It was a particularly cruel way for the streak to end, with a teammate doing everything he could to make a highlight-reel play only to have the ball bounce off his glove and fall to the ground as a runner crossed the plate.
Stephen Strasburg hadn't given up a run in 35 innings. And that's how an opponent finally did it to him?
"Nah, it was going to happen eventually," the right-hander shrugged. "I was just trying to minimize the damage."
Strasburg did minimize the damage Sunday night....
When the Nationals needed big-time performances against a premier opponent to avoid what would have been a discomforting series sweep, they turned to a pair of tried-and-true veterans who desperately want to deliver for this team when it really matters.
Ryan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg delivered tonight to beat the Dodgers. And both would like nothing more than to deliver a couple weeks from now when the calendar shifts to October.
Zimmerman's three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth...
The crack of the bat said it all. This wasn't a sound anyone had heard around the Nationals batting cage in five weeks. This was the sound only Bryce Harper makes when he connects with a ball during batting practice.
And this being Harper's first on-field BP session since his scary-looking left leg injury on Aug. 12, it drew plenty of attention. From general manager Mike Rizzo, hitting coach Rick Schu and other team personnel standing behind the cage. From reporters and photographers watching...
There may not be all that much riding on this weekend's series, but the Nationals certainly don't want to be swept by the Dodgers. That wouldn't be very good for morale, no matter the significance of these games on what will occur next month.
The good news: Stephen Strasburg is on the mound tonight, and nobody in baseball has pitched better than he has over the last month-plus. Strasburg carries a 34-inning scoreless streak into tonight's game, and all those zeroes haven't been fluky. The...
Edwin Jackson has authored one of the best feel-good stories of the summer for the Nationals, an unlikely source of competent pitching when the club desperately needed someone to step in and replace the injured Joe Ross.
Those who have watched the right-hander throughout his long and winding career, though, have known he's always in danger of regressing back into the form that has forced his career to be long and winding.
And over the last few weeks, those fears have come to fruition.
It came...
There was an undeniable buzz at Nationals Park tonight, with the National League's two best clubs opening a weekend series and drawing extra media attention and a boisterous crowd of 37,508 to South Capitol Street.
Three innings later, with the Dodgers up seven runs and Edwin Jackson taking an early trip to the showers, that buzz had devolved into a soft hum. That was the sound of a lopsided 7-0 result in a game that, truth be told, probably didn't mean nearly as much as everyone wanted it to...
When he was trying to shake off the pitch that caught him square on the left ankle in the bottom of the second inning Thursday night, Jose Lobaton was asked by Nationals director of athletic training Paul Lessard if he could walk.
In that moment, Lobaton honestly couldn't, so he told Lessard he needed to come out of the game. That justifiably had the Nationals concerned about the long-term health of their No. 2 catcher, but those fears were alleviated when X-rays on Lobaton's ankle came back...
The Nationals haven't played any truly meaningful pennant-race games in mid-to-late September in any of the last six seasons. They've always either clinched the division or been too far back to have a realistic chance, leaving these last two weeks of the regular season to relatively meaningless ball.
This weekend, then, provides the closest thing we may experience to exciting pennant-race baseball. The Dodgers are in town, and so this is a showdown between the National League's top two...
It's been looming on the schedule for months, a late-season clash between the teams that have held the National League's top two records nearly the entire year. But when the Nationals and Dodgers open their weekend series tonight, there won't be as much on the line as there might have been not long ago.
The combination of the Nationals' recent surge and the Dodgers' recent slide came together to take some juice away from this series. The Nats, of course, already clinched the NL East title...
In an effort to give many of his regulars a well-deserved breather, Dusty Baker has fielded several lineups recently featuring more rookies and backups than veterans and starters. Not that it has hurt his team's chances of winning. Quite the contrary.
Tonight's "B" lineup was plenty effective at the plate against the Braves, and with Tanner Roark tossing another quality start before handing the game over to his bullpen, the Nationals earned a comfortable 5-2 victory to avoid a series sweep...
Bryce Harper sightings on the field at Nationals Park these days generate the kind of attention usually reserved in this town for a baby panda at the National Zoo. You never know for sure when they're going to happen, and when they do everybody scrambles for their phones to take photos and video of this rare event.
So it was this afternoon when Harper emerged in the right field corner during Nationals batting practice, alongside Harvey Sharman, the club's director of medical services. The...
The Nationals tonight are trying to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Braves, not to mention falling to 7-9 overall against them this season. All of that would be a surprise, given the respective state of clubs, but it does show you that Atlanta is making some strides in its rebuild and the Nats (for whatever reason) haven't enjoyed as much success against these guys as other division foes.
It'll be Tanner Roark's job to pitch well enough to help change that downward trend. Roark has been...
Max Scherzer and Dusty Baker have offered up their explanation for what happened in the seventh inning Wednesday night at Nationals Park. Whether you want to accept their explanation for pushing Scherzer to 116 pitches, even though it might have cost the Nationals the game and may have extended their ace too far, is up to you.
We're not going to debate that again here this morning. The purpose of this post is to examine how that decision may impact Scherzer's chances of winning his second...
It's easy to look at the final three weeks of the regular season, with a division title already wrapped up and a heavy emphasis on ensuring everyone's healthy for the postseason, as a meaningless string of games for the Nationals.
Max Scherzer vehemently disagrees with that notion. And tonight's game, which ended as an ugly 8-2 loss to the Braves, provided evidence of his point of view. Not in spite of the fact he threw 116 pitches, the last 19 of them after he easily could have been pulled...
Dusty Baker has left Max Scherzer on the mound deep into games more than once this season, justifying his decisions based on the fact the league's reigning Cy Young Award winner is better than anyone he could summon from his bullpen.
Earlier this year, given the state of the Nationals' relief corps, it was a defensible decision. And during a pennant race, there's logic to the move. But with the Nats having already wrapped up a division title and now just trying to keep everyone healthy...
Bryce Harper has taken a few more small but important steps in his return from a significant knee and calf injury, offering a more encouraging outlook for his chances to return to the Nationals in time for the postseason.
Harper has begun light hitting and running drills, according to manager Dusty Baker, adding to his earlier throwing sessions as his first attempts at baseball activities since he injured himself Aug. 12 trying to beat out a groundball to first base.
"He's hit some off the...
Last night was a stinker, plain and simple, for the Nationals. They looked pretty lifeless during an 8-0 loss to the Braves. Afterward, they all insisted there was nothing to read into it, it was just a bad game and not a reflection of a team suffering from a letdown after Sunday's clincher.
We'll find out tonight if that's true, or if it really is tough to get yourself hyped up again when you've already clinched and still have three weeks of the regular season to go. It doesn't hurt to...
There are team-oriented objectives for the Nationals over the season's final three weeks, but there also are individually oriented objectives that will help determine how this team looks once it reaches the postseason.
With that in mind, let's take a look at five players for whom this final stretch carries some extra weight, even with the Nationals having already clinched the division crown...
WILMER DIFO The dynamic infielder is going to make the postseason roster; he has earned that spot...
The Nationals sent their regulars out to face the Braves tonight, hoping they'd still play with the same edge they displayed over the weekend while locking up another division title. They wound up getting one of their worst clunkers of the season.
With Gio Gonzalez laboring and that lineup of regulars flailing away against Julio Teheran, the Nationals were trounced 8-0 in the first of 19 games left on the schedule before the postseason.
Technically speaking, the Nats don't need to put forth...
And on the day after, Dusty Baker played his regulars.
Though their latest division title has already been secured, the Nationals don't appear to taking their foot off the gas pedal anytime soon. Baker's lineup for tonight's series opener against the Braves - all the currently active regulars are starting except for Jayson Werth, who is dealing with a sore left shoulder - is evidence of that, as are the manager's answers when asked how he plans to handle the final three weeks of the regular...