LOS ANGELES – It’s easy to overlook now, because of the ultimately lopsided nature of Sunday’s game, but the Nationals and Dodgers were actually engaged in a tight, closely played contest into the seventh inning.

Even after Jose A. Ferrer served up Max Muncy’s grand slam in the bottom of the sixth, the Nats only trailed 4-3, with plenty of opportunity left to make up that slim deficit. And when Jacob Young drew a one-out walk in the top of the seventh, with the top of the lineup now due to bat, they looked like they might be in business.

What transpired next was unfortunately the latest in a growing list of baserunning gaffes by the Nationals. Young took off for second, hoping to steal the base and put himself in scoring position for CJ Abrams. And he beat Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing’s throw and shortstop Mookie Betts’ tag.

Except for one key point: Young overslid the bag, and because Betts held the tag throughout the entire process, Young was called out, killing the Nats’ positive momentum at a crucial point in the game.

The speedy center fielder (who scraped up his right hand but was able to finish the game) defended his decision to run against Los Angeles lefty Anthony Banda in that spot but conceded his mistake at the end of the play.

LOS ANGELES – Michael Soroka was cruising, - dominating, if we’re being honest - a Dodgers lineup that rarely finds itself in such a position. And thanks to Nathaniel Lowe’s latest clutch blast, the Nationals were in control at Chavez Ravine, looking to pull off what could only be considered an improbable weekend series victory over the defending World Series champs.

The sixth inning, though, has been Soroka’s personal nightmare most of the season. And today, it became not only Soroka’s nightmare, but Jose A. Ferrer’s as well. Only to be upstaged minutes later by the absolute disaster Ryan Loutos and Cole Henry made of the seventh inning.

Thus did the Nats somehow turn a three-run lead into an eight-run deficit in the span of about 25 minutes at Dodger Stadium, suffering one of their worst meltdowns of the year en route to a 13-7 loss that doesn’t begin to hint at how winnable this game actually was at one point.

Max Muncy’s grand slam off Ferrer flipped the affair from Washington's to Los Angeles' favor. Shohei Ohtani’s three-run triple off Loutos added to the misery. And Muncy’s three-run homer off Henry – giving the veteran infielder seven RBIs in two innings – felt downright embarrassing to the Nationals, who were in prime position to win not only this series but the season matchup with the Dodgers, only to go down in flames in the finale.

"I don't think you want to look at the score. A loss is a loss, whether you lose by one or you lose by six," said center fielder Jacob Young, whose team trailed by 10 before scoring four runs in the top of the ninth off position player Kiké Hernández. "I thought we actually played a pretty good game, and they had two big swings that blew it open and caused it to be uglier than it was. It was a chance to win a series, and that's what we wanted to do when we came here. We just didn't get it done."

LOS ANGELES – Inside a joyous Nationals clubhouse late Saturday night, Nathaniel Lowe was asked about the significance of the 100th home run of his career.

“It’s super cool,” the veteran first baseman said. “I never would have thought that would have been an option.”

For a 13th-round draft pick who debuted with the Rays in 2019, was dealt to the Rangers in 2021 and then to Nats last winter, such career milestones never crossed Lowe’s mind. He’s made the most of his time in the majors, though, from the Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards in 2022 and 2023, respectively, to the World Series trophy he hoisted in 2023 with Texas.

The 29-year-old is now trying to bring those experiences to a very inexperienced Nationals clubhouse. His words and actions carry weight with teammates.

“He’s a guy in our locker room that we all kind of lean on, we all listen to,” left fielder James Wood said.

LOS ANGELES – Guess who has played some pretty good baseball here the last two nights? Yeah, that would be your Washington Nationals, who narrowly lost Friday night’s series opener and then bounced back by blasting five homers Saturday night to convincingly beat the Dodgers. And just like that, they have an opportunity today to both win this series and win the season series against the defending World Series champs. Not too shabby for a team that just lost 11 in a row, huh?

The challenge today is a unique one, because the Nats will be facing Shohei Ohtani as both a hitter and as a pitcher. They’ve done a nice job against him as a hitter so far (1-for-7, two walks, three strikeouts). It’ll be up to Michael Soroka and the bullpen to try to keep that trend going this afternoon.

How will the Nationals’ lineup fare against Ohtani the pitcher? He’s only faced the franchise once before (April 2023 in Anaheim) and he dominated (seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball, despite five walks and a hit batter). Given the fact this is only his second start back from elbow surgery – and he couldn’t go on a minor league rehab assignment because he’s still on the active roster as a hitter – the Japanese phenom is expected to throw only two innings, maybe three if he’s really cruising. So really this game may hinge more on the Nats’ ability to do some damage against the Dodgers’ bullpen than their opener.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 78 degrees, wind 4 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
DH Josh Bell
3B Brady House
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

LOS ANGELES – As bad as they looked over the last week against two of baseball’s least imposing opponents, the Nationals have had a weird knack for playing their best against the best. It sounds counterintuitive, but these guys have looked significantly better this year against the Dodgers than they have against the Marlins or Rockies.

Having already secured one series win vs. the defending World Series champs at home in April, the Nats now improbably have a chance to win another one against them Sunday afternoon after blasting five homers tonight in a 7-3 victory before a stunned, sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium.

James Wood, Luis García Jr., CJ Abrams and Nathaniel Lowe all homered on a cool L.A. summer night, with Lowe going deep twice for the 100th and 101st home runs of his career in one of the Nationals’ best offensive performances in some time, especially considering the level of competition.

"It's just fun," Wood said. "It's always good when the dugout is jumping like that. The more, the merrier."

A raucous crowd of 54,154 – largest in the majors so far this season – couldn’t process what it was watching. Chances are, fans who stayed up late back in D.C. were likewise having a hard time comprehending this explosion from a lineup that had been averaging a mere 2.8 runs per game this month.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals’ recent offensive struggles haven’t fallen on the shoulders of CJ Abrams. If anything, the shortstop and leadoff man has performed better as the team has performed worse as a whole.

After a sluggish start to his month, Abrams has taken off in the last two weeks. He enters tonight’s game against the Dodgers batting .372 (16-for-43) with three doubles, two homers, four RBIs and four stolen bases over his last 11 games (10 of those losses for the Nats).

Along with a healthy amount of loud contact, Abrams has also shown more patience at the plate, drawing six walks during that 11-game stretch, nearly one-third of his season total.

“We’ve talked to him a lot about being more selective, getting pitches (to hit),” manager Davey Martinez said. “I don’t mind him swinging at the first pitch if it’s a ball he feels like he can drive. But he has been a little more patient, a little more selective. And you see his numbers creeping back up, which is awesome.”

Indeed, Abrams has begun to turn his season back around after a slow stretch. He opened the year in standout form, owner of a .313/.371/.569 slash line through May 20. He then went 8 for his next 60, which brought his season totals down to .260/.327/.456. He hasn’t climbed all the way back yet, but at .279/.354/.478 he now owns numbers more in line with the best version of himself. And his .832 OPS currently leads all qualified National League shortstops.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals didn’t play poorly Friday night, but they needed to play just a little bit better if they wanted to beat the Dodgers. So that made the 6-5 loss in the series opener both encouraging and discouraging. They pretty much stood toe to toe with the defending champs but ultimately weren’t as good as the competition and lost a close ballgame in the process.

They’ll hope for better results tonight in game two of the weekend series. They’re facing a very different opposing starter from Clayton Kershaw in Dustin May, who of course is right-handed but also throws much harder than Kershaw. Batters are hitting a measly .081 against his four-seam fastball, which averages 95.1 mph. He also throws a ton of sweepers, against which opponents are batting only .219. The Nationals lineup needs to be smart tonight in pitch selection and swing decisions, to say the least.

Jake Irvin, meanwhile, needs to avoid his first-inning troubles (10.80 ERA) and find a way to start his night with a zero on the scoreboard before getting into a groove. Maybe the most extreme example of that issue came in April when Irvin gave up four runs before recording an out to these same Dodgers but then didn’t give up anything else the rest of his outing. Get through that first frame unscathed, and the right-hander could be in good position for a big night.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees, wind 5 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
3B Brady House
DH Josh Bell
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals arrived here in good spirits late Thursday night, bolstered by a desperately needed, walk-off win to snap an 11-game losing streak. They didn’t know if that effort would carry over into the opener of a nine-game trip in which they’ll never leave Southern California, but if nothing else it did feel like a massive weight was lifted off their shoulders.

To beat the defending World Series champions, though, it requires more than positive vibes. It requires clean baseball, timely hitting and stars rising to the occasion. And during tonight’s 6-5 loss to the Dodgers, the Nats were lacking just a bit in all three aspects.

With a high-profile pitching matchup against Clayton Kershaw, MacKenzie Gore gave up a season-high six runs, all of them scoring with two outs. With multiple chances to deliver a damaging blow to Kershaw, the Nationals lineup went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. And when they needed a perfect turn of a potential inning-ending double play, they were just a split-second slow, ultimately opening the floodgates for a three-run Dodgers rally that might well have been the difference in the game.

There’s no shame in losing a close ballgame to one of the best teams in baseball. But the Nats weren’t about to rattle off silver linings after their 12th loss in 13 games, especially when this one was quite winnable.

"It's a game of inches," manager Davey Martinez sighed as he wrapped up his postgame press conference.

LOS ANGELES – Dylan Crews won’t be making his Dodger Stadium debut this weekend, and it’s probably killing him to have to come to grips with that fact. But the Nationals’ rookie outfielder is here with his teammates at Chavez Ravine, making his first road trip since he landed on the injured list one month ago and finally cleared to begin basic baseball activities.

Crews, out since May 21 with a strained left oblique muscle, took his first swings since suffering the injury Thursday, and the plan is for him to now slowly ramp things up in hopes of getting back on the active roster as soon as possible.

“We’re not putting a timetable on it. We’re just going by how he feels and what the trainers say,” manager Davey Martinez said. “But yesterday he was able to take some really light dry swings, which is definitely encouraging.”

Crews isn’t hitting a baseball yet, nor is he participating in defensive drills with his teammates. But he was thrilled to learn he’d be joining the Nats on this three-city, Southern California trip after being left at home in D.C. for the team’s last two road swings.

That’s a product both of his readiness to begin the kind of baseball activity the team’s coaching and training staffs want to see in person, but also a desire to keep the 22-year-old actively involved even when he’s not actively playing yet.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals took a much-needed happy flight west Thursday night after finally snapping their 11-game losing streak with a walk-off, 11-inning win over the Rockies, courtesy James Wood. And they won’t board another plane for 10 more days, when they fly home at the end of a three-city, nine-game trip played entirely within Southern California. The trip ends in Anaheim, with a stop in San Diego prior to that. And it kicks off tonight at Dodger Stadium with the first of three against the defending World Series champs.

We’ll got a doozy of a pitching matchup for the series opener: MacKenzie Gore vs. Clayton Kershaw. Gore has already toppled the Dodgers this season, allowing two runs over six innings in a 6-4 win back in early April. The lefty has another opportunity tonight to state his All-Star case against an All-Star lineup. Knowing him, he’s plenty fired up for this one.

Kershaw makes only his seventh start of the season after opening the year on the injured list. He’s still quite good, with a 3.25 ERA and 1.301 WHIP at age 37. This is the first time the future Hall of Famer has faced the Nationals since 2021, so he’ll be going up against a very different lineup than he remembers.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees, wind 5 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
2B Ames Rosario
LF James Wood
DH Andrés Chaparro
1B Nathaniel Lowe
3B Brady House
RF Alex Call
C Riley Adams
CF Jacob Young

James Wood’s walk-off two-run home run in the 11th inning against the Rockies yesterday signified more than just the end to the Nationals’ 11-game losing streak. It signified a moment where the rest of the baseball world might have caught onto the budding phenomenon that we already knew of here in Washington, D.C.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

With a runner on third, two outs and his team down 3-2 while staring their 12th straight loss in the face (which would have tied a Nats club record), Wood sent the second pitch from Seth Halvorsen fast and high into the air. The contact was solid, but as Wood watched it, he wondered if it would travel far enough to get out of the reach of Gold Glove center fielder Brenton Doyle?

“Honestly, no,” Wood replied when asked if he knew he had hit a homer to win the game. “I knew I got it good, but I saw Doyle, you never really know with him out there. But yeah, I was just ready for the fastball, and I just was able to see a splitter up.”

The ball traveled plenty far enough for the first walk-off home run of his career.

The Nationals' clubhouse was playing music this morning as it normally does before a game. Traditionally, it’s the pick of that day’s starting pitcher. For Trevor Williams, it was a country/pop-rock combination.

Despite an 11-game losing streak – one shy of the Nationals' club record (2005-present) – the vibes this morning felt no different than it normally does. There wasn’t extra tension. No one seemed to be walking on pins and needles. It was the same laid-back, yet focused, atmosphere this young team typically has.

The question was: Would there be music playing in the clubhouse after the game, signifying a celebration following a victory? It would be the first such occurrence for this team in almost two weeks.

The answer: Yes, thanks to a 4-3 walk-off win in 11 innings against the Rockies to snap the losing streak and get the Nats back in the win column.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

What more can be said at this point? After now having lost the season series to the lowly Rockies, the Nationals must win this afternoon to avoid a four-game sweep in their home ballpark at the hands of the major leagues’ worst team. A victory would also keep them from a winless homestand and finally end this 11-game losing streak before it ties a club record.

Trevor Williams will look to continue the solid effort the starting rotation has put forth. He is 3-8 with a 5.71 ERA and 1.428 WHIP through 14 starts. But the right-hander has been charged with two earned runs or less in three of his last four outings, posting a more respectable 4.05 ERA over that stretch.

The Nats' offense will, yet again, try to break out of this prolonged funk against an opposing starter with a high ERA. Chase Dollander is 2-7 with a 6.57 ERA and 1.539 WHIP over his first 11 major league starts. The rookie right-hander, who was the No. 9 overall pick out of the University of Tennessee in 2023, has seen some better results as of late, being charged with three earned runs or less in four of his last five starts. But he hasn’t pitched deep into games, completing just 22 ⅔ innings and getting past the fifth only twice over that stretch.

The Nationals got to Dollander to the tune of nine runs (six earned) on nine hits and four home runs back in April at Coors Field. Maybe this rookie is just who they need to see again to turn things around.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly sunny, 89 degrees, wind 13 mph out to center field

The Nationals’ 11th straight loss looked quite a bit like their previous 10. They did very little at the plate against the opposing starter. They got a solid outing from their own starter, who made one costly mistake. And they left themselves needing a last-ditch rally, which once again didn't come.

This 3-1 loss to the Rockies could’ve happened last weekend against the Marlins, or last week against the Mets, or the previous weekend against the Rangers. They’re all starting to run together at this point, the commonalities all too evident.

The only truly unique aspects about tonight’s loss? It included a 1-hour, 45-minute rain delay. And it included some legitimate bad luck for the Nats, who hit 11 balls with an exit velocity of at least 98 mph but saw only four of them land for hits because a terrible Colorado defensive unit played what had to be its best game of the year.

"We hit the ball hard. We just had nothing to show for it for a while," manager Davey Martinez said. "They were diving all over the field."

Bad luck or not, results are results. And this was the 11th consecutive bad result for the Nationals, who have fallen from a respectable 30-33 less than two weeks ago to a miserable 30-44 now. They’ll give it another shot Thursday afternoon in the series finale, hoping not to match the club’s all-time worst losing streak of 12 set in August 2008.

Mike Rizzo voiced his support for Davey Martinez today, saying the manager’s track record of success on the field and handling of the clubhouse has earned him the right to continue leading a Nationals team mired in its worst losing streak in 17 years.

Making his weekly radio appearance on 106.7 The Fan’s “The Sports Junkies,” Rizzo was asked if the Nats’ situation differed from three other major league clubs that fired their managers earlier this season: the Pirates, Rockies and Orioles.

“Here’s what I’ll say about that: Pittsburgh hasn’t won a World Series since ‘We are Family.’ Colorado has never won a World Series. And Baltimore, Davey Johnson (actually, Joe Altobelli) was the last guy who won the World Series with Baltimore. This guy has proven through trials and tribulations that he can handle a roster. He can handle a veteran-laden team. And he’s developing at the big league level. My track record is: I have fired managers in midseason. I fired managers after the season. I’ve fired coaches midseason. I’ve fired coaches after the season. We’re all being evaluated. We’ve all got to look ourselves in the mirror.

“But we are at a point right now where we’re moving forward with our development of these young kids. I think Davey still has the pulse of the clubhouse. He’s a great clubhouse presence, and he’s a calming presence. And I think that once we get through this thing and win a couple of games – which we will – that we can right the ship and continue progressing towards winning the championship, whenever that is. And I think that’s where my feelings are right now.”

Martinez, who led the Nationals from a 19-31 start to a World Series title in 2019 but has not enjoyed a winning season since, with the franchise embarking on a roster teardown and rebuilding effort in July 2021, has come under increased scrutiny over the last several days as his team extended its losing streak to its largest number since the 2008 club lost 12 in a row. He also faced criticism for his response to a question following Saturday’s loss to the Marlins about whether players or coaches were to blame for the team’s struggling offense.

The sun came up today. Well, not really because we continue to experience disgusting weather here in the D.C. region, with clouds, rain and humidity that makes it feel like South Florida instead of the Mid-Atlantic. But regardless, the Nationals are playing another game tonight, another opportunity to try to end their losing streak, which has now reached 10 games.

As always, it boils down to getting the game off to a positive start. They need to score some runs off Germán Márquez, who like Antonio Senzatela last night enters with a bloated ERA but unlike Senzatela did not face the Nats earlier this season. So we’ll see how they fare against the Rockies right-hander.

And it boils down to Mitchell Parker getting through a clean top of the first and then giving his team a chance. Parker did not do that last time out against the Marlins, giving up a run in the first, another in the second and then four in third. He simply can’t dig his teammates into a hole tonight, not the way things are going around here.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Thunderstorms, 83 degrees, wind 8 mph out to center field

ROCKIES
DH Tyler Freeman
2B Kyle Farmer
LF Jordan Beck
1B Michael Toglia
CF Brenton Doyle
3B Orlando Arcia
RF Sam Hilliard
SS Ryan Ritter
C Braxton Fulford

It all happened so fast from Cole Henry’s perspective. He entered a 3-1 game in the top of the seventh Tuesday night at Nationals Park. Four batters later, he departed a 7-1 game with many in the crowd of 17,232 booing.

The rookie reliever knew what was going on: “I’ve had a couple times this year where I just get too quick on my back side and start rushing,” he explained. But he couldn’t fix the problem in the moment, and so he was left to endure through a nightmare scenario that saw four straight Rockies batters reach base, the last two belting home runs to blow the game wide open.

A starter throughout his college and minor league career, Henry is learning on the fly how to deal with the unique responsibilities of life as a major league reliever. After a postgame conversation with Nationals pitching strategist Sean Doolittle, he realized he’s going to have to get better at making quicker adjustments in this role.

“As a starter, you have a couple innings to figure something out. As a reliever, you don’t have time,” he said. “You’ve got to figure it out within a batter. For me, it’s just trying to get back to the basics, try to stay within myself, not try to do too much. I just started pressing a little bit, trying to make stuff too perfect, trying to make my stuff nastier than what it needs to be.”

Henry’s rookie season has been an overwhelming success so far. He’s been scored upon in only four of his 24 outings. His fastball-curveball combo has been devastating for big league hitters when he commands both pitches. He entered Tuesday night with a 2.22 ERA and 10 strikeouts per nine innings.

The boos came in waves during the top of the seventh from a crowd of 17,232 tonight at Nationals Park, each time a Rockies player circled the bases after hitting a home run. It happened four times during that jaw-dropping inning alone, plus again in the eighth, impossible for Davey Martinez, Mike Rizzo and their players not to notice.

It can always get worse, they say. It’s hard to imagine that right now around here.

The Nationals lost to the Rockies tonight 10-6, a final score that looks much closer than it was because of a four-run rally in the bottom of the ninth that showed some spunk but still fell well short. On its own, that would constitute a really bad night, given the quality of opponent (or lack thereof). Under the current circumstances, it felt like a knife through the heart of a team that has collapsed this month.

For only the second time in club history, the Nats have lost 10 consecutive games. The last five have come at the hands of two of the worst teams in baseball: the Marlins and Rockies. When the streak began, the Nationals were not in that conversation, owners of a respectable 30-33 record and hoping to feast on supposedly inferior competition and surpass the coveted .500 mark.

Instead, that record is now 30-43. The .500 mark is a distant dream at this point. The question now is what, if anything, is forthcoming from Martinez, from Rizzo or from ownership.

Riley Adams has received more playing time in recent weeks than at any point in the last year-plus, certainly more than he ever does when Keibert Ruiz is healthy. Each of the Nationals’ catchers has started six games so far in June, a stark contrast from the previous stretch that saw Ruiz behind the plate in 14 of 16 games.

The idea was to get Adams into some kind of rhythm at the plate. The results, though, have been anything but.

Adams currently finds himself in an 0-for-30 slump, reaching base only once (via his only walk of the season), striking out 13 times. His batting average is down to .091 (5-for-55), his OPS down to .325, lowest among all National League players with at least 50 plate appearances.

Manager Davey Martinez said the 28-year-old hasn’t been able to keep his bat in the hitting zone long enough, his hips opening too soon as the bat lags behind. And as the 0-fers have continued, the pressure has only mounted to try to snap out of it, compounding the problem.

“He’s trying too hard to do well. So is everybody else,” Martinez said, referencing the team’s current offensive struggles during a nine-game losing streak. “We’ve got to get him to slow his feet down a little bit. He’s got a tremendous amount of power. Just get him to stay on the ball and not worry about doing much.”

There has been only one 10-game losing streak in Nationals history. It came all the way back in August 2008, the first year of operation at Nationals Park, when a team that went into the season believing it was good enough to win proceeded to lose 102 games. The streak would reach 12 games, but loss No. 10 came at home against the Rockies.

Tonight, the Nats will attempt to avoid reaching that ignominious 10-game mark again, and to do that they’ll have to beat the Rockies. This should be a favorable matchup for the home team, but as we saw Monday night and over the weekend when the Marlins were in town, there’s no such thing as a favorable matchup right now.

Colorado’s starting pitcher tonight is Antonio Senzatela. He is 1-10 with a 7.23 ERA this season. His lone victory came against the Nationals, who managed just one run in six innings against him on April 20 in the nightcap of a doubleheader at Coors Field. They scored that run in the top of the first, with James Wood drawing a leadoff walk, moving to second on Keibert Ruiz’s grounder and scoring on Nathaniel Lowe’s RBI single.

Michael Soroka did not pitch in that series, because he was on the injured list at the time. The right-hander is fully healthy now, but still seeking some consistency on the mound. Soroka sports a very solid 1.119 WHIP, with a strong 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. So why does he also have a 5.14 ERA? Because he’s been prone to one or two critical mistakes per outing, which is most notably in the eight home runs he’s allowed over only 42 innings. He’s got to avoid those killer mistakes tonight if he wants to help pitch the Nationals to a desperately needed win.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Thunderstorms, 78 degrees, wind 8 mph out to left field