As the innings passed by and scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity passed by without the Nationals converting, the reality began to sink in. This team was about to be swept by the Marlins and extend its interminable losing streak to eight games.

There was nothing novel about today’s 3-1 loss before an unenthused crowd of 28,983 on South Capitol Street. MacKenzie Gore pitched well enough to win but did not. A fast-fading lineup that hasn’t hit in two weeks once again did not hit. There wasn’t even the token ninth-inning rally that comes up just short to lament.

No, nothing is going right for the Nationals these days. And on the heels of this lifeless weekend sweep at the hands of one of the worst teams in the majors, the only remaining question is: What happens now?

Is there a dramatic change coming, whether to the roster or the coaching staff? If not, how is this current, underperforming group going to flip the switch and start playing again like it did only a couple weeks ago when it was making a run at the .500 mark?

"We're looking at different options, for sure," manager Davey Martinez said. "But we've won before with these guys. They see what it's like to win games, a few in a row. I know they don't come to the ballpark thinking they're going to lose. They thought again we had a chance to win today. We've got to keep battling. We've got 26 guys in that clubhouse that are going to give me everything they've got every day. We'll focus on those 26 guys right now."

Bring on the left-handed starters. Line up the opponents. Crank up the music, colored lights and smoke machines.

The 2025 Orioles are only 10 games below .500.

It used to be a lot worse.

Cade Povich tossed 3 2/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen and Seranthony Domínguez inherited a bases-loaded jam in the seventh and protected a three-run lead. Gary Sánchez inflated it until the seams popped with a grand slam, and the Orioles completed their latest sweep with an 11-2 victory over the Angels before an announced crowd of 33,370 at Camden Yards that sat through a light steady rain.

The Orioles (30-40) haven’t ventured this close to .500 since May 14. They got here by sweeping three of their last five series.

In search of a desperately needed offensive spark, Davey Martinez is trying something today he’s never tried before: Batting CJ Abrams third in his lineup.

For the first time in his career, Abrams will bat third today as the Nationals try to avoid getting swept by the Marlins and snap a seven-game losing streak. The team’s usual leadoff hitter, one of the few currently producing, will bat behind Alex Call and James Wood in hopes of driving in more runs than he can from the No. 1 spot in the lineup.

“Just trying to get something going,” Martinez said. “CJ’s hitting the ball well. Wood is hitting the ball well. Trying to put Alex up there and get something going, and try to score some runs early. We’re scoring late. I want to see if we can try to score some runs early. And having (Wood and Abrams) maybe with guys on base will definitely create that.”

It’s the first time Abrams has ever batted third in 437 career big league games. He also hasn’t started a game in the fourth or fifth spot in the order. In spite of the team’s recent woes, the 24-year-old shortstop has been producing, batting .409 (9-for-22) with two doubles and a homer over his last five games.

“I talked with him first, and he was excited about it,” Martinez said. “He said he’ll maybe get a chance to drive in some runs. It’s all based on conversations. I talked to Alex about maybe bumping him up. He’s done it before; he does like hitting leadoff. I told him your job is just to get on base for these guys and see if we can create a little length for our lineup.”

Ryan O’Hearn and Colton Cowser are available to come off the bench this afternoon for the finale of the series against the Angels at Camden Yards that also completes the latest homestand.

O’Hearn injured his left ankle Friday night when Zach Neto clipped him on a play at first base in the seventh inning. He was scratched from yesterday's lineup. And Cowser is sore after slamming into the center field fence Thursday while chasing a home run ball.

“A lot better,” said interim manager Tony Mansolino. “I think if it’s September, playing for the division right now, I think there’s a really good chance.”

O’Hearn confirmed earlier today that he’s ready to play.

“Feels good today, feels better than yesterday, so I’ll be available off the bench and ready to rock tomorrow,” he said.

The Orioles will try for their third series sweep in the last five today with Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, Colton Cowser and Ryan O’Hearn on the bench.

Jordan Westburg is leading off and playing second base. Gunnar Henderson is the designated hitter. Coby Mayo gets another start at first base after his first career multi-hit game yesterday. Luis Vázquez makes his first Orioles start at shortstop.

Another change: Scott Blewett is the opener, presumably followed by Cade Povich. Blewett hasn’t allowed an earned run in eight relief innings with the Orioles. Today marks his second start in the majors, the other earlier this year with the Braves.

Povich has a 5.46 ERA and 1.525 WHIP in 12 starts. He’s allowed five earned runs in two of his last three starts totaling 9 1/3 innings.

Povich has never faced the Angels.

The Nationals are not in a good place right now, suffice it to say. They’ve lost seven in a row, including two straight to the Marlins. They’re a season-low 10 games under .500. And after Saturday’s game, manager Davey Martinez got testy when asked about his coaching staff, offering an impassioned defense of those guys that may or may not have gone over well within the clubhouse.

A win today wouldn’t solve everything, but it would sure help. The Nats have lost four of five to Miami this season, and the notion of getting swept in this series was almost unfathomable a couple days ago.

MacKenzie Gore will need to be on point, which he has been more often than not so far this year. Martinez will lean on his ace and let him go deep in this game before ideally handing it over to a couple of back-end relievers.

But really the story today is the Nationals lineup. Can it not only produce, but can it produce early and often and not leave itself scrambling to rally in the late innings? They’re facing a flamethrower in Eury Perez, who is making only his second start of the season, only his second big league start since 2023, having just recovered fully from his April 2024 Tommy John surgery. Who knows what exactly to expect against the right-hander, but the Nats had better hope they do some damage against him.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. MIAMI MARLINS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Chance of rain late, 69 degrees, wind 7 mph in from right field

One offseason addition to the roster returned to the Orioles yesterday while another trended backward.

Gary Sánchez was reinstated from the injured list and grounded into a double play, struck out, homered for the first time since Sept. 27 and was hit by a pitch. He’s 4-for-33 this season.

Maverick Handley went 3-for-40 before the Orioles optioned him yesterday, so offense isn’t flowing from backup catcher, but Sánchez brings some pop and he showed it yesterday.

“It's a presence when he steps in the box,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “He walks in there, he's got that big ol’ leg kick and he gets that thing cranking and he swings through a pitch, it does not feel good if you’re on the other side, I promise that.”

Tyler O’Neill is the concern. He signed a three-year, $49.5 million contract with an opt-out after the first season that doesn’t figure to be exercised unless he has a long, healthy and productive stretch of games.

The pregame news for the Orioles wasn’t any better today than how they started out against the Angels.

Ryan O’Hearn was scratched from the lineup with left ankle soreness after homering last night and tying Cedric Mullins for the team lead. The Orioles returned outfielder Tyler O’Neill from his rehab assignment with Triple-A Norfolk because of recurring shoulder soreness. He received an injection in his AC joint and is shut down for about a week.

Tomoyuki Sugano walked the first batter he faced and Mike Trout hit the upper half of the left field foul pole with a sinker that missed the heart of the plate but not his bat. Keegan Akin surrendered a tie-breaking home run to Luis Rengifo leading off the sixth. The day seemed like it would be trashed.

Fortunately for the Orioles, tones can be set but also smashed.

Mullins and Gary Sánchez hit back-to-back home runs off left-hander Tyler Anderson in the bottom of the sixth and the Orioles hung on for a 6-5 win before an announced crowd of 26,313 at Camden Yards.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of today’s ballgame at Nationals Park was that, for most of the afternoon, the home team had far more success at the plate when it chose not to swing the bat than when it did.

Yes, there was a last-ditch attempt to rally in the bottom of the ninth, when they finally started making some real contact and nearly pulled off a stunning comeback. And yet at the end of the day, despite scoring two runs and loading the bases with one out against Anthony Bender, the fifth and only ineffective Marlins reliever of the days, the Nationals could not push across the tying run and wound up falling 4-3 to extend their losing streak to seven games.

"Once again, we made a rally there late," manager Davey Martinez said with a sigh. "But we've got to start rallying from the first inning on. I sound like a broken record, but we've got to remember we play nine innings. The first inning means a lot, too, not just the last two. We've got to come out and work good at-bats the first few innings, try to score first."

Unable to do anything offensively all afternoon against Miami’s pitching staff – aside from a second-inning run scored via bases-loaded walk – the Nats at long last strung together a few quality at-bats against Bender in the bottom of the ninth.

Alex Call jumpstarted things with a blooper down the right field line for a leadoff double, then stole third base when the Marlins didn’t bother to hold him on or cover the bag. Josh Bell walked, then both runners advanced on a wild pitch, Call scoring to cut the deficit to 4-2. Luis García Jr. ripped a double to deep right field, putting two in scoring position, still with nobody out. And when Eric Wagaman couldn’t handle Robert Hassell III’s grounder to first for an error, Bell scampered home and García advanced to third, keeping the rally alive.

Tyler Wells walked into the Orioles’ clubhouse this afternoon dripping with sweat, the effects of a 25-pitch bullpen session in the Camden Yards heat.

He still managed to look happy.

Wells has made encouraging progress from his ligament-reconstructive elbow surgery last June. He mixed in his changeup today and will incorporate breaking balls next week. He doesn’t know when he’ll be cleared to face hitters.

“Everything’s feeling good,” he said. “Elbow feels good, shoulder feels good, body’s feeling good. So I feel like I’m in a really good spot right now with feels, location, and everything like that.”

Wells is experiencing a process unlike anything else in his life, with responsibilities as a new father woven into his rehab. He’s undergone elbow surgery in the past, before the Orioles chose him in the Rule 5 draft, but this one isn't an exact duplicate.

The Orioles have made the following roster moves:

• Reinstated C Gary Sánchez (right wrist inflammation) from the 10-day Injured List.
• Optioned C Maverick Handley to Triple-A Norfolk.

Gary Sánchez has returned to the Orioles. He was reinstated from the 10-day injured list this afternoon, with catcher Maverick Handley optioned to Triple-A Norfolk as the anticipated counter move.

Sánchez went on an injury rehab assignment after getting rid of the inflammation his right wrist. He was rested yesterday.

Handley is 3-for-40, but he’s helped to lower the staff ERA to 4.93. He caught the combined shutout last night, which began with Charlie Morton’s 10 strikeouts in five innings.

Morton has a 2.97 ERA in eight games with Handley behind the plate. He provided an example last night of his connection to the kid.

“The other day he came in, ‘What time’s your ‘pen?’” Morton recalled. “I told him. He was like, ‘Would you mind if I came out and played catch with you?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, dude. Absolutely. I love that.’ I think it just shows his desire and willingness to develop and develop a rapport and just kind of throwing himself in the mix. Because you don’t really have many guys who are catching who are like, ‘Hey man, I’ll come catch a ‘pen.’ But I think he has a desire to get better. He has a desire to just work on his game, and whether that’s a physical thing, a mental, emotional thing, I think that’s why he and I are working well together.

One of the best defensive plays Andrew Chafin has made in some time wound up sending the veteran reliever to the injured list.

The Nationals placed Chafin on the 15-day IL this morning with a right hamstring strain, an injury he sustained six days ago while doing the splits to make a play in the field. Ryan Loutos, a right-hander acquired only four days ago from the Dodgers, was recalled from Triple-A Rochester to take Chafin’s place in the bullpen.

Chafin didn’t initially show any ill effects when he sprinted to cover first on Corey Seager’s grounder to the right side in the top of the ninth Sunday against the Rangers, then stretched to the point he was doing the splits to snag CJ Abrams’ return throw on the 3-6-1 double play. But the left-hander did not pitch in any of the Nats’ last four games and was unavailable during Friday night’s 11-9 loss to the Marlins.

Chafin was going through a jogging drill in the outfield prior to today’s game, so the injury is not severe enough to prevent him from moderate physical activity right now.

The Nationals summoned Loutos from Rochester late Friday afternoon, then placed Chafin on the IL this morning. They were allowed to backdate the transaction only three days, to June 11, which was still three days after he suffered the injury. The soonest he could return would be June 26, but the team will be cautious with his recovery, not wanting to risk rushing him back and potentially making it worse.

Friday night was about as miserable as it gets for the Nationals. They fell into a big hole early, then sat through a long rain delay, then tried to mount a furious late rally, only to come up short and suffer an 11-9 loss to the Marlins that ended around 12:30 a.m. And now, only 12 1/2 hours later, they’re right back out there for the second game of the series, with a rare 1:05 p.m. Saturday start (the result of the originally scheduled 4:05 p.m. game getting bumped up to account for all the traffic that will be pouring into the city later this evening for the military parade).

Suffice it to say, the Nats need today to go much better than Friday night did, in every possible way. They need a better pitching performance from Trevor Williams than they got from Mitchell Parker. They need early offense against Cade Gibson and the rest of the Marlins relievers who will be cobbling together a bullpen game today. They need more of a lockdown relief performance than they got Friday night, when Jackson Rutledge and Jose A. Ferrer combined to give up five runs. And they need the weather to cooperate, because there’s an increasing chance of more rain as the day and evening progress. Is it too much to ask for all of those things to come together in glorious harmony?

The Nationals made a roster move this morning involving their bullpen: Andrew Chafin has been placed on the 15-day injured list (retroactive to June 11) with a right hamstring strain and have recalled right-hander Ryan Loutos from Triple-A Rochester. Loutos, who was just claimed off waivers from the Dodgers, has five games of big league experience with Los Angeles and St. Louis. He made only one appearance for Rochester before his call-up, allowing a run on two hits in one inning of relief Thursday.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. MIAMI MARLINS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Chance of rain, 81 degrees, wind 4 mph in from left field

MARLINS
RF Jesús Sánchez
C Agustín Ramírez
DH Liam Hicks
SS Otto Lopez
LF Kyle Stowers
1B Eric Wagaman
CF Dane Myers
3B Connor Norby
2B Javier Sanoja

The Washington Nationals recalled right-handed pitcher Ryan Loutos from Triple-A Rochester and placed left-handed pitcher Andrew Chafin on the 15-day Injured List (retroactive to June 11) with a right hamstring strain on Saturday. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo made the announcement.

Loutos, 26, was claimed off waivers from Los Angeles Dodgers and optioned to Triple-A Rochester on June 10. He has posted a 2.75 ERA (6 ER/19.2 IP) with 16 strikeouts and six in 16 Triple-A games this season. He made one appearance with Triple-A Rochester allowing one earned run on two hits with one strikeout in 1.0 innings of work on June 12.

Chafin, 34, pitched to a 3.18 ERA (4 ER/11.1 IP) with 14 strikeouts and 11 walks in 16 games this season.

The Orioles had a late start last night due to the threat of rain, with the actual precipitation lighter than anticipated before the downpour in the fifth inning.

The injury talk started much earlier, and it was heavier than expected.

Let’s take a stroll through yesterday’s updates and try not to roll an ankle.

Grayson Rodriguez

The “sluggish” start on March 5 in Fort Myers turned into an elbow/triceps issue, which turned into a lat issue that kept the projected No. 2 starter from pitching this season.

If this wasn’t rock bottom for the Nationals, it sure felt like it. Mitchell Parker already had dug his team into a six-run hole with an abbreviated start that left many in the crowd booing with disapproval. Then came the 2-hour, 14-minute rain delay. Then once play resumed and the prospect of post-midnight baseball loomed, Jackson Rutledge gave up two more runs to a Marlins team that was piling on a Nats club stuck in a downward spiral with little hope of escape.

And then as Friday night was turning into Saturday morning, the home team decided to finally get its act together. If only it had been enough.

Despite a spirited rally that included seven runs scored between the seventh and eighth innings, the Nationals still ultimately fell short during an 11-9 loss to Miami, their sixth straight.

Unable to overcome Parker’s early struggles on the mound and then some shaky bullpen work later, the Nats fell to the Marlins for the third time in four head-to-head matchups this season, kicking off a critical homestand against two of the National League’s bottom-feeders with the kind of loss that will only leave all affected parties feeling worse than they already did.

"We're a good team. I think there's just a lot of ups and downs in baseball," said James Wood, who did his part tonight with three hits and four RBIs. "We know we're a good team. We know we're capable of being an elite offense. When stretches like that happen, you can't really panic over them."

Charlie Morton had to wait out a rain delay tonight that lasted more than an hour before throwing his first pitch. The grounds crew sprinted to the tarp and stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind it after the top of the fourth inning, cutting through the finish line of the hot dog race.

Morton was the one on a roll.

The only way to slow him was to drench him.

Morton tossed five scoreless innings and tied his season high with 10 strikeouts before umpires halted play with one out in the bottom of the fifth following Ramón Urías’ single. The 69-minute break forced interim manager Tony Mansolino into a pitching change, with Yennier Cano entering in the sixth.

The bullpen backed up Morton with four scoreless frames, and a couple of solo home runs led the Orioles to a 2-0 win over the Angels before an announced crowd of 20,204 at Camden Yards.

Robert Hassell III arrived in the big leagues with a bang, going 2-for-5 with two runs and a stolen base in his first career game, going 3-for-5 with his first homer a week later, then delivering another pair of two-hit games shortly after that.

It’s been a struggle since for the Nationals rookie, though, who is finding out what most every other hitter in major league history has been forced to figure out along the way: Pitchers are going to make adjustments and figure out how to exploit your weaknesses.

“He’s young. He’s up here and trying to figure things out,” manager Davey Martinez said. “They’ve made some adjustments after the first week. He’s got to start making adjustments now on the pitchers.”

The 23-year-old outfielder arrived May 22 to significant fanfare, given his success at Triple-A Rochester and his longstanding reputation as top hitting prospect who was part of the Nationals’ massive package from the Padres in the Juan Soto trade. And nine games in, Hassell was living up to the billing, batting .270 (10-for-37) with six RBIs and a number of quality at-bats that suggested a mature hitting approach for someone so inexperienced. Things have taken a downturn since. Over his last nine games, Hassell is batting just .172 (5-for-29) with one RBI, 11 strikeouts and a .379 OPS.

The biggest concern? The rookie is swinging at everything, both inside and outside the zone. He has yet to draw a walk in 66 major league plate appearances.

Grayson Rodriguez said today that he will throw his first bullpen session next week since experiencing a setback in the middle of April in recovering from a strained lat muscle.

Rodriguez, speaking to the local media for the first time since early March in Fort Myers, also expressed confidence that he’ll pitch after the All-Star break.

“Throwing every day,” Rodriguez said of his flat ground sessions. “Right now feeling good.”

Asked about returning in 2025, Rodriguez said he doesn’t have an exact week or specific timeline, “but I’m definitely gonna pitch this year.”

Rodriguez is on the 60-day injured list. He experienced discomfort in his elbow/triceps area in camp, which robbed him of the normal velocity in his final appearance against the Twins, but he said today that he’s rehabbing only from the lat strain – his third including the summer of 2022 with Triple-A Norfolk.