The Nats have shaken off slow starts before, but this one seems to raise bigger questions

By the box score, Thursday afternoon’s game was what the people who built the 2021 Washington Nationals would prefer them to look like. The reclamation projects who double as major offseason acquisitions, Kyle Schwarber and Josh Bell, both hit two-run homers in the first. The starting pitcher, Patrick Corbin, threw seven one-run innings in which he walked no one and struck out nine. Manager Dave Martinez called on the best reliever he had available, Daniel Hudson, to record the game’s most important outs: a strikeout of Bryce Harper and a groundout from Rhys Hoskins to end a threat in the eighth.