With a three-game sweep of Philadelphia this week, the Nats cut their deficit to the Phillies from 10 games to three in just 26 days. Then, with a 4-3 Washington win over Atlanta on Friday night coupled with a Philadelphia loss, that margin dropped to two. That’s how fast an 18-7 run changes life. Every year we forget: Baseball has no normal. It has streaks. As much as anything, that’s why fans have stay hooked on long seasons for 150 years.

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Suddenly, a three-game series at Nationals Park this weekend against red-hot defending National League East champion Atlanta is equal parts tingling opportunity and are-we-ready-for-this worry. Trailing the Braves by 7½ games entering the series, the Nats will finish Sunday behind by anywhere from 4½ to 8½ games. Big enough stakes for you?

The trajectory of this season, and the current tone of the Nats’ clubhouse, is captured by Turner’s first-half saga. He broke his right index finger in the fourth game of the year, when he was hit by a fastball as he tried to bunt against the Phillies’ Zach Eflin. The Nats’ hopes spiraled as injuries piled up and the bullpen crashed. Turner missed 39 games and hit poorly his first week back, batting with his index finger still entirely off the bat. The Nats fell to 19-31, 10 games behind Philadelphia.

On Thursday night, Turner made two diving, dazzling defensive plays as the Nats completed the sweep of the Phillies. Now the Phillies are reeling — in a 6-14 tailspin (outscored by 39 runs) with their own injured bullpen.

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“You’ve been doing everything,” I said to Turner, who has a .932 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in his past 20 games with a couple of 420-foot homers. “But there’s one thing you can’t do.”

“What?”

“You can’t make a fist.”

Turner jammed his hands under his armpits, a reflexive defensive gesture. “Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t,” he said, straight-faced. Then he started laughing.

“Max [Scherzer] beat the Phils pitching with a black eye and breathing through his mouth ’cause he broke his nose the day before,” teammate Adam Eaton said. “Trea plays great even with that finger. This team has had to do a lot of things like that to get back where we are. But we’ve got to keep on doing ’em.”

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In a humble, dogged way, the finally healthy Nats (37-38) have not only put themselves squarely in the wild-card picture, probably for the rest of the season, but they have begun to redefine themselves after massive offseason roster upheaval. They’re becoming a gritty team that needs help from many players, some unexpected or forced into important roles that were never envisioned.

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Without power mainstays of recent years — Bryce Harper, injured Ryan Zimmerman (53 games missed) and Daniel Murphy — the Nats have compensated throughout their lineup and bench. After hitting 15 homers in their past six games entering Friday, the Nats were fourth in scoring in the NL in June.

Howie Kendrick, supposedly a utility man, is a long-shot all-star candidate with 43 RBI in 178 at-bats. Brian Dozier, a slow starter, has had three years when, in late April or mid-May, he broke out into power-hitting streaks that lasted, on average, for three months. He’s now 30 games into a .987 OPS binge that, statistically, looks like his star streaks as a Twin.

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Last year, Nats catchers were 26th in RBI with a sad 58. This year, thanks mostly to Kurt Suzuki, who should play more, and Yan Gomes, the Nats were fifth in catcher RBI with 51 entering Friday, on pace for 112.

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One by one, the Nats’ offseason trades and signings are proving to be decent or smart. Aníbal Sánchez, after a poor start, has found his form in his past five starts. Patrick Corbin, after a three-start slump, was first rate this week. For the moment, the Nats may have four starters all clicking at once.

The exception to the well-done rule remains the improving but still shorthanded bullpen, which requires nightly invocations of patron saints, mystic chants and hopes that animal sacrifice will not be necessary.

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General Manager Mike Rizzo may have bungled his evaluations of Trevor Rosenthal (who got a key out Friday but still is a total X factor) and middling Kyle Barraclough (now injured). But his trade of Tanner Roark for Tanner Rainey may prove to be much more than a salary dump to clear budget to sign Sánchez for $10 million a year. Rainey has looked as good as his numbers: 2.51 ERA, 21 strikeouts in ­14 1/ 3 innings.

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Since the Nationals brought baseball back to Washington, fans have learned different baseball truths in different seasons. Division titles and 95-win seasons are enormously important. But when things don’t quite work out, the existence of two wild cards in each league is of enormous value. The Nats haven’t used that playoff route yet. So they may not sense its rewards.

The wild-card game is scary business. But when you have a Madison Bumgarner in his prime, as the World Series champion Giants did in 2014, or a Scherzer, as the Nats do now, perhaps it’s the other fellow who has the larger problem.

When the Nats owners and GM are trying to figure out moves at the trade deadline — no, not selling, that’s May’s tired old angle, but whether to add — they need to understand that if you can just get into the division series, even through the wild card, you have almost shockingly good postseason hopes.

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Since Major League Baseball went to five-game division series in 1995, the team with the better regular season record has won 44 times. The team with the worse record has won 45 times. That’s correct: 44-45. (And seven series with the same record.) The Nats and their fans just have a warped view because they are on the painful side of that stat — with an 0-4 record as the team with the better record.

If you can just make the division series, even as a wild card, wonderful possibilities arrive. If you have fewer than 90 wins, and someone else, such as the Dodgers, comes to the party with more than 100, don’t poor-mouth your chances in such a made-for-thrills format that only semi-resembles baseball. Remember: 44-45. Pundits parsed all those series. Why did they bother?

As this weekend may show, the Braves are a formidable young bunch. And the Nats have spotted them a large lead. However, what the Nats have done in the past month, with a radically rebuilt roster with 10 players who never wore a Nats uniform last season, is prove to themselves that they can run off a plus-10 streak while playing enthusiastic and fundamentally presentable baseball.

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After they confront the Braves, the Nats have their most luscious 12-game chunk of their schedule: six games against the Marlins and three each against the Tigers and Royals, all on pace to lose 102 or more games.

The Nationals found their form at exactly the right time — to face the Phillies, the Braves and the flops — even if they have had to do it with broken noses, crooked fingers, utility-man stars and a rookie setup man.