Two Fridays ago, no one inside the visiting manager’s office at Citi Field figured the biggest story from the Washington Nationals’ nine-game road trip would be the collapse of baseball’s best offense.The Nationals were moving CJ Abrams to second base. That was the story, and it seemed as though it would be for the foreseeable future. Then the Nats scored 20 runs across a 1-8 road trip that officially killed their postseason chances.This is not the lineup that carried Washington to the highest-scoring offense in MLB — now without James Wood (oblique), Abrams (ankle), Curtis Mead (traded to the Boston Red Sox) and Luis García Jr. (traded to the New York Yankees). But it has many of the components that will make up next year’s roster.That makes the team’s offensive spiral, punctuated by a sweep by the Miami Marlins this weekend, worth examining.Move over Shohei Ohtani. Miles Mikolas is the new two-way star.Spencer NusbaumWhy haven’t the Nats re-created Wood’s production from the leadoff spot?Lineup construction is mostly inconsequential when the leadoff hitter is also an MVP candidate, so it stands to reason Wood’s absence wouldn’t go unnoticed. However, that doesn’t excuse the sheer futility with which the Nats have hit atop the order since his departure. The Nats’ approach, in particular, deserves a skeptical eye.It would be foolish to expect anyone who occupies the top spot to start hitting the ball 115 mph. But Wood had a .390 OBP and reached base 42.1 percent of the time while leading off in the first inning. Entering Sunday, his replacements owned a .256 OBP with just two walks (the fewest in MLB) and 25 strikeouts (the most in MLB).Since the start of Wood’s IL stint, Washington’s leadoff hitters are swinging at more pitches on the edge of the plate than any other team’s leadoff hitters. These are not bad hacks in a vacuum, but there is value in setting the table, and this suggests they’re failing to shrink the zone.