Two days after adding two fresh arms to their bullpen, the Nationals added two more, continuing an ongoing attempt to find the right combination of youthful relievers to get them through the remainder of the season.
Today's additions: Sam Clay and Patrick Murphy, each promoted from Triple-A Rochester. They replace Gabe Klobosits, who was optioned to Rochester, and Jefry Rodriguez, who was designated for assignment.
Clay is no stranger to the Nationals bullpen, having spent the first four...
After a run of games against contending clubs, the Nationals tonight open a three-game series against the club that currently occupies the basement of the National League East, right below them. The Marlins, like the Nats, are rebuilding, though in their case it feels more like a perpetual rebuild.
But like the Nationals, the Marlins have some intriguing young players, especially on their pitching staff. And tonight we'll see one of them in Jesús Luzardo, the former Nats prospect who went...
The Nationals are promoting Cade Cavalli to Triple-A Rochester, bringing their top pitching prospect one step closer to the big leagues, a source familiar with the decision confirmed.
Cavalli, the organization's 2020 first-round pick, made 11 starts at Double-A Harrisburg, producing a 2.79 ERA, 1.276 WHIP and 80 strikeouts in only 58 innings. At times, the right-hander dominated the competition, though he continues to have some command issues, which led to 35 walks and five wild pitches in his...
In their continued quest to improve organizational depth, the Nationals claimed Mike Ford off waivers from the Rays on Monday, hoping the former Yankees first baseman can produce at Triple-A and perhaps help out at the big league level at some point.
Ford, 29, has spent parts of the last three seasons in the majors with the Yankees, first making a name for himself as a rookie in 2019 when he hit .259 with 12 homers, a .350 on-base percentage and .909 OPS in 50 games.
He failed to reproduce...
Well, it was kind of an ugly weekend in Milwaukee for the Nationals, but these last two losses shouldn't completely overshadow the three wins that preceded them last week. Nor the continued positive developments involving several young players who are starting to make a name for themselves as long-term parts of the plan around here.
We're nearly four weeks removed from the trade deadline now, and as painful as it's been at times, there does seem to be some legitimate optimism surrounding the...
An inexperienced pitching staff is going to make mistakes. Davey Martinez understands and accepts that. What the Nationals manager has a harder time accepting is a pitching staff that is killing itself not by getting hit by more accomplished hitters, but by handing them free bases over and over and over.
It happened during Saturday's loss in Milwaukee, and it happened in even more mind-numbing fashion during today's 7-3 loss to the Brewers.
Five Nationals pitchers combined to issue 11 walks...
An ever-changing Nationals bullpen saw the return of two familiar right-handers today, with both Austin Voth and Kyle McGowin activated off the injured list. And an ever-changing Nats roster saw the departures of two familiar faces as a result, with Javy Guerra designated for assignment while Andrew Stevenson was optioned to Triple-A Rochester.
The transactions, announced about 90 minutes before today's series finale in Milwaukee, give the Nationals a couple of moderately experienced arms, in...
The Nationals' winning streak ended Saturday in Milwaukee, but they've still got a chance to win the weekend series if they can bounce back in this afternoon's finale. All things considered, that's not a bad position to be in.
They're going to need to get some quality innings out of Sean Nolin, who gets the start as Joe Ross' replacement for now. Nolin, the 31-year-old journeyman left-hander, made one other start for the Nats 10 days ago in New York and gave up four runs on eight hits in...
For 2 1/2 seasons, the Nationals had nothing but veteran catchers on their roster. Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki joined forces to win a championship in 2019, then returned to work together in 2020. And after Suzuki departed as a free agent last winter, the Nats brought in Alex Avila to back up Gomes this season, again ensuring they'd have two seasoned guys behind the plate.
These days? Well, the Nats' catching position couldn't look any more dramatically different. With Gomes traded to the...
The Nationals' rebuild will be a success if they can get more than a few of the young players who now make up the majority of their roster to develop into legitimate contributors.
It'll be an even bigger and faster success if they can also get their few remaining veterans to return to the form they displayed while winning the World Series two years ago.
So consider tonight's 4-1 victory over the Brewers a best-case-scenario kind of night. They not only got contributions from a host of...
The Nationals didn't need to utilize a fifth starter until next weekend, but they've decided to go ahead and plug Sean Nolin into their rotation now.
Nolin, the 31-year-old left-hander who has been available out of the bullpen for the last week since making one spot start against the Mets, will start Sunday's series finale against the Brewers, manager Davey Martinez said.
Nolin takes over the rotation spot that opened up with Joe Ross had to be shut down for the rest of the season with a...
Fresh off a two-game sweep of the Blue Jays, the Nationals now embark on a nine-game road trip that kicks off with a tough challenge: a weekend series in Milwaukee. The Brewers have won eight of 10 and now hold a commanding 8 1/2-game lead in the National League Central. They're doing it with elite pitching, especially from an imposing threesome atop their rotation (Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta) that should give them a chance to beat anybody come October. (Sound...
From the moment he arrived in the big leagues in 2018, Juan Soto's ability to reach base has outshone every other baseball skill of his. And he's got plenty of elite skills.
For all his prowess hitting for power, hitting to the opposite field, just hitting in general, Soto has always made a name for himself first and foremost because of his batting eye. That, more than anything, has led to his .422 career on-base percentage, a mark that during that four-season span has been bested by only one...
Amid the chaos of his move from the Nationals to the Blue Jays just prior to last month's trade deadline, Brad Hand couldn't help but chuckle when he noticed where one of his new team's first road trips would take him.
"Right when I got traded, I looked at the Toronto schedule and knew that we were coming here in two weeks," Hand said Tuesday near the visitors' dugout at Nationals Park. "I left my golf clubs here, so I'll have to pick those up."
It was a convenient - or perhaps in some...
The opportunity was too good for Davey Martinez to pass up. Though it was probably Tres Barrera's turn to catch tonight's series opener against the Blue Jays, the Nationals manager wanted to give Riley Adams a chance to face the team that traded him three weeks ago.
Adams, Martinez would reveal in the dugout before the game, was notably excited when his manager told him he'd be starting tonight. And then the 25-year-old took his latest step in making his case to be part of this rebuilding...
Joe Ross won't need Tommy John surgery for now, but the Nationals right-hander will miss the rest of the season after getting examined by the Dallas-area orthopedist who performed his first elbow ligament replacement four years ago.
The diagnosis from Keith Meister was a sprained ulnar collateral ligament, which is consistent with the team's initial MRI results last weekend that showed a partial tear. A full tear would've guaranteed Tommy John surgery. The partial tear leaves some leeway for...
After a string of games against the National League East's remaining contenders, the Nationals now take a break for a quick interleague series. They'll host the Blue Jays tonight and Wednesday afternoon (weather permitting), which means a little bit of a reunion.
It was just a few weeks ago that Brad Hand was dealt to Toronto in exchange for Riley Adams. We don't know if we'll see Hand out of the Blue Jays bullpen tonight or not, but we will see Adams in the Nats lineup. The rookie catcher...
It had been the one constant around these parts for the better part of the decade. When you thought of the Nationals, you thought first and foremost of one thing: a dominant rotation.
Max Scherzer. Stephen Strasburg. Patrick Corbin. Jordan Zimmermann. Doug Fister. Gio González. AnÃbal Sánchez. Those are the starters who defined the Nats' consistent pitching success over a prolonged stretch of winning baseball.
And the correlation was legitimate. Take the Nationals rotation's six best...
On Sunday afternoon, Lane Thomas became the 54th player to appear in a game for the Nationals this season. That's an exceptionally high number, only three shy of the club record set way back in 2006. And with 44 games still to go, and more players likely to join the roster before this is over, it's quite possible this year's team will establish a new record.
The pertinent question right now, though, isn't how many guys will play for the Nationals in 2021. It's how many of the guys...
As miserable as things have been lately for a Nationals team that has turned winning baseball games into an increasingly difficult task, one not insignificant truth has emerged: They've given themselves an opportunity to win just about every one of these games.
Sure, there have been a few duds along the way, and Saturday night's blowout loss to the Braves was probably the worst of them all. But most of the time, the rebuilding Nats step to the plate in the ninth inning with a chance to turn a...