After a couple days out of town, I'm back in action.
Who missed me?
Thanks to the MASNsports.com crew for filling in for me recently. Looks like I missed a couple impressive pitching performances.
Anyway, enough about me and on to the stuff that matters. Bryce Harper is out of the Nationals lineup again today, missing his second straight contest with a bruised left knee. Ian Desmond will also sit out today, but his absence is merely due to a scheduled day off.
This will be the first game...
When guys get a stint in the big leagues and then head back to the minors, it's easy to forget about them.
You don't see a guy every day, don't get a chance to watch him perform, you lose track of him a bit.
Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.
Anthony Rendon is playing well enough back at Double-A Harrisburg that it's worth discussing how he's performed.
Since returning to Harrisburg after a brief stint in the majors, Rendon has played 12 games. In that time, he's 18-for-44 with three...
Just as Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth appear to be closing in on a return to action, the Nationals have to deal with two more players making their way into the training room.
Manager Davey Johnson told reporters last night that catcher Wilson Ramos reinjured his left hamstring in the Nats' 3-1 loss to the Dodgers, and left-hander Ross Detwiler had back spasms knock him out of yesterday's game after just three innings.
Ramos' injury appears to be the more serious of the two, according to...
Wilson Ramos is heading back to the disabled list yet again.
Manager Davey Johnson told reporters in Los Angeles that Ramos injured his left hamstring in tonight's 3-1 loss to the Dodgers, the same hamstring that Ramos strained back in April.
The Nationals' opening day catcher missed 15 games with the hamstring injury the first time around. He returned to action April 30 in Atlanta but played in just eight contests before injuring the hamstring again.
This time, he'll likely be out a...
The Nationals have lost both members of their battery to apparent injuries in the fourth inning.
Wilson Ramos came out after singling with two outs in the top of the fourth. Ross Detwiler also made his way down into the Nats' clubhouse with a trainer by his side, his night done after just three innings of work.
I'll start the injury-filled blog with notes on Ramos, who just cannot seem to catch a break.
After smoking the ball twice in two at-bats tonight, resulting in two hits, Ramos left...
The Nationals last scored a run in the fifth inning Monday night. Since then, they've gone 16 scoreless frames.
Yeah, for the bulk of those innings they've faced Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, two of the top arms in the majors.
But there haven't been many quality at-bats during that 16-inning stretch, and the results have shown.
The Nats trail 2-0 after three innings tonight, as the Dodgers have scored single runs in the first and second innings. The second run off Nats starter Ross...
The Nationals will have to play another day without Bryce Harper.
Harper, the Nats' leader in pretty much every major offensive statistical category, is out of the lineup for the second straight day after colliding with the right field wall Monday night.
The collision left Harper with a bruised knee and shoulder, and he'll get another day to rest those - among other - ailments.
Denard Span is back in Davey Johnson's lineup tonight after getting most of last night's game off. Steve...
I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.
Let's start with the positive stuff, shall we?
There's a decent chance the Nationals won't have to face Clayton Kershaw again this season. After what we saw from Kershaw last night, I'm sure the Nats' hitters are good with that.
If the Nats do see the 2011 National League Cy Young Award winner again during the regular season, it'll be in one of three games at Nats Park from July 19-21, meaning they have at least two months of...
It's not often you can put up a crooked number against Clayton Kershaw.
The Dodgers left-hander came into today with a 1.62 ERA on the season, having allowed more than two earned runs in just two of his eight starts in 2013.
The Nationals had a chance to get to Kershaw early on in tonight's game, when they loaded the bases with two outs.
Kershaw had already thrown 25 pitches in the first inning by the time Tyler Moore stepped into the batter's box with the sacks packed and two down. The...
Not surprisingly, Bryce Harper is out of the Nationals' lineup the day after crashing face-first into the right field wall at Dodger Stadium, a collision that left him with a bruised knee and shoulder, as well as 11 stitches in his chin.
Harper will miss his third game in the last five days. He sat out last Friday and Saturday's games against the Cubs after having surgery to remove an ingrown toenail.
That procedure surely hurt (I had an ingrown toenail removed a handful of years ago, and...
What is it about Bryce Harper that has allowed him to have so much success at such a young age?
Well, he's immensely talented, of course. At 20, Harper can do things on a baseball field that many players with a decade's worth of experience cannot dream of doing.
Beyond that, however, is Harper's work ethic, his drive, his desire to give his all in every single facet of the game.
Harper's going to outwork you off the field, then he's going to outhustle you on it. That's his goal every...
Eight starts, seven victories, a 1.69 ERA.
Jordan Zimmermann keeps on rolling.
Zimmermann went 7 2/3 innings tonight, allowing two runs on nine hits, striking out five and walking none as the Nationals beat the Dodgers 6-2 in the first game of a three-game set. He's now 7-1 on the season.
The main concern coming out of this game, however, is the health of Bryce Harper, who left in the bottom of the fifth inning after colliding face-first with the right field wall.
We'll wait for updates...
Scary moment out in Los Angeles, as Bryce Harper left tonight's game against the Dodgers after colliding face-first with the right field fence.
Harper was chasing a deep fly ball hit by A.J. Ellis, and lost track of where he was in relation to the wall. As the ball came down over his head, Harper turned and went face-first into the wall, colliding with the chain-link portion of the fence that protects the video board.
He went down in a heap, and after the Nationals were able to corral the...
That headline would have been a heck of a lot smoother if Ryan Zimmerman and Jordan Zimmermann would just get together and agree to have their last names spelled the same way.
Make it happen, fellas. Do it for the sake of my headlines, if nothing else.
The Zimmerman(n) boys have helped the Nationals to an early 4-0 lead over the Dodgers after three innings.
Zimmerman has a two-run double and three RBIs, and Zimmermann has thrown two scoreless innings with two strikeouts.
Both guys are on...
The Nationals kick off a 10-game West Coast road trip with a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the MASN broadcast beginning at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time with "Nats Xtra" pregame.
Jordan Zimmermann pitches for the Nationals and will be opposed by the Dodgers' Josh Beckett. The two right-handers have had distinctly different seasons: Zimmermann is 6-1 with a 1.59 ERA, while Beckett is 0-4 with a 5.13 ERA.
Steve Lombardozzi will make his second straight start in left field for the...
As productive as the Nationals bench was last season - with Chad Tracy, Roger Bernadina, Tyler Moore and Steve Lombardozzi coming through with countless pinch-hits in clutch spots and getting significant playing time in the place of a few injured starters - that group has been pretty quiet through the first six weeks of the 2013 campaign.
In 51 pinch-hit opportunities this season, Nationals hitters have gone just 7-of-48 with two extra-base hits and three walks. That's good for a .146 batting...
After going 3-2 on their brief homestand, the Nationals packed the bags and took off for the west coast, where they'll play 10 games in 10 days.
First is a stop in Los Angeles for three against the Dodgers, who shockingly have started the season 15-21 and are currently last in the National League West.
Yup, the team with the $216 million payroll sits behind the Rockies and Padres nearly a quarter of the way through the season.
You can't predict ball.
Following their three-game set...
It's hard to see any moment in this afternoon's 2-1 Nationals loss looming larger than Davey Johnson's decision to pinch hit for Gio Gonzalez leading off the bottom of the seventh inning.
The Nationals held a 1-0 lead at the time, and Gonzalez had thrown seven scoreless innings, needing just 86 pitches to do so. He still appeared to have plenty left in the tank, but with the Nats managing almost nothing offensively and with a rested Drew Storen and Rafael Soriano in the bullpen, Johnson...
Davey Johnson jokingly calls himself "Captain Hook" because of his quick calls to the bullpen.
We got another Captain Hook sighting at Nationals Park this afternoon.
Johnson decided to go to his bench with Gio Gonzalez set to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning. Gonzalez had thrown just 86 pitches through seven scoreless innings, and he had bounced back from a shaky sixth inning to retire the side in order in the seventh.
Instead of sticking with his starter, however, Johnson...
Like Stephen Strasburg yesterday, Gio Gonzalez has been dominant through four innings today.
We'll see if things go better for Gonzalez the rest of the way out than they did for Strasburg, who melted down in the fifth.
Gonzalez has been perfect through four, retiring all 12 Cubs hitters he's seen, with three strikeouts. He's thrown just 43 pitches thus far, 29 for strikes.
The velocity on Gonzalez's fastball has been a touch down today - he's sitting at 92-93 mph - but the Cubs...