Never, in the Washington Nationals’ 15 seasons of existence, has it felt so late so early. The you’ve-got-to-be-kidding element to all the injuries — which we’ll quantify in a moment — has some very real ramifications for what this season is (troubling) and what it can become (an unmitigated disaster).

Before the completely-in-disarray Nats faced the ascendant Brewers on Tuesday night, exactly one National League team had a worse record than Washington. That’s the Miami Marlins, whose front office did not field a team this spring with the intention of winning. Regardless of who’s not in the lineup to start or who comes out midgame, this is dire territory.

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The injuries and the circumstances around them are important. Here, though, is why they matter not just in the standings: Fielding a lineup without your Opening Day Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 hitters — and without the reliever the front office signed to be your eighth-inning pitcher — makes it nearly impossible to evaluate the leadership that’s in place. Dave Martinez, the second-year manager, wouldn’t be voted back into office if the fan base were the electorate and this was a democracy. But it’s not crazy to think the ownership of the Lerner family and General Manager Mike Rizzo would say, “How do we know?” if he never fields the team he was told he would have.

That’s not a satisfying way to reach a conclusion. It’s like last season’s Redskins. How do you determine the fate of Coach Jay Gruden when the starting quarterback is Mark Sanchez one week, Josh Johnson the next? That doesn’t even get to the drift of who ended up playing guard and tackle and safety because the regulars were so decimated by injury. The conclusion: Yeah, Gruden went 7-9, but he’s back again. Toss up your hands.

There is, in a way, some precedent here. The 2015 Nationals were favored to win at least the division — and maybe more. But they fielded their expected lineup for exactly two games all season. Matt Williams, then the manager, was fired anyway. The difference: Williams clearly had lost the clubhouse. That’s not the sense on Martinez, not yet anyway. In that sense, it’s early.

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Still, sift through the Nats’ current wreckage, and there’s a real urge to blame someone — anyone — for all the chaos. The pitch that broke Trea Turner’s finger while he attempted to bunt? The pitch that plunked Anthony Rendon in the elbow, costing him 2 ½ weeks before he was activated Tuesday? Can’t we strangle someone for either of those?

“That’s part of the game,” Rizzo said late last week, back when things seemed bleak and there was no way to know they’d get bleaker. “Those things happen. You can’t attribute those injuries to the medical staff or the training staff or the baseball staff or anything else.

“We have to find ways of winning games without those guys. It makes it much more difficult. You’ve got to play really good, clean, almost perfect baseball, and you’re missing your second, third, fourth and fifth hitters in the lineup at the start of the season.”

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How prescient. The Nats made four errors in Monday’s 5-3 loss to the Brewers and looked comical doing it. Carter Kieboom, the shortstop prospect on which the Nats are so high, committed his fourth in just 10 games in the field. (He was demoted to Class AAA Fresno on Tuesday when Rendon was activated.) The seventh inning was unwatchable. Second baseman Brian Dozier couldn’t handle a grounder that should have been an out but was scored a single. Reliever Dan Jennings threw a wild pitch. Substitute third baseman Wilmer Difo couldn’t make a tough play that regular starter Rendon probably would have. Catcher Kurt Suzuki treated a chopper in front of the plate as if it were radioactive, an error. And that was an inning before reliever Tony Sipp, who was placed on the 10-day IL with a strained oblique Tuesday, threw a pickoff throw straight into center field.

Forget who the players are. You can’t win like that. Yeah, the Nats endured the indignity of sitting on the tarmac in Philadelphia for much of Sunday night into Monday morning, the victim of mechanical problems to their charter flight. That’s real, unscheduled adversity. But at some point, either a team is going to overcome its issues or it’s not. These guys are dangerously close to showing they can’t get past any of it.

And just when you start to get fired up about how badly they’re playing, you remember so many of the guys making so many of these mistakes aren’t supposed to be out there — or at least are supposed to be in a different position.

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Take the lineup. Gomes is an established catcher. Before Monday night, he had started 615 major league games. The number of previous times his manager felt it appropriate to pencil him in higher than fifth in the lineup: five. Only once previously had he started a game hitting cleanup. But that’s what Martinez did in the series opener against the Brewers — by necessity.

And so it goes. Difo is a fringe major leaguer whose best iteration is as a super-utility player, someone who can be plugged in short-term at any position but first base or catcher. Monday, he hit sixth. If you were a snowbird who flew south in March to attend Grapefruit League baseball, you might feel ripped off by paying good money to see the lineup the Nats fielded against the Brewers.

The wait to get Rendon back ended Tuesday. The wait for Turner could be long. Ryan Zimmerman and his plantar fasciitis — who knows? Juan Soto and his 20-year-old bad back? Trevor Rosenthal? Matt Adams?

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Is it September . . . already?

“We’re still optimistic,” Rizzo said at the end of last week’s homestand. “We still think we’re as good as anyone in the league when we’re healthy and ready to play. We’re going to get healthy someday, and we’re going to make some people pay.”