Joe La Sorsa to the visitors’ clubhouse at Petco Park this afternoon was as follows: Montgomery, Ala., to Durham, N.C., to St. Petersburg, Fla., to DFA Purgatory to Rochester, N.Y., to Washington, where the left-hander spent barely more than 24 hours learning his new surroundings before hopping aboard the Nationals’ charter flight for a nine-game road trip that will take the team from San Diego to Seattle to Philadelphia.

“I haven’t really had more than a month any place. That’s pretty much been it,” La Sorsa said with a hint of both exasperation and appreciation. “But I feel very comfortable here. How I’ve been treated here, and everything with the Nationals so far is leaving a very good first impression.”

Plucked off waivers after the Rays designated him for assignment earlier this month, only two games into his big league career, La Sorsa made four relief appearances at Triple-A Rochester before getting the call to come to D.C. and replace the injured Carl Edwards Jr. in the Nats bullpen.

He didn’t appear in either Wednesday or Thursday’s game, but chances are he’ll make his debut sometime this weekend at Petco Park, perhaps thrown into the fire to face Juan Soto in a big spot late in a game.

Davey Martinez has been wanting a left-handed reliever for nearly two months now since the Anthony Banda experiment was aborted. He’s got one now in La Sorsa, an unassuming, mustachioed, 25-year-old rookie from Westchester County, N.Y., and St. John’s University.

SAN DIEGO – A very pleasant evening to you from one of the most pleasant ballparks in America. Maybe the change in locations will be good for the Nationals, who just endured through a dismal, 1-6 homestand and continue to struggle like crazy in D.C, with a 13-27 record. The story has been much better on the road, where they’re actually 15-19. They better hope that trend continues since they now embark on a long, nine-game trip from San Diego to Seattle to Philadelphia.

The Padres were struggling to find their footing when they played at Nationals Park last month, and they’re still kind of stuck in that same spot, entering tonight’s series opener three games under .500, 9 1/2 games back and in fourth place in the National League West. Juan Soto, however, is feeling just fine, thank you very much. Over his last 14 games, the ex-Nat is batting a healthy .353/.453/.588.

It’ll be Patrick Corbin’s job to try to hold Soto and Co. in check tonight. Corbin didn’t face the Padres last month. He’s kind of in a strange place right now where he’s giving up a ton of hits (11 in two of his last three starts) but still keeping the damage to a relative minimum (3-4 runs).

Joe Musgrove gets the start for San Diego. After a brutal start to his season, he’s been much better, going 4-0 with a 2.15 ERA in his last five starts. A Nats lineup that has had all kinds of trouble scoring runs is going to have to figure out the veteran right-hander.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 9:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 67 degrees, wind 11 mph left field to right field

The Nationals made an interesting choice when placing Victor Robles back on the 10-day injured list with back spasms in the lumbar spine.

They could have recalled Alex Call, who was originally optioned down to Triple-A Rochester when Robles was activated Friday, even though it was within 10 days because he would have been replacing an injured player.

But they chose to select the contract of Derek Hill instead.

This is a developmental and evaluation year. The Nats have already seen 64 games of Call, who only hit .209 in the majors. Now it’s time to see what Hill has to offer. Plus, had he not strained his right hamstring in the beginning of March, Hill might have made the Opening Day roster out of spring training instead of Call or Stone Garrett.

“It feels great,” Hill said of being back in a major league clubhouse. “Obviously, this is the dream to play in the big leagues even if you've been here before. I'm just excited to come up here and do whatever I can to help the team.”

Although they lost an off-day, the Nationals were hoping to use this makeup game against the Diamondbacks to create some momentum before heading out on a nine-game road trip.

Yesterday’s win over the Cardinals was only their fourth since the start of June. Putting together back-to-back wins to end this homestand would have made for a happy flight out west.

Davey Martinez applauded his team for playing clean baseball during yesterday’s rainy conditions. But the Nats got sloppy again, committing two errors and allowing four unearned runs in a 5-3 loss to the D-backs in front of 13,251 fans who withstood the misty weather.

"We can't give good teams 28-29 outs. We can't," Martinez said after their 14th loss this month. "I think we had four unearned runs today. Take those away and we're right in the ballgame. So we gotta get better at that, we really do. And if we do that, we're going to be able to compete. So we got to just come back tomorrow and play a good, clean baseball game and see where we're at.”

Weird circumstances surrounded today’s getaway game, which technically was recognized as a one-game series since it was rescheduled from June 8 due to poor air quality in the D.C. area from the Canada wildfires.

Two weeks ago, the Nationals were looking at this date on the calendar and expecting to spend their off-day in sunny San Diego. But because of the postponement of the June 8 finale against the Diamondbacks due to the poor air quality from the Canada wildfires, they’re instead still in cloudy D.C. ready to play an early afternoon makeup game.

That made for an odd schedule this week to end this seven-game homestand before the team embarks on a nine-game road trip, which starts with six consecutive games on the West Coast. They had a late afternoon start on Monday for the Juneteenth federal holiday. They had another 4 p.m. start yesterday as it was still a getaway day for the Cardinals, who had a transatlantic flight to London to play two games against the Cubs. And now they have this early afternoon game against the D-backs, who arrived from Milwaukee last night and will also travel back to the West Coast tonight.

The lost off-day means the Nationals are in the middle of a stretch with games scheduled for 16 straight days. So Davey Martinez has to get creative in finding ways to give guys some rest.

“This would have been a nice day off for us, obviously,” the skipper said during his pregame press conference. “And it would have been in San Diego, which is kind of nice. But you know what, we got to play today. So I know these guys will be ready to play. But finding days off, we played so many days in a row.”

Today’s lineup against the Diamondbacks and left-handed starter Tommy Henry features some regulars getting the day off and some others playing in different positions.

And we’re back. After the Nationals finally got a win here yesterday to end their series against the Cardinals, they’re right back to play today’s makeup game against the Diamondbacks. What should have been the series finale between these two teams two weeks ago was postponed due to the poor air quality from the Canada wildfires to make this now a one-game series before both clubs head to the West Coast tonight.

Jake Irvin will make his ninth major league start this afternoon, seventh here at Nats Park. The rookie bounced back to pitch well on Saturday after having his spot in the rotation skipped the week before, tossing five innings of one-run ball against the Marlins. In his start against the D-backs two weeks ago, he gave up four runs (three earned), five hits and three walks in just four-plus innings.

In a rematch of that June 6 game against Irvin, Tommy Henry will start for the Diamondbacks. The 25-year-old left-hander was tagged for five runs over 4 ⅓ innings, including a grand slam by Stone Garrett in the second inning and a leadoff homer by Lane Thomas in the fifth. In his two starts since against the Phillies and Guardians, Henry gave up seven runs over 10 ⅔ innings for a 5.91 ERA.

While all day yesterday there was rain in the forecast for today, it now seems like we’ll be much drier this afternoon, with the rain supposedly not starting again until this evening.

ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS at WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, MLB.com
Weather: Cloudy, 67 degrees, wind 8 mph in from left field

There have been some very bizarre circumstances and confusing statements surrounding Victor Robles’ back injury.

It all started on May 7 when the 26-year-old first hurt his back while sliding into second base during a game against the Diamondbacks in Arizona. He was placed on the 10-day injured list the following day with what the team then called “back spasms.”

After a while, the injury was suspected to be more serious. It took Robles three weeks to start running and doing agility work. Then a few days later, he started taking full rounds of batting practice.

That was finally a sign he was improving and ready to start working his way back to the team. He started a rehab assignment with Triple-A Rochester on June 9 and reached base in all four games with the Red Wings, going 4-for-7 (.571) with a double, two home runs, five RBIs, a walk and five runs scored in his final two outings.

The time came Friday for Robles to be reinstated from the IL, with Alex Call being optioned down to Rochester. After his first three games back over the weekend, the oddities surrounding Robles were on display Monday and Tuesday.

The situation surrounding this afternoon’s finale between the Nationals and Cardinals was a tricky one.

Rain was in the forecast all day today in the District of Columbia, with only a brief window right around the 4:05 p.m. scheduled start time. The Nationals have a makeup game against the Diamondbacks scheduled for 1 p.m. tomorrow (with more rain in the forecast), with both teams traveling back to the West Coast afterward. And the Cardinals have a transatlantic flight out of D.C. tonight for their two-game weekend series against the Cubs in London.

All of that made for a lot of uncertainty on South Capitol Street.

But as if both teams understood the assignment of playing fast, the Nats and Cards were able to complete this one in a swift 2 hours and 12 minutes, with the home team finally emerging victorious 3-0 in front of a damp 16,191 fans.

This one couldn’t have been scripted better when it came to the weather. A drizzle started in the top of the second inning and had turned into actual rainfall as the game moved into the third.

An odd Tuesday night has turned into a busy Wednesday afternoon here at Nationals Park.

After some misplays in the field, a confrontation with MacKenzie Gore in the dugout and questions about his health, Victor Robles was placed back on the 10-day injured list today with back spasms in the lumbar spine, with the Nationals selecting the contract of Derek Hill from Triple-A Rochester to take his spot on the active roster

It was a rough couple of days in the field since Robles was reinstated from the IL on Friday after he seemingly recovered the same back spasms that had him inactive since May 8. On Monday, he got a late break on a ball over his head that turned into an RBI triple after he crashed into the wall trying to get back to make the catch. Then last night, he let a ball land in front of him while slowly moving to his left, leading to the animated discussion with Gore. Later in the game, he only made it to first base on a line drive off the left field wall and then struggled to go first-to-third on CJ Abrams’ double to right-center.

Davey Martinez mentioned after the game that he was going to have a discussion with Robles to see how he felt.

“We made a move today. We put Victor on the IL,” Martinez said before this afternoon’s finale against the Cardinals. “As I said last night, I was gonna have a conversation with him. I talked to him last night. I had to really stress that he needed to be honest with me. And he said he was a bit sore and that it bothered him running. It doesn't bother him hitting, it bothers him running.

It doesn’t get any easier to say, but it remains true: The Nationals need a win. Ideally, they would win their next two games to end this homestand on a somewhat positive note. They’re 0-5 since returning to D.C. last week and have only won two of their last 15 games.

Trevor Williams gets the start this afternoon in the finale against the Cardinals. The right-hander is 3-4 with a 4.50 ERA and 1.414 WHIP in his first 14 starts. He was roughed up for five runs over 4 ⅓ innings Friday against the Marlins.

Miles Mikolas gets the ball for St. Louis. The 34-year-old right-hander is 4-4 with a 4.36 ERA and 1.362 WHIP over his first 14 starts this season. He too has been beat up by opposing lineups recently, giving up 11 runs over 12 innings for an 8.25 ERA over his last two starts against the Reds and Mets.

The Nationals made a roster move this afternoon, placing Victor Robles back on the 10-day with back spasms in the lumbar spine and selected the contract of Derek Hill from Triple-A Rochester. Hill is immediately in the lineup, batting eighth and playing center field.

Unfortunately, there is rain in the forecast all day in the District. The Cardinals depart D.C. tonight for their two-game series against the Cubs in London this weekend, while the Nats have to bounce back for a makeup game against the Diamondbacks here tomorrow afternoon (which also has rain in the forecast) before they head to the West Coast for the fourth time.