LOS ANGELES - The highly anticipated Stephen Strasburg vs. Clayton Kershaw matchup didn't happen, but Yusmeiro Petit is doing what he can to at least keep this thing interesting.
Forced into emergency duty when Strasburg was scratched with a strained upper back, Petit faced the daunting challenge of matching up with perhaps the best pitcher on the planet and holding the Dodgers lineup in check along the way.
Three innings in, Petit has made just one mistake. That mistake, though, sailed over...
LOS ANGELES - One of the season's most anticipated pitching matchups won't happen after all.
The Nationals were forced to scratch Stephen Strasburg from tonight's outing against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers with an upper back strain. Reliever Yusmeiro Petit will now start in his place, facing a stiff challenge on short notice.
The change was announced less than 90 minutes before first pitch at Dodger Stadium. Strasburg had arrived at the ballpark earlier in the afternoon, walking into the...
LOS ANGELES - Hello from the one and only Dodger Stadium, still beautiful after all these years, even when it's 107 degrees. Yes, you read that right. It's 107 degrees as I sit here in the open-air press box preparing tonight's lineups thread. I've been to L.A. in the summer countless times in my life - we used to come here almost every summer when I was a kid - and I cannot ever remember it being anywhere close to this hot. The good news, if there is any: It'll be dropping back down into...
Some thoughts before I board my flight to Los Angeles, where the Nationals and Dodgers open a three-game series late tonight...
* If you like marquee pitching matchups, they don't get a whole lot better than tonight's showdown at Dodger Stadium.
Yes, it's Stephen Strasburg vs. Clayton Kershaw. How good are these two guys? Let us count the ways.
Strasburg is 10-0 this season, Kershaw is 10-1.
Strasburg has 118 strikeouts and only 24 walks this season. Kershaw has 133 strikeouts and - good...
What was shaping up to be an impressive weekend to start the Nationals' first West Coast trip of the season instead ended on a sour note, with back-to-back losses in San Diego resulting in a four-game split at Petco Park.
Another shaky start by Gio Gonzalez this afternoon turned into a 6-3 loss to the Padres, the Nationals' second straight after two strong wins to begin the long weekend series.
Gonzalez gave up six runs (five earned) over 5 1/3 innings that got progressively laborious as his...
The Nationals are about to get a serious helping of southpaws, including one of the best baseball has seen in decades.
Beginning with today's series finale in San Diego, the Nationals are scheduled to face four consecutive left-handed starters: the Padres' Drew Pomeranz, then the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, Scott Kazmir and Julio Urias.
Kershaw, owner of a mere 1.87 ERA over the last four seasons and a 133-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio this season, looms large Monday night at Dodger Stadium....
On the heels of perhaps their worst loss of the season, the Nationals will try to bounce back this afternoon and close out their four-game series in San Diego on a high note. Three out of four anywhere ain't half-bad, and the Nats would happily take that before making the short trip up the coast to Los Angeles, where Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers await Monday night.
Gio Gonzalez needs a bounceback performance of his own today after a rough stretch that has seen the left-hander go 1-4 with a...
The Nationals have long seen in Felipe Rivero a dynamic left-hander with the kind of overwhelming stuff that suggest he could become a big league closer some day in the not-too-distant future.
That may yet happen, but at this particular moment, Rivero looks like a pitcher in need of a major overhaul.
"He's in a bad state right now," manager Dusty Baker told reporters in San Diego following last night's 7-3 loss. "Nothing's really going his way."
That's an understatement. Rivero has...
Thanks to some timely hits, a dominant-at-times start from Max Scherzer and a couple fortuitous breaks, the Nationals found themselves in prime position to win their fourth straight game tonight and expand their ever-growing lead in the NL East.
Instead, an eighth-inning meltdown by reliever Felipe Rivero turned a well-played victory over the Padres into perhaps the Nats' worst loss of the season.
Rivero failed to retire any of the six batters he faced during a calamitous bottom of the eighth...
The Nationals have been waiting 2 1/2 months to see if their entire lineup is capable of coming together at the same time and producing like one of the best lineups in the majors.
That time may finally be arriving.
The Nationals have turned into a consistent offensive force over the last couple of weeks. They've scored an average of 6.8 runs over their last 12 games. Not surprisingly, they've gone 10-2 during this stretch.
And production isn't just coming from one or two sources. After...
Do the Nationals have another late-night win in them? They've already taken the first two games of this series in San Diego, piling up 15 total runs and launching five homers. Now they'll try to make it three in a row, once again facing the Padres late tonight at Petco Park.
Max Scherzer gets this start for the Nationals, looking to duplicate his dominant outing in San Diego last season, when he tossed seven scoreless innings, striking out 11. Right-hander Colin Rea takes the mound for the...
When Dusty Baker named Shawn Kelley his interim closer late Thursday night, the chosen replacement for Jonathan Papelbon while the latter endures through the first DL stint of his career, he did so with a caveat.
"We think he's best suited for that until Pap gets back," Baker told reporters in San Diego. "But again, he's thrown two days in a row, and I doubt if he'll be in that situation again tomorrow. He'd love to do it again. He'll never not take the ball, but sometimes we have to...
Cross-country flights. Late-night starts. No off-days. Nothing right now seems to be able to derail the Nationals, who were at it again tonight during a 7-5 victory over the Padres.
With another offensive explosion at Petco Park, the Nationals won for the 10th time in their last 12 games and in the process expanded their lead in the National League East to a season-high six games.
Ryan Zimmerman and Daniel Murphy each homered, and Murphy added a two-run double to pace another well-balanced...
The Padres knew they were giving up a lot when they sent Trea Turner to the Nationals as part of a December 2014 three-team trade that also brought prized prospect Wil Myers from Tampa Bay to San Diego.
They just didn't know long before Turner makes any real impact in the big leagues, they'd be watching Joe Ross do just that.
Ross, widely considered a secondary piece of that blockbuster trade, has proven a revelation for the Nationals, a highly promising young right-hander who has become a...
The Nationals didn't appear to suffer at all from jet lag last night in the first game of their first West Coast trip of the season. The bats were alive during an 8-5 win over the Padres that included home runs from Bryce Harper, Wilson Ramos and Anthony Rendon.
Whether all the late nights and travel catch up to them tonight remains to be seen. This much is certain: Joe Ross should be plenty motivated facing the organization that drafted and then traded him. Ross has pitched against the Padres...
The Nationals have been waiting for Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon to start hitting like Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon again. With each passing day, it looks like both stars are finding their way back to their old selves.
Harper and Rendon each played a key role in last night's 8-5 win in San Diego, but it was more than the mere production they contributed (Harper homered and drove in three runs, Rendon also homered).
It was the manner in which they produced that was particularly striking,...
The home run has become such a big part of the Nationals' offensive attack, they're even managing to hit them in bunches in one of baseball's most spacious ballparks.
With three more homers tonight, the Nationals outslugged the Padres 8-5, fazed not one bit by the expanded dimensions at Petco Park.
Bryce Harper and Wilson Ramos hit back-to-back opposite-field shots in the top of the third. Anthony Rendon added a solo blast in the sixth, raising the Nats' season total to 91 homers, tops in...
A full 41 percent of the baseball season has now been played, which is more than ample time for teams to face a wide assortment of competition from other divisions within their own league and even outside their own league.
So how is it that the Nationals tonight are facing their very first National League West opponent of 2016?
In an odd quirk to their schedule, the Nats somehow avoided any NL West opponent through their first 66 games. They are the only team in the majors who hasn't yet...
On the heels of their dramatic, 12-inning victory last night against the Cubs, the Nationals open their first West Coast trip of the season with the first of four games in San Diego. Tanner Roark gets the start in tonight's opener, looking to build off his strong start against the Phillies his last time out.
Right-hander Erik Johnson, acquired by the Padres from the White Sox in the recent James Shields trade, takes the mound at Petco Park. He'll be facing a Nationals lineup that is without...
The Nationals and top draft pick Carter Kieboom agreed to terms this week on a deal that will pay the 18-year-old shortstop a $2 million signing bonus, a source familiar with the decision confirmed.
That amount, which was first reported by MLB.com's Jim Callis, is roughly the same as Major League Baseball's predetermined slot amount of $2,065,900 for the 28th overall selection in last week's draft.
The club has yet to announce Kieboom's signing, but he appeared at Nationals Park on Monday,...