MIAMI – After a nice, clean game last night, the Nationals now have a chance to sweep the Marlins in this quick two-game series before heading up to Pittsburgh. A win would also keep their winning streak against Miami alive.

Like Patrick Corbin on Tuesday, MacKenzie Gore is looking to build off two strong starts. He completed six innings of one-run ball against the Braves in Atlanta and then he held the Yankees to two runs over six innings last week. Gore was excellent against the Marlins in his one other start against them this year, holding them to one run with 10 strikeouts over seven frames.

The Marlins are sending out another rookie right-hander in Valente Bellozo. The 24-year-old is 2-2 with a 4.32 ERA and 1.344 WHIP in eight major league starts since debuting in June. Although he has shown flashes of promise (holding the Royals, Reds and Phillies scoreless over a combined 17 ⅔ innings), he also has struggled at times in giving up five or more earned runs in three of his starts, including in each of his last two.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot park
Gametime: 6:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

NATIONALS
RF Dylan Crews
3B José Tena
DH Andrés Chaparro
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Joey Gallo
SS CJ Abrams
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

MIAMI – Ballplayers usually have an opposing ballpark they enjoy playing in outside of their home stadium. Usually, it’s one within the division where you play multiple times a year. The more you play there, the more comfortable you get and the better numbers you post.

For Keibert Ruiz, that ballpark might just be loanDepot park.

The 26-year-old Nationals catcher just enjoyed another successful night at the plate in Miami. He started Tuesday’s 6-2 win over the Marlins 3-for-3 and a triple shy of the cycle. He finished 3-for-4 with a double, a homer, two runs scored and an RBI.

“Don't try to do too much, look for my pitch and just trusting myself,” Ruiz said after his sixth multi-hit game in Miami, 10th overall against the Marlins. “I've been working on some things in the cage, and just gotta have the plan and bring it to the game.”

“He laid off some pitches and got the ball up a little bit and just smoked some balls,” said manager Davey Martinez. “So it was good to see him have a good day today. It really was. He's been working hard.”

MIAMI – The Nationals needed Monday’s off-day in Miami to get past an ugly weekend back at home.

While still a young team – Sunday’s starting lineup averaged 24.4 years old, younger than each of the lineups posted by Triple-A Rochester and Double-A Harrisburg that day – the Nats were uncharacteristically sloppy in the field on Saturday and Sunday. They were outscored 19-4 and charged with five errors over the last two games against the Cubs.

“We could have used the day off, for sure,” manager Davey Martinez said before tonight’s opener of a two-game set against the Marlins. “But when I went back and I looked at the game yesterday, to me, those were just really mental mistakes. Nothing physical about it. Just, it's September.”

It is September and there is less than a month left in the season. But what the Nationals displayed on the field over the weekend is not who they are and not what they want their young team to become.

Well, after yesterday’s off-day, the Nats cleaned up their act and played good baseball en route to a 6-2 win over the Marlins in front of an announced crowd of 6,854 at loanDepot park. Maybe a day off in the South Florida sun is all they needed.

MIAMI – Cade Cavalli last stepped on a mound on June 21 with High-A Wilmington. It was the third – and last – of his official rehab starts as he continued his recovery from last year’s Tommy John surgery. And it was the most encouraging of his rehab outings to date: He pitched three scoreless, hitless innings.

The initial target date for his major league return was in late June/early July, which was established after his March 2023 surgery. It was approaching and there was legitimate hope he would rejoin the Nationals rotation for the second half of the season.

But that target date and Cavalli’s whole rehab process was shaken up by a subsequent case of the flu and a period in which he experienced “dead arm” when he threw a ball.

“We shot for a date and we tried everything possible to get there. And sometimes the arm just doesn't respond like we wanted it to,” said Cavalli, who once again met the Nats in Miami from the team’s spring training facility in West Palm Beach, where he was rehabbing. “It wasn't anything horrible. Good news is we're still healthy. Just had to slow it down a little bit. It's part of the TJ recovery, as you know. It's 15 to 18 months for a reason, so we're just taking it slow and easy. Making sure that it's right and that it's the right time when I get back, so that we don't have to have another setback, hopefully.”

Setbacks happen in long rehab processes. Cavalli and the Nats just didn’t expect him to have two of them in quick succession when he was sick and then felt like he wasn’t throwing as well as he should have at that point in the rehab.

MIAMI – Hopefully, the Nationals used an off-day on Labor Day to reset and forget about this weekend’s series against the Cubs, in which they were swept in three games at home. Maybe spending the rare holiday off-day in the South Florida sunshine is just what they needed.

And what better way to shake off a home sweep than a division rival that you are perfect against this season? That’s right, after struggling against the Marlins over the past couple of years, the Nats enter this quick two-game set 7-0 against the National League East basement-dwellers.

Patrick Corbin will look to extend his streak of back-to-back impressive outings when he takes the ball tonight. Corbin finally earned that elusive 100th career win by holding the Rockies to one run over six innings on Aug. 22. He followed that up with six shutout innings against the Yankees last week. The lefty was roughed up for seven runs (four earned) in four innings when he started here on April 28, but the Nats offense backed him up and stormed back for a 12-9 win.

Max Meyer will make his 11th start of the season for the Fish. The rookie right-hander is 3-4 with a 5.44 ERA and 1.383 WHIP this season. He has yet to face the Nats in his young career and has given up at least four runs in five of his last six starts.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot park
Gametime: 6:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Indoors

The Nationals are getting their most durable reliever back for the season’s final month.

Derek Law, the workhorse setup man who landed on the injured list two weeks ago with a flexor strain in his right elbow, was activated Monday and will be available for tonight’s series opener in Miami.

Law was confident all along his IL stint would be short, and indeed he was back throwing within a week of being shut down. He threw 20 pitches to live hitters Saturday and pronounced himself ready to return. The Nats acquiesced, activating him without first requiring a minor league rehab stint.

Even with the time missed, Law still leads all National League relievers with 75 2/3 innings pitched. If he returns to his normal work rate, he would become the Nationals’ first reliever to reach 90 innings pitched since Tyler Clippard in 2010. And if he can throw 17 2/3 innings in the season’s final 25 games, he will eclipse Saul Rivera’s club record of 93 relief innings pitched in 2007.

Needing to clear a spot on the active roster for Law, the Nats optioned right-hander Orlando Ribalta to Triple-A Rochester following Sunday’s game. The rookie has struggled in four big league appearances over the last several weeks, allowing five runs and 10 hits in only 3 1/3 innings.

As he stood before a locker with his nameplate, a Nationals jersey with his name on it, inside a big league clubhouse for the first time, Zach Brzykcy was asked what he would’ve thought if someone predicted this outcome for him four years ago when he was a junior at Virginia Tech.

“I would’ve laughed at them,” he said. “Like, no way is this going to happen.”

That Brzykcy did find himself at Nationals Park on Sunday was a remarkable story. Undrafted out of college. Owner of a 5.20 ERA in his first professional season. Sidelined for his entire third pro season following Tommy John surgery. And now a big league reliever, officially promoted from Triple-A Rochester as one of the Nats’ two September call-ups.

“Speechless,” the 25-year-old right-hander said of his reaction to learning the news Saturday from Rochester manager Matt LeCroy. “I’m kind of a quiet guy, so I didn’t even know what to think. I internalized it, and I was just mind blown. I’ve been working for this since I was 4 to be here, and I’m here. It’s just surreal. There’s no words to describe the feeling.”

Brzykcy (pronounced “BRICK-see”) might seem an unlikely addition to the Nationals bullpen, but he earned his way here. He was a casualty of the COVID pandemic, both because his junior season at Virginia Tech ended in mid-March with only nine appearances and because Major League Baseball reduced the 2020 Draft to a mere five rounds.

If managers preach to their teams they can’t give the opposition more than 27 outs, what do they say about giving them 32 outs?

Truth be told, it probably never comes up, because how often does a team make five defensive gaffes in one nine-inning game? At the major league level, nonetheless.

What, then, will Davey Martinez have to say to his players after today’s 14-1 dismantling by the Cubs, one that was defined not by the hits the Nationals gave up or failed to produce themselves but by the five misplays they made in the field during their least aesthetically pleasing game of the season?

"We're going to pound the same message: We've got to catch the baseball," the manager said in one of the more animated postgame sessions of his seven-year tenure here. "It was awful today. I can't say nothing about it. Our defense was not there. I thought (Mitchell Parker) threw the ball really well. We've got to play defense behind him. You can't drive in runs and let in three or four more runs. You've got to catch the baseball. Defense is a big part of the game. I say that all the time. We've got to catch the ball."

Martinez has had to confront these questions before, but usually as it pertains to one or maybe two plays during the course of a game. Five? This was unprecedented, leaving him to answer how he planned to deliver the aforementioned message to his players.

Darren Baker didn’t need an alarm to wake himself up this morning. He didn’t need a GPS to find his way to Nationals Park. And when he entered the clubhouse, he didn’t need to introduce himself to many people.

If ever a rookie felt at home on his first day in the major leagues, this was it.

“I think it does feel comfortable, especially this one,” he said. “I knew how to get here. I didn’t have to put it into my phone or anything. So I felt comfortable just showing up.”

Baker, who along with reliever Zach Brzykcy was promoted from Triple-A Rochester this morning as the Nationals’ two allotted September call-ups with rosters expanding to 28, has been a familiar face around Nationals Park since 2016. And he’s been a familiar face around big league ballparks and clubhouse since 2002.

Such is life when you’re Dusty Baker’s son. With a famous father who spent most of the last two decades managing in San Francisco, Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington and Houston, Darren Baker has been immersed in the baseball world his whole life. Fans first knew about him in the 2002 World Series, when as a 3-year-old Giants batboy he memorably had to be scooped up J.T. Snow before getting run over on a play at the plate.

It’s September, which means there are only four weeks to go in the season and rosters now expand from 26 to 28. For the Nationals, that means the major league debuts of infielder Darren Baker and reliever Zach Brzykcy, who both are being called up from Triple-A Rochester today and joining the active roster. There may not be much playing opportunity for Baker, who plays second base and a little bit of outfield, but Brzykcy (pronounced BRICK-see) should get a good look out of the bullpen the rest of the way.

As for today’s game, the Nats need a win to avoid what would be a very frustrating sweep. Each of the last two games were there for the taking, but they couldn’t avoid one big inning on the mound and then couldn’t deliver one more clutch hit in the ninth inning. They’ll hope to get out to a lead today and then maintain it, perhaps even get the ball to Kyle Finnegan.

Mitchell Parker gets the start, and he had an erratic August. He allowed one or fewer earned runs in six or more innings in three of his starts. But he was torched for nine runs in Philadelphia, and lasted only four innings (despite giving up only two runs) last time out against the Yankees.

The Nationals will be facing left-hander Jordan Wicks, who returns from a long stint on the injured list after having an oblique strain.

To clear space on the 40-man roster for Baker, the Nats transferred Trevor Williams to the 60-day IL. That doesn't change the right-hander's timetime for potentially returning before season's end.

There unquestionably is more young talent on the Nationals roster right now than there has been in years, and that alone is reason for more optimism than this franchise has offered in years.

Talent alone, of course, doesn’t win ballgames. Execution is required, especially in the moments that matter the most. And for some talented young players, that second part takes time to develop. If it ever does.

Today’s 5-3 loss to the Cubs was a game that was there for the taking. Alas, it slipped away from the home team because of a bad ending to a great start by DJ Herz, two more outs made on the bases at a time when the Nats needed baserunners, a particularly bad error by a rookie catcher and another inspiring but ultimately unsuccessful ninth-inning rally.

Put it all together, and you get a second straight narrow loss to Chicago, even if there have been several positive developments the last 24 hours by key young players.

"These things are worked on. It's just, the game speeds up," manager Davey Martinez said. "To me, we did make some mistakes today. But the big thing is, yesterday, one inning we gave it up. Today, one inning we gave it up. They’re going to have to learn how to get through these innings and limit the damage. That’s the big thing. The other things will clean up with time. ... Right now, we’re just making small mistakes. And as they play a little more, and play more and play more, they’ll start learning those mistakes become big mistakes in games like this."

Derek Law appears ready to return from his brief stint on the injured list. Trevor Williams needs some more time but took a big step in his return from the IL today.

Law and Williams each faced live hitters this afternoon prior to the Nationals’ game against the Cubs, the first time each right-hander had done that since going on the 15-day IL with flexor strains in their elbows.

Law, out since Aug. 17, threw 20 pitches over one simulated inning against teammates Ildemaro Vargas and Nasim Nuñez. He said everything felt strong and that he believes his two-week layoff helped give his arm and body a rare chance to rest after a workhorse season. (His 75 2/3 innings pitched lead all major league relievers.)

“Think about it. This is like the first time your body’s getting a full amount of time off,” Law said, citing advice he got from pitching strategist Sean Doolittle. “It’s almost like you’re in spring training again, instead of the grind of the season, where you’re trying to manipulate your body to throw how it should be throwing.

“I was definitely throwing different ways to try to get around the elbow (before going on the IL). So it’s nice to feel free, I guess.”

Friday night was a wild one for the Nationals, who saw Jake Irvin give up seven runs to the Cubs in the top of the second, then Irvin and a parade of relievers give up nothing the rest of the way, then the lineup rally to score three runs in the ninth and put the winning run on base with two outs and Dylan Crews at the plate … only to watch him strike out to end the game. Enough drama for you?

So, what does today’s game have in store? There’s an obvious storyline to watch: DJ Herz facing the Cubs. The rookie left-hander came up through Chicago’s system before he was dealt to the Nats last summer for Jeimer Candelario, and now he gets to face his former team for the first time. Herz has been solid this month, with a 2.22 ERA and 1.192 WHIP, though he’s averaging fewer than five innings per start.

Davey Martinez again has a lineup with Dylan Crews and James Wood at the top and CJ Abrams not near the top. Abrams does move up one spot today, from seventh to sixth, against Cubs right-hander Javier Assad. But clearly his drop down the order Friday night wasn’t simply a matchup situation against a left-hander. This is going to remain this way a while longer until Abrams gets himself back on track.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs CHICAGO CUBS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 4:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 88.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly cloudy, 86 degrees, wind 8 mph out to left field

NATIONALS
RF Dylan Crews
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
DH Andrés Chaparro
3B José Tena
SS CJ Abrams
1B Joey Gallo
C Drew Millas
CF Jacob Young

CJ Abrams has been the Nationals’ primary leadoff hitter since July 7, 2023. When he wasn’t leading off, he was hitting second.

Until last night when manager Davey Martinez moved his All-Star shortstop down to the No. 7 hole. The idea was simple: Take some pressure off the young star so he can break out of this slump that is endangering his overall season.

Since July 7, the one-year anniversary of his promotion to the leadoff spot, Abrams’ season has been going in a downward spiral. Over 41 games entering last night, he slashed .169/.239/.288 with a .526 OPS, five doubles, one triple, four home runs, 16 RBIs, eight walks and 42 strikeouts.

“I was hoping that he worked some things out and got out of the funk,” Martinez said of the lineup change decision. “I wanted to see how he reacted to everything. And it's been going on for a while. I've been wanting to do it for a while. And I thought, let's do it now and see if we can get him back so he finishes the season off strong. … Nothing wrong with it. I told him, ‘Hey, you’re gonna play. You’re our starting shortstop. Just remember one thing: When the game starts after the first inning, you become a hitter. That’s it.’”

Abrams started last night’s game against the Cubs 0-for-3 with two strikeouts while batting seventh.

The Nationals were riding high this week. They saw another one of their top prospects make his major league debut on Monday, then proudly watched him lead a group of other young stars in beating the Yankees twice in three games.

But the Cubs entered this series riding high, too. They found themselves back over .500 and slowly nearing the playoff race again as winners of nine of their last 12 games coming into tonight’s three-game series opener on South Capitol Street.

In the end, only one team could keep the good times rolling with another win, and unfortunately for the home team it was the visitors who came away with a 7-6 victory in front of 28,792 fans on a misty, breezy night at Nationals Park.

Something had to give between the Nats rotation and Cubs offense to start this holiday weekend set.

Nationals starters have combined to post a 1.94 ERA and 1.098 WHIP while striking out more than one batter per inning and never once allowing more than two earned runs over their last nine games. Cubs hitters have combined to score 73 runs over their last seven games, averaging 10.4 runs per game.

It’s been a good week for the Nationals. It’s always nice to take two of three from the Yankees, but it’s especially nice to do so with your top prospect making his major league debut and leading the charge with other cornerstone young players.

Now the Nats welcome the Cubs for three games over this holiday weekend. Chicago is barely holding onto hope of a postseason berth, entering this series 9 ½ games back of the Brewers in the National League Central and five games back of the final NL Wild Card spot.

Jake Irvin looks to become the first Nationals pitcher to reach 10 wins this season when he takes the ball tonight. The right-hander will also try to continue a strong streak by Nats starters, who have combined to post a 1.94 ERA and 1.098 WHIP while striking out more than one batter per inning and never once allowing more than two earned runs over the last nine games.

Shota Imanaga will get the ball from Craig Counsell to oppose Irvin on the hill. The 30-year-old Japanese left-hander is in the running for NL Rookie of the Year with a 10-3 record and 3.08 ERA in 24 starts during an All-Star campaign.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. CHICAGO CUBS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Cloudy, 78 degrees, wind 9 mph in from right-center field

While Dylan Crews and James Wood have commanded the spotlight this week, and rightfully so, the Nationals are focusing on ensuring two of their other young stars have strong finishes to the season. And in different ways.

Davey Martinez’s lineup for tonight’s opener against the Cubs features one major change and a noticeable absence: CJ Abrams was bumped all the way down to the seventh spot in the order and Luis García Jr. on the bench with left-hander Shota Imanaga starting for Chicago.

For the first time this season, Abrams is not batting in one of the top two spots in the lineup. In fact, it’s the first time the young shortstop has started a game this low in the order since July 6, 2023, when he hit eighth against the Reds. The following day, he was moved up to the leadoff spot, where he performed well for a strong second half of last season and hit for much of this year.

“Just want to give him a little breather. I want him to relax a little bit,” Martinez said during his pregame media session. “Just start working better at-bats. As you know, he's been chasing a lot. I just want him to kind of slow down a little bit. So I talked to him before I sent the lineup out. He's good with it. Like I said, when you start getting on base and taking your walks, I want you to get back up there. But we need to slow you down a little bit. He's just swinging a lot.”

Up until July 7, the one-year anniversary of his promotion to the leadoff spot, Abrams was slashing .282/.353/.506 with an .860 OPS, 21 doubles, five triples, 14 home runs, 46 RBIs, 29 walks and 14 stolen bases. The Nats are trying to get him back to doing what he did to earn his first All-Star selection.

The month of August is about to wrap up this weekend, which means it’s been a full month since the trade deadline. Which means enough time has passed to start evaluating how trades worked out.

Of course, it takes years to know if a trade truly was worth it or not. But in the Nationals’ case, it’s worth checking in on the results of Mike Rizzo’s four deadline deals to see how they look at this point.

(Spoiler alert: They look pretty good at this early stage of the process.)

HUNTER HARVEY to ROYALS for CAYDEN WALLACE and CALEB LOMAVITA
Rizzo surprised everyone by making this deal 17 days before the July 30 deadline, but there was a good reason for it. He wanted Kansas City’s “Competitive Balance A” pick in the following night’s Draft. So in addition to Wallace, a promising-but-injured third base prospect, the Nationals also got the No. 39 pick, which they used on Lomavita, an intriguing catcher from Cal.

Wallace, who was dealing with a fractured rib at the time, just finally made his organizational debut Thursday night, delivering an RBI single and drawing a walk for Single-A Wilmington. He’ll look to finish the season strong and then come to spring training next year trying to move up the organizational ladder.

It was undoubtedly the best development of the first half of the Nationals season, a young starting rotation that seemed to break through as one, four potential building blocks all succeeding at the big league level and offering real hope for the near future.

And things turned south for all four of them as the summer progressed. MacKenzie Gore and Jake Irvin no longer looked like All-Stars. Mitchell Parker and DJ Herz looked like rookies with a lot of things that still needed to be ironed out.

So consider the last week-plus a key turning point for that group, which along with veteran Patrick Corbin has turned dominant again.

Over their last nine games, Nationals starters have combined to post a 1.94 ERA and 1.098 WHIP, striking out more than one batter per inning and never once allowing more than two earned runs.

Everyone in the quintet has contributed to the resurgence, but Gore’s part in this play – capped off by Wednesday night’s win over the Yankees – has been the most encouraging.

It's too soon to know if the events of the last 72 hours represent a critical turning point in what the Nationals hope is among the last steps they need to take to close out a long and arduous rebuild and finally start thinking about winning again. They could come back to earth this weekend, or next month or even when they all reconvene next spring.

But for anyone who has endured the pain of the last three years believing there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, these last three nights were for you. It’s not just that the Nationals won a series against the Yankees, capped off by tonight’s 5-2 triumph on South Capitol Street. It’s that they did it with a roster loaded with talented young players, nearly every one of them a potential piece to the long-term puzzle.

For the most part, these weren’t stopgaps performing well against the Bronx Bombers. They were building blocks. And they delivered about as well as anyone could have hoped.

"I think we all understand that we're talented, to be honest with you," left-hander MacKenzie Gore said. "But it's one of those 'You either do it, or you don't' kind of things. This is where we're at. We don't want to be just like: 'Oh, we're going to be good in a couple of years, as a player or a team.' It's our job to be good right now."

Tonight’s victory included the first home run of Dylan Crews’ career (which began Monday). It included two more hits and three more stolen bases by James Wood, fully living up to the hype in his first two months in the majors. It included six standout innings from Gore, who in his last two starts has looked far more like the potential All-Star he was in April and May than the shaky left-hander he had been since.