Ian Desmond is one of three Nationals to play in all 40 games so far this season. Unlike right fielder Jayson Werth (.304/.391/.453) and second/third baseman Anthony Rendon (.282/.312/.479), the other two Nats to play in all 40, the 28-year-old shortstop has struggled at the plate (.226/.275/.368), while committing a major league-leading 10 errors.
With the primary backup at short, Danny Espinosa, pressed into everyday action with Ryan Zimmerman on the disabled list, Nats skipper Matt Williams...
Mike Rizzo reluctantly parted with 2010 fourth-round pick A.J. Cole in the December 2011 trade with the Oakland A's that brought Gio Gonzalez to the nation's capital in return for Cole, left-hander Tom Milone, right-hander Brad Peacock and catcher Derek Norris.
Given a chance to reacquire Cole a year later when the Athletics got involved in three-team talks with the Nationals and Seattle Mariners, Rizzo pulled the trigger on a deal that brought the 21-year-old Cole back to the organization...
With the 57th pick of last June's draft, the Nationals selected left-handed pitcher Andrew Suarez out of the University of Miami.
Suarez, 21, and a 6-foot-2 southpaw, went 6-3 with a 2.95 ERA in 16 starts for the Hurricanes, walking 15 (1.23 walks/nine innings) and striking out 87 (7.14 strikeouts/nine innings) in 109 2/3 innings pitched.
"We tried to take the best player available," assistant general manger and vice president of scouting operations Kris Kline told reporters when asked about...
As Mike Rizzo explained this winter, the decision to move Bryce Harper to right field and Jayson Werth to left field served two purposes. One, Werth could "save his legs" with less ground to cover in left, which Rizzo explained would lead to less wear in the short and long-term for the 35-year-old outfielder.
With Harper in right, the Nationals general manager said the team has younger legs capable of covering more ground, and a cannon of an arm that could seriously dissuade opposing teams...
Redundancy isn't always a bad thing in spite of the negative connotations often associated with the word. In the case of the Washington Nationals' roster, it's actually a key to the way Nats GM Mike Rizzo, and general managers league-wide admittedly, construct their teams. The defending NL East champs have multiple closers for example. If 33-year-old veteran Rafael Soriano has had too much work, the Nationals can turn to the likes of Drew Storen, their '09 first-round pick who saved 42...
The last time Denard Span failed to reach base in a game, the 30-year-old Washington Nationals center fielder went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in a 7-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. That was on June 28th.
Since then, the second-year Nats outfielder has reached base in 33 straight games, lifting his line on the year from .268/.313/.392 to .300/.356/.400 in the process.
In the second of those 33 games, Span went 0-for-3 with a walk to get the streak started. 12 games in an 0-for-3,...
Two unearned runs scored on a bases-loaded error by Harrisburg Senators third baseman Adrian Sanchez and two more on came in on a two-out RBI double later in the sixth inning of last night's game in Arm and Hammer Park in Trenton, N.J., where the Senators beat the Trenton Thunder 6-4 with a five-run comeback in the top of the ninth inning.
A.J. Cole, 22, left his ninth start of the season after 5 2/3 innings with a 1.97 ERA on the year and the Senators down 4-1. But the Matt Skole-led rally in...
From the start of spring training, Nationals manager Davey Johnson preached patience. Henry Rodriguez, who led the league in wild pitches in 2011 and managed to throw 10 in 29 1/3 innings of work in 2012, continued his wild ways this spring, but the Nats' 70-year-old skipper said it was just a matter of time before the right-handed reliever figured things out.
Rodriguez's 2012 campaign saw him temporarily assume the closer's role and save nine games before flaming out rather quickly and...
General manager Mike Rizzo told reporters during Rafael Soriano's introductory press conference in the winter of 2013 that the signing a week earlier of first baseman Adam LaRoche freed the Nationals up to deal one year of control of Michael Morse to the Mariners in the three-team trade with Seattle and the Oakland A's that went through on the night before Soriano's official introduction. The deal netted the Nationals right-handers A.J. Cole and Blake Treinen and left-hander Ian Krol.
Cole,...
Late in Sunday's 18-inning series finale with the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the game tied up at 1-1, Washington Nationals infielder Trea Turner hit a line drive leadoff single to left and tried to turn it into a double.
Turner was thrown out at second by left fielder Starling Marte in spite of the fact that the Pirates outfielder made a fairly nonchalant play and throw into second.
"Turner was cursed by his own speed," Dusty Baker told reporters after what ended up a 2-1 loss.
"If he didn't...
Mike Rizzo and the Nationals announced a new long-term deal for the general manager last night.
Managing principle owner Theodore N. Lerner praised the work the 52-year-old executive has done since 2009 to turn the Nationals into, "one of the most exciting and respected young teams in baseball." Rizzo talked in the press release about the hard work they have done with the Lerners' support to build "this club from nearly expansion level - at both the minor and major league level," into a...
With his lost season in the Washington Nationals' bullpen in 2015 behind him, Tanner Roark entered spring training on a mission. He wanted to return to the starting rotation. Roark told his new manager as much early in the process.
"It was short," Roark said of the conversation with Dusty Baker this spring.
"I told you guys once before that I wanted to start and I'm telling you guys again that I want to start, and I feel like I'm a competitor on the mound and I know that the fight inside...
When Stan Kasten was the Washington Nationals' president, before the former Atlanta Braves president left the nation's capital and became president and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he shared an anecdote with reporters about a phone call from retired, legendary Braves manager Bobby Cox, who had called him after watching Ross Detwiler pitch. "This is unbelieveable, this is the exact way we did it." Cox told Kasten, referring to the rotation Atlanta assembled featuring Tom Glavine,...
At some point in the near future, and no one's saying exactly when, Nationals right-hander Joe Ross will reach his innings limit/pitch count for the season and he'll be shut down for the year. The concern in his case is that the right-hander has never thrown this many innings in a season before.
Ross threw six innings on Thursday night, leaving him at 66 2/3 so far in the majors and 142 2/3 overall on the year between Double-A, Triple-A and the Nationals.
Ross went up to 122 1/3 innings in...
Coming off a division title and a postseason run that ended in a disappointing loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS, the 2013 Washington Nationals had high expectations.
A disappointing start, an 11-16 July and a 48-47 first half put them in a hole, however, which eventually proved too much to recover from despite finishing strong, going 32-16 over the final 48 games.
The Nationals finished ten games out in the National League East and four games out in the wild card standings.
"I...
Stephen Strasburg's second major league start took place in Cleveland's Progressive Field on June 13, 2010. After a dazzling 14-strikeout major league debut at Nationals Park, the Nats and Strasburg took the show on the road. The game between a 31-33 Nationals team and a 25-37 Indians team was picked up on a national broadcast solely because Strasburg was going to be on the mound. In the first two games of that three-game weekend set, the Indians drew 22,041 Friday night and 19,484 Saturday...
Anthony Rendon fell to the Washington Nationals at No. 6 overall in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft at least in part because of injury concerns after the Rice University third baseman dealt with a shoulder issue that limited him to mostly designated hitter duties in his draft year.
In spite of the injury, Rendon, then 21, managed to hit .327 for the Owls, with 20 doubles and an NCAA-leading 80 walks in 63 games that season.
"We were pleasantly surprised that he got to us at six," Nationals...
When the Washington Nationals realigned their starting rotation going into back-to-back doubleheaders with the New York Mets and Miami Marlins, it worked out so that Stephen Strasburg would go in the next-to-last game of the year and Jordan Zimmermann would pitch in the 162nd game of the season.
Manager Matt Williams explained to reporters that the decision gave Zimmermann a little extra rest after he suffered a bruised shoulder on a liner back to the mound during his last outing. Moving him...
Think what you will about the decision the Washington Nationals made back in 2012, when they shut down a then-24-year-old Stephen Strasburg late in the season, as planned from the start that year, but the decision GM Mike Rizzo and the front office made played a part in the 27-year-old signing a seven-year extension with the team that drafted him with the No.1 overall pick of the 2009 Draft.
They also came within a strike of the 2012 NLCS without him, of course.
But the Nats' choice to shut...
The reports from general manager Mike Rizzo and assistant general manager and vice president of scouting operations Kris Kline after they selected Erick Fedde out of UNLV with the 18th overall pick of the 2014 Draft were glowing to say the least.
"He's a plus-stuff guy," Rizzo told reporters. "We've scouted him intensely over the last three years. He's got two plus plus pitches and his third pitch, the changeup, is on the come. We think that's going to be an above-average pitch. Big...