It's another scorcher in the nation's capital, and today the Nationals and Padres will be playing smack dab in the middle of the afternoon with the sun beating down on them. That's going to be quite the test for Lucas Giolito, who makes his return to the big leagues after a very brief (two starts) demotion to the minors.
The Nationals are hoping Giolito displays some better command of his off-speed pitches today against the Padres, which would help make his fastball more effective. That'll...
Max Scherzer knew he needed to conserve as much energy as possible on a 94-degree night in which the heat index reached 103. But there's only so much you can do to combat the kind of conditions the Nationals right-hander faced last night: Change sopping wet jerseys every few innings, stand in front of a giant industrial fan to cool down, pour water over your head.
"Look, it's hot for me, it's hot for them," Scherzer said. "It's just not an excuse. It's just something you've got to get...
For the first time in six days, Stephen Drew found himself in an oddly familiar place: The Nationals dugout. The veteran infielder, mind you, has been on the club's active roster all week, but not until the latter innings of tonight's game against the Padres was he able to actually put on a full uniform and join his teammates on the bench.
Beset with a severe case of the flu, (or some other undiagnosed ailment that sure felt like the flu) Drew was of absolutely no use to the Nationals the...
Runs are not coming easily to the Nationals right now, which only compounds the pressure when they do actually give themselves an opportunity to push a run across the plate.
That made tonight's game against the Padres something of an exercise in frustration for the Nats, who just didn't give themselves that many opportunities and didn't take much advantage of them either.
Until the bottom of the ninth, that is.
Stephen Drew, in his first appearance in six days after battling flu-like...
We're now nearly four months into the six-month baseball season, and Ben Revere's batting average remains a paltry .214, his on-base percentage an equally paltry .258.
It's the time of year when struggling players often start worrying about job security, and Revere may well need to be thinking in those terms.
Dusty Baker, though, did his part today to offer his struggling leadoff man some words of encouragement and reason to believe his job isn't in jeopardy at this point.
"I'm hoping,...
Lucas Giolito will return to the big leagues and start Sunday's series finale against the Padres, manager Dusty Baker announced, though the length of his second stint with the Nationals (as was the case for his first stint) may not be long.
Giolito will be recalled from Triple-A Syracuse only two weeks after he was demoted following the first two major league starts of his career. The 22-year-old right-hander made two starts in the minors in the interim - he gave up four runs in seven innings...
It is an extraordinarily hot day here in the nation's capital, where according to my trusty weather app, it is currently 95 degrees with a heat index of 105. It will cool down moderately before Max Scherzer takes the mound at 7:05 p.m., but not a whole lot. If you're coming to the game, please make sure you prepare accordingly and do what you need to do to stay relatively cool.
As for the game itself, the Nationals are attempting to snap a two-game losing streak, trying to beat a Padres club...
Two innings into his start last night, Gio Gonzalez had an all-too-familiar look to himself. He was having trouble putting hitters away, resulting in a hefty pitch count of 43. He had already walked two batters. And though he had surrendered just one run to the Dodgers, he seemed to be teetering on the brink of far more serious damage.
What transpired after that - four more scoreless innings on just 54 pitches - offered the best evidence in a long time that Gonzalez can right what has turned...
The Nationals score many of their runs via the home run. They lead the National League with 132 of them, and are on pace for 225 by season's end, which would destroy the club's previous record of 194 in 2014.
So the fact they hit four homers tonight during an 8-1 thumping of the Dodgers should not come as much of a surprise. This is what they do.
But here's what they're also trying to do on a more regular basis: Score runs not with power, but with speed. Just like they did during a...
If it's possible for one swing to get Bryce Harper back into MVP form, this might have been the one.
Harper launched a towering home run off Bud Norris in the bottom of the first inning tonight, sending the 3-1 pitch halfway up the third deck down the right field line at Nationals Park, the farthest a ball has ever traveled to that portion of the stadium.
The two-run blast traveled 451 feet and left Harper's bat with a velocity of 113 mph, according to Major League Baseball's Statcast...
Reynaldo Lopez's first stint in the big leagues was a brief one. The Nationals optioned the right-hander back to Triple-A Syracuse one day after the 22-year-old was roughed up in his major league debut.
The pitcher the club promoted to take Lopez's spot, though, is even less experienced than the one he will replace: Koda Glover, who had his contract purchased from Syracuse to complete the 2015 draft pick's meteoric rise through the organization's farm system.
Glover, also 22, was an...
If you experienced last night's sudden and violent thunderstorm, you know how much rain and hail fell from the sky in a very short amount of time. And if you saw photos or video from Nationals Park around 11 p.m., you know how bad the field and warning track looked, with the grounds crew unable to get the tarp out fast enough to beat the storm.
Well, only 15 hours later, you'd never know what hit the place. The field looks fantastic, with scant evidence of the damage. Major props to John...
Reynaldo Lopez revealed both weaknesses (a very hittable fastball) and strengths (a very unhittable curveball and changeup) in his major league debut last night, enough to leave the Nationals plenty intrigued to see more of the 22-year-old.
"He's young, this is the big leagues, and you're facing big-league hitters," manager Dusty Baker said after Lopez gave up six runs and 10 hits but struck out nine in 4 2/3 innings. "But he's very bright. Just gotta tighten up a few things. I think...
Reynaldo Lopez did not necessarily expect to find himself standing on the mound at Nationals Park this evening, a sellout crowd of 38,747 buzzing about the opener of a series against the high-profile Dodgers, but the 22-year-old found himself here because of the eye-popping repertoire of pitches he has shown off in the minors.
That repertoire is headlined by a fastball that has reached triple digits before and on this night consistently sat in the 97-98 mph range. Minor league hitters were...
Dusty Baker had never seen Reynaldo Lopez in person before the 22-year-old right-hander took the mound tonight for his major league debut, only reports on one of the Nationals' top pitching prospects.
And what did those reports on Lopez say?
"The reports are that he can get away with more because he's throwing almost 100," Baker said this afternoon. "That's exactly what the reports are. He might not have to be ... as fine when you're throwing hard like that."
Reality hasn't exactly...
Joe Ross threw 35 pitches during a simulated game today, an encouraging step for the injured Nationals right-hander, who should be ready next to make a minor league rehab start.
Ross, out since July 3 with right shoulder inflammation, came out of today's session with live hitters reporting no issues.
"Joe, he looked very good today," manager Dusty Baker said. "I think he threw 35 pitches or something like that, consecutive pitches. So that's a pretty good sign. He had good velocity, good...
It may not garner as much attention as Lucas Giolito's major league debut a couple of weeks ago, but Reynaldo Lopez's first career start tonight for the Nationals is nearly as significant a development.
The 22-year-old right-hander is one of the organization's top pitching prospects and has rocketed his up the farm system in the last year, going from Single-A Potomac to Double-A Harrisburg and then briefly to Triple-A Syracuse before earning this final promotion. Lopez also is the first...
The Nationals own a 5 1/2-game lead in the National League East and the third-best record in the NL. They have the lowest ERA in the majors, have hit the most homers in the NL and boast the best fielding percentage in baseball.
Yet the biggest question facing general manager Mike Rizzo these days is a simple one: Could he make his team even better before the non-waiver trade deadline, now looming in the not-too-distant future on Aug. 1? (The deadline was pushed back this year from the...
When Trea Turner singled to left field in the fourth inning of Friday night's game, the Nationals rookie couldn't help but notice the lackadaisical manner in which the Pirates' Starling Marte got the ball back to the infield. Turner made a mental note, wondering if another opportunity would arrive later in the weekend to use that knowledge to his advantage.
"The base hit I had the other day, I saw the left fielder ... take his time," Turner said. "When you hit the ball to left field, the...
It was about as uplifting a moment as the Nationals have experienced all season, their injured All-Star infielder coming up to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and in his first at-bat in five days sending a game-tying homer down the right field line that earned him a curtain call from the crowd of 32,775.
Daniel Murphy's dramatic home run represented the kind of moment teams look back at months from now as a highlight of a season that perhaps ends with an even more memorable...