Mark Zuckerman
Mark Zuckerman

News and notes to wrap up the work week in Viera

News and notes to wrap up the work week in Viera
VIERA, Fla. - Some odds and ends to wrap up the work week at Nationals spring training ... * We had a rare, star-studded matchup in live batting practice this morning, with Max Scherzer on the mound to face a group of hitters that included Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman. That sort of thing doesn't happen very often. (I recall a last-minute session last spring that pitted Harper against Stephen Strasburg, but that's about the only other showdown of this caliber I can remember taking place...
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Mark Zuckerman

Injury-plagued season behind him, Rendon starts anew

Injury-plagued season behind him, Rendon starts anew
VIERA, Fla. - It was a seemingly innocuous play, a simple dive to field a hard bouncer to his left. Anthony Rendon made the play, snagging Alberto Callaspo's chopper and firing a one-hopper to first to nail the Braves infielder. The sparse crowd at Space Coast Stadium applauded. Who could have known at the time that last March 9 play would have such lasting consequences for Rendon, and perhaps the Nationals as a whole? "Just bad luck," Rendon said this week, recalling the incident. What at...
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Mark Zuckerman

Werth returns to camp, believes he can return to past form

Werth returns to camp, believes he can return to past form
VIERA, Fla. - Jayson Werth was back at Space Coast Stadium this morning, still under the weather but feeling better than he did Thursday, when the Nationals sent him home so his illness wouldn't spread through the clubhouse. A day or two off at this early stage of the spring won't do anything to set Werth back in his preparation for the season. But as he approaches 37, with a surgically repaired right shoulder he suggested still isn't 100 percent and a history of freak-yet-serious left wrist...
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Mark Zuckerman

Baker's message: "Think like a family"

Baker's message: "Think like a family"
VIERA, Fla. - Dusty Baker had plenty of time to think about what he wanted to say to his new Nationals roster in his first full-squad meeting Thursday morning. He prepared an outline in his mind, but he has always preferred not to write out an actual speech in advance. He'd rather speak from the heart once the time arrives. So what was Baker's message when he finally opened his mouth before Thursday's first full-squad workout of the spring? "You want them to start thinking like a...
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Mark Zuckerman

Observations and quotes from Thursday's workout

Observations and quotes from Thursday's workout
VIERA, Fla. - Conditions weren't exactly ideal when the Nationals trotted onto the back fields outside Space Coast Stadium for their first full squad workout of the spring. Temperatures in the 50s? A 30-mph wind howling from the northwest? Not quite what Dusty Baker expected. "It was kind of chilly, considering we're in Florida," the new manager said. "But they didn't say anything. They just worked, which is what I like." Some observations (non-weather-related) from today's workout...
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Mark Zuckerman

Sent home sick, Jayson Werth misses first workout

Sent home sick, Jayson Werth misses first workout
VIERA, Fla. - The Nationals' first full-squad workout of the spring came and went without one of the club's most recognizable players in attendance. Jayson Werth was absent from this morning's workout on the fields outside Space Coast Stadium due to an illness that left the veteran outfielder in bed. "We sent him home," manager Dusty Baker said. "He was sick. So we quarantined him. We didn't want him to spread it." Werth had appeared at the stadium several times earlier this week,...
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Mark Zuckerman

Blake Treinen stunned to be part of "Jeopardy!" clue

Blake Treinen stunned to be part of "Jeopardy!" clue
VIERA, Fla. - Blake Treinen was hanging out Wednesday evening, minding his own business, when his phone rang. He glanced down, saw it was his mother calling and answered, assuming she was just checking in on things. The call proved to be not nearly as banal as that. "You're never going to guess what happened!" she yelled into the phone. "You were a clue on 'Jeopardy!'" Within minutes, Treinen's phone was buzzing nonstop, with Nationals teammates and coaches, old friends and relatives...
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Mark Zuckerman

Health is Ryan Zimmerman's real issue in 2016

Health is Ryan Zimmerman's real issue in 2016
VIERA, Fla. - So far in this first week of spring training, nearly all discussion of Ryan Zimmerman has been focused on his attempt to clear his name in the wake of Al Jazeera America's controversial documentary naming him as a receiver of performance enhancing drugs. Zimmerman spent roughly 20 minutes Tuesday answering question after question about that documentary and the subsequent defamation lawsuit he and the Phillies' Ryan Howard have filed against Al Jazeera, one of the network's...
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Mark Zuckerman

Teammates get hacks in against Scherzer in live BP session

Teammates get hacks in against Scherzer in live BP session
VIERA, Fla. - The prospect of the first live batting practice session of the spring brought a little extra sense of excitement to Nationals camp this morning. That excitement, though, was dampened by the prospect of a major line of storms sweeping across Florida and supposedly set to barrel through the Space Coast smack dab during the middle of the workout. Turns out, all they got was a little rain and some strong wind, nothing severe enough to disrupt the workout. "The main thing is we dodged...
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Mark Zuckerman

Nick Johnson rejoins Nationals as spring training instructor

Nick Johnson rejoins Nationals as spring training instructor
VIERA, Fla. - It's been seven years since Nick Johnson last donned a Nationals uniform, but there was something comforting about the site of the former first baseman standing at the batting cage this morning, a curly W on his cap, watching current members of the team take swings off live pitchers. What, exactly, is Johnson doing here? "Whatever they need me to do," he said succinctly, to this day still a man of few words. Officially, Johnson is in camp for 10 days as a special instructor....
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Mark Zuckerman

Robinson not taking anything for granted after breakthrough 2015

Robinson not taking anything for granted after breakthrough 2015
VIERA, Fla. - When he arrived back home in Fayetteville, Ark., in October, Clint Robinson could well have been viewed a wholly different man than he was when he left eight months prior. After nearly a decade in professional baseball and 921 minor league games, he had finally broken through as a big leaguer for a full season, a successful one at that. Anybody who knows Robinson, of course, knows that would never be the case. Because he would never allow it to be the case. "Everybody knows how...
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Mark Zuckerman

What's the story behind Dusty Baker's toothpick?

What's the story behind Dusty Baker's toothpick?
VIERA, Fla. - Close your eyes and conjure up an image of Dusty Baker, watching his team from the top step of the dugout - cap on, sunglasses perched on his nose, hand to his chin as he ponders his next move. Now what does Baker have in his mouth? A toothpick, right? It has become synonymous with the Nationals' new manager. For decades, he's rarely been seen at work without a toothpick twirling between his lips. But why? How and when did this all start? Baker shared the story Tuesday from his...
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Mark Zuckerman

Baker realizes tough pitching decisions loom this spring

Baker realizes tough pitching decisions loom this spring
VIERA, Fla. - With only four days of official pitchers and catchers workouts in the books, Dusty Baker is still trying to get a full sense of what exactly he has to work with at Nationals camp. Some players' names still elude him, and his scouting reports are far from complete, but the new manager does have a strong overall impression on the state of his pitching staff. "I've had some good teams, but these are the toughest pitching decisions I've ever had to make," said Baker, who has two...
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Mark Zuckerman

Ryan Zimmerman denies PED use, explains defamation suit

Ryan Zimmerman denies PED use, explains defamation suit
VIERA, Fla. - Ryan Zimmerman today vehemently denied ever using performance enhancing drugs or knowing the trainer who accused him of using them, and offered a detailed explanation why he was willing to file a defamation suit against the television network that aired the allegation that jolted the Nationals first baseman's offseason. In his first public comments since Al Jazeera America aired a documentary in December accusing him and several other high-profile athletes of receiving shipments...
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Mark Zuckerman

All position players in Nats camp on time

All position players in Nats camp on time
VIERA, Fla. - It's finally the official reporting date for all Nationals position players, though that deadline didn't mean much to most this spring. Every single player had already arrived by Monday, with only Wilmer Difo remaining among the unseen. Well, rest easy folks, because Difo is now here. He reported on time, giving the Nats a completely full clubhouse. We sometimes make too big a deal out of early arrivals, but I do have to say I think it's notable how many regulars arrived not...
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Mark Zuckerman

Oliver Perez wants to reward Nats for initiating career revival

Oliver Perez wants to reward Nats for initiating career revival
VIERA, Fla. - Oliver Perez's career was on the brink of collapse. He had sported a 5.09 ERA over his past six seasons with the Pirates and Mets, and now he was left to accept a minor league contract offer from the Nationals. Perez took the offer, mostly because of his past relationship with Nationals minor league pitching coordinator Spin Williams, who had been his first big league pitching coach in Pittsburgh. He reported to Double-A Harrisburg, a once-promising left-hander now reduced to...
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Mark Zuckerman

Nats concede Mets are "team to beat" right now in NL East

Nats concede Mets are "team to beat" right now in NL East
VIERA, Fla. - The Nationals know very much what it's like to be labeled as National League East favorites and know very much how little that actually means in the end. So as they gather in late February for the start of the long grind, they're perfectly fine ceding that designation to the division's reigning champs: the Mets. "The team to beat are the Mets," right fielder Bryce Harper said Monday in his first media session of 2016. "That's what it is right now. They kicked the crap out...
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Mark Zuckerman

Bryce Harper talks leadership and his status with the Nats

Bryce Harper talks leadership and his status with the Nats
VIERA, Fla. - When he sat in the first base dugout at Space Coast Stadium one year ago for a 12-minute, first-day-of-spring session with reporters, Bryce Harper was a whirlwind of emotion, confidence and quips that was defined by a line that haunted him for months: "Where's my ring?" When he sat in the same dugout Monday morning for a 17-minute, first-day-of-spring session with reporters, Harper offered no such headline for the masses. Slowly but surely, he's learning how to avoid the kind...
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Mark Zuckerman

Dusty Baker offers glimpse into lineup construction

Dusty Baker offers glimpse into lineup construction
VIERA, Fla. - Dusty Baker readily admits he's been scribbling out potential lineups since he was named Nationals manager in November, but he genuinely doesn't know yet what that lineup will actually look like once opening day arrives. "Not until I see them," he said. "I got an idea. But I can't tell you, because you're going to make up my lineup." Well, yeah, we all do tend to try to predict lineups before the manager does. It's human nature. Baker did offer some insight, though, into...
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Mark Zuckerman

How Dusty Baker plans to keep his regulars fresh

How Dusty Baker plans to keep his regulars fresh
VIERA, Fla. - One of the trickiest tasks for any manager is the fine balancing act of playing his everyday regulars as much as possible while still keeping his bench players fresh. Dusty Baker knows how much that plays a role into a team's success over a full season. And he feels like his five decades in baseball give him the kind of perspective that helps make those tough decisions a little bit easier. "Being a former position player, I know how to run this race," Baker said Sunday. "And...
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