James Wood and CJ Abrams sat in the dugout on a warm weekday afternoon and let their gravitational pull take over. Within seconds, Daylen Lile moseyed over next to Wood. Then came Jacob Young and Nasim Nuñez, riffing raucously enough to hear from a nearby railing. When Wood and Abrams rose, they did, too. The bench filled, and emptied, at their behest.When they joke, others add on. When they hit, others tend to follow. There was a momentum to the conversation, however quiet it began.“I feel like those kinds of things happen naturally,” Wood said of assuming leadership.“It comes naturally,” Abrams said. “You’ve got to lead by example.”First-year skipper Blake Butera has never directly asked Abrams or Wood to fill a cavernous leadership vacuum. Not when the Nationals failed to sign a position player to an MLB deal this winter. Not when they had an anemic offense this spring. Not even now, as the summer nears and the oldest National to take an at-bat is all of 28 years old.Wood and Abrams have filled the void anyway, lifting the best offense in baseball as the ahead-of-schedule Nationals sit at 34-33 following Monday’s 4-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.Wood scored the team’s only run off Giants starter Logan Webb. Abrams delivered the game-tying single with one out in the ninth.James Wood, left, and CJ Abrams celebrate a victory last month. (Jess Rapfogel / Getty Images)Wood is a bona fide MVP candidate with a .930 OPS; Abrams is close behind with his .915 OPS. Wood leads MLB in runs; Abrams ranks second in RBI. Both are walking more, striking out less and hitting the ball harder.The batting cages at Nationals Park are noisier. The nights are longer, as Wood (23 and trying to keep his legs healthy after they wore down last summer) and Abrams (25 and still in the thick of trade rumors) stay later and later while their teammates try to keep up.Last week, a shipment of gray T-shirts arrived at the Washington Nationals clubhouse. They featured one of the team’s more widespread images: Abrams’ face, with his mouth agape, as teammates showered his face with a fistful of sunflower seeds following a home run. One player grabbed scissors and fashioned one into a crop top. A couple of coaches immediately slipped them on.A few hours later in the dugout, the T-shirts became yet another thing Abrams and Wood could laugh about as they held court.