SAN FRANCISCO - Tanner Roark gave them the seven strong innings they needed from their starter. The lineup delivered a quick burst of two-out hits off Johnny Cueto that put the Nationals in position to lead nearly the entire night.
But no victory is compete until the ninth inning is complete. And anyone who has followed the Nationals recently knows just how difficult it has been to complete that ninth inning with a lead intact.
The Nationals did manage to do it tonight and pull off a 4-2...
SAN FRANCISCO - Trea Turner is starting in center field again tonight for the Nationals, the rookie's third straight game at the position he had never played professionally until a six-game tryout at Triple-A Syracuse a month ago.
That shouldn't come as a huge surprise, given Turner's offensive performance the last two days in Cleveland - 4-for-8 with two doubles, three RBIs, a walk and a stolen base - and his adequate play in the outfield. But manager Dusty Baker isn't committing to the...
SAN FRANCISCO - Denard Span isn't having a great season, not by his standards. But the 32-year-old outfielder is healthy again after an agonizing 2015 with the Nationals that included three different surgeries, never-ending rehab and then the uncertainty that accompanied that once he hit free agency last fall.
So as he prepares to face his former club this weekend, Span has come to appreciate the opportunity he was given by the Giants, who despite his health questions over the winter were...
SAN FRANCISCO - Hello from AT&T Park, simply one of the finest venues in baseball, where the Nationals and Giants tonight open a four-game weekend series between a pair of first-place clubs sporting identical 59-42 records. Between the strong matchup on the field and the specter of Monday's trade deadline looming, this is obviously a big weekend.
The Nationals come here with some significant question marks, but Dusty Baker has chosen to answer one of those (who is leading off and playing...
SAN FRANCISCO - Good morning from the left coast, where tonight the Nationals open a four-game weekend series with the Giants, another significant test for this team during a long road trip.
(OK, so I need to be honest with you: I'm not actually in San Francisco as I type this. I'm somewhere over the Midwest, 33,000 feet in the air, en route from Cleveland. It's still Wednesday night. But by the time you read this in the morning, I will be in San Francisco. Promise.)
Before we move ahead and...
CLEVELAND - Ballclubs can plan a season out, think they have everything set as they prefer, even have contingencies in place in case something goes awry. But sometimes they still have to adjust on the fly and go with something that may not have been their preferred course of action but became necessary to attempt to win that day's game.
The Nationals thought they had most everything planned out properly this season, and even well into the summer. But when things started to go awry in the last...
CLEVELAND - Two sure ways to wash away the bitter taste of back-to-back losses via bullpen meltdown: 1) Get a dominant start from one of your aces, and 2) Score enough runs that you don't need to send your embattled closer back to the mound.
The Nationals did both this afternoon, riding Stephen Strasburg's seven innings of scoreless ball and clutch hits from Trea Turner and Daniel Murphy to a 4-1 victory over the Indians that salvaged a two-game series split at Progressive Field.
Back to work...
CLEVELAND - Jonathan Papelbon has pitched four of the last five days, and has given up six total runs in two most recent outings, leaving Dusty Baker facing quite a conundrum: Who does he turn to if he needs a closer in this afternoon's series finale against the Indians?
The Nationals manager couldn't offer up a definitive answer this morning.
"Sometimes as a closer you've got to go four or five days in a row sometimes, which I don't like to do," Baker said. "A closer either pitches a...
CLEVELAND - The illness that made Stephen Drew unavailable to the Nationals for six days last week has now landed him on the disabled list.
Drew was placed on the 15-day DL this morning after a recurrence of the dizziness that plagued him last week while he was out with what the club initially called "flu-like symptoms." The veteran infielder no longer has those traditional symptoms, but he continues to feel dizzy, so the club is now referring to his ailment as "vertigo-like symptoms."
Drew...
CLEVELAND - And we're back. Only 11 hours have passed since the Nationals walked off the field in disgust following a 7-6 loss to the Indians, but everyone is back at Progressive Field, preparing for today's early matinee (12:10 p.m.) to wrap up this unusual two-game interleague series. This could be a good thing (no time to stew over the loss) or it could be a bad thing (the hangover effect). We'll just have to wait and see.
One good thing from the Nats' perspective: Stephen Strasburg is...
CLEVELAND - Trea Turner had been standing out in center field in a big league game for all of two minutes when the first ball came his way. It was a drive to the gap in right-center by the Indians' Jason Kipnis, and though Turner ran a good route in an attempt to make the play, he pulled up ever so slightly at the fence and couldn't do much as the ball struck the warning track and bounced over the fence for a ground rule double.
Then, fewer than 10 minutes later, it happened again. Jose...
CLEVELAND - Jonathan Papelbon has blown more than a few saves in his career. Forty-nine of them, to be precise. So when it happens, he refuses to convey any sense of fear.
"My confidence in this game has never fluctuated, and it never will," the 35-year-old closer said tonight. "I think that's something that's never really happened to me."
Papelbon's confidence may not fluctuate, but his opinion honestly isn't the one that matters most right now. In the wake of his latest meltdown, a...
CLEVELAND - The new-look lineup produced some early runs, knocking out a tough opposing starter. The erratic lefty bounced back from a shaky first inning to turn in a quality start. All the Nationals needed was for the back end of their bullpen to close out the opener of a tough road trip.
Which that much maligned unit once again could not do.
Jonathan Papelbon blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, suffering his second loss in as many games as the Nationals were left stunned by the...
CLEVELAND - When the Nationals chose to demote Michael A. Taylor to Triple-A Syracuse as the corresponding move for Ryan Zimmerman's activation off the disabled list, they dropped something of a hint in the process: Trea Turner was going to find his way into the lineup, perhaps in center field.
Sure enough, when he filled out his lineup card for tonight's interleague series opener against the Indians, Dusty Baker went with the rookie in the leadoff spot and (for the first time in his brief...
CLEVELAND - Joe Ross is back with the Nationals this week, part of their traveling contingent for their interleague series against the Indians. But he's not back in their rotation just yet, still needing to make at least one more rehab start before he can be activated off the disabled list.
Ross made the first of his rehab starts Sunday at Single-A Hagerstown, tossing three scoreless innings on 43 pitches. The right-hander said he emerged from that outing with no shoulder issues, but he...
CLEVELAND - Hello from Progressive Field in the heart of downtown Cleveland, home of champio...sorry, that still just doesn't sound right. This town is still awash in the glow of the Cavaliers' NBA title, the first major pro sports championship by anyone here since 1964. And now the Indians are trying to make their own run, some 68 years removed from their last World Series crown. They may not be garnering as much attention as they deserve, but they currently sit in first place in the...
The Nationals like Aroldis Chapman. A lot.
Mike Rizzo tried to sign the closer out of Cuba in 2010, and even thought he had outbid every other franchise in the majors for him (until it turned out the Reds had done it instead).
Dusty Baker, of course, managed Chapman his first four seasons in the big leagues, continues to speak glowingly about the flame-throwing left-hander and was one of his staunchest supporters after the pitcher was suspended for domestic violence.
So the Nationals, to make...
Three starts into Lucas Giolito's career, the only thing the Nationals know for sure about their 22-year-old pitching prospect is that they don't really know yet what they've got.
Giolito arrived in the big leagues late last month with a near-flawless pedigree. He had the stuff, the maturity and the presence to suggest he was ready for the big show.
The results, though, haven't matched up with the pedigree. And now, following another underwhelming performance yesterday during what became a...
The Nationals, believe it or not, entered the day with the majors' lowest bullpen ERA (2.85), the fourth-lowest WHIP and sixth-lowest batting average against. Yet there is no unit on the roster that appears more in need of help as the trade deadline approaches than this team's relief corps.
It's an odd dichotomy between stats and the eye test, but games like today's 10-6 loss to the Padres only underscore the challenge facing general manager Mike Rizzo before the Aug. 1 deadline hits in...
If the current back end of the Nationals bullpen wanted to convince general manager Mike Rizzo that he doesn't need to make any major acquisitions before next week's trade deadline, this wasn't the way to do it.
Shawn Kelley and Jonathan Papelbon combined to give up six runs in the eighth and ninth innings this afternoon, turning a two-run lead into a 10-6 loss to the Padres that might have underscored this first place club's biggest weakness entering the final week of July.
Handed a 6-4...