PITTSBURGH – Major League Baseball has suspended Nationals reliever Jorge López three games "for intentionally throwing at Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates" and manager Davey Martinez one game in the wake of Wednesday night’s incident.

López has appealed his suspension and remains eligible to pitch until a hearing takes place. Managers are not permitted to appeal suspensions, so Martinez will be forced to sit out today’s series finale at PNC Park, with bench coach Miguel Cairo taking over.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh Wednesday night and the Nationals trailing 2-0, López hit Pirates left fielder Bryan Reynolds with a pitch. He then threw a wayward fastball over McCutchen’s head three pitches later, prompting Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton to come out of the dugout to complain.

That spurred both teams’ benches and bullpens to empty, though nothing close to a punch was ever thrown. Once everything settled down and everyone retreated to their respective sides, the umpiring crew huddled up and decided to eject López, much to the right-hander’s shock.

No warnings were ever issued by the umpires, and Martinez was not ejected from the game.

When the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy opened in 2014, the franchise that bears its name hoped the brand new facility would help make a positive difference in the lives of underprivileged children in Southeast Washington.

Ten years later, the academy has made a difference for more than 6,000 local kids and has established itself as one of the premier youth facilities run by any professional sports organization. So much so that Major League Baseball is now bestowing a significant honor on it to commemorate its 10th anniversary.

MLB announced today the Nationals have won the 2024 Allan H. Selig Award for Philanthropic Excellence, one of the sport’s highest honors, for its decade of service through the youth academy.

The Selig Award, named for former commissioner Bud Selig, was created in 2010 to recognize the charitable and philanthropic efforts of major league clubs. The Nationals become the 12th franchise to win the honor.

“The Nationals Youth Baseball Academy is a terrific example of how our clubs are making a difference in the lives of young people with opportunities on and off the field,” commissioner Robert Manfred said. “I congratulate the Lerner family, the Washington Nationals organization, Nationals Philanthropies and the entire staff at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy for this well-earned recognition. We are proud to celebrate their efforts, and we look forward to their continued impact throughout the Greater D.C. region.”

The Trea Turner Rule is finally getting amended. Not eliminated altogether, but amended in a way that should at least somewhat appease the star shortstop and Nationals manager Davey Martinez after both were burned by it multiple times in the past.

Major League Baseball announced a series of rule changes for the 2024 season Thursday afternoon, and the most notable one for anyone with current or recent ties to the Nats surely was the alteration to the first base running lane.

The runner’s lane will now be widened to include the dirt area between the foul line and the infield grass, MLB announced. In other words, a batter-runner will now be permitted to run in fair territory as long as he stays on the dirt and doesn’t venture onto the infield grass.

Because dirt cutouts aren’t universal across baseball, there will be some leeway for dimensions. The distance between the foul line and the infield grass will be between 18 and 24 inches in every MLB park, with some limited grace periods granted due to difficulty in modifying fields (such as ballparks that use artificial turf).

“Widening the lane allows batters to take a more direct path to first base while retaining protection from interference,” the league said in announcing the change.

Major League Baseball, for all its warts, can stake claim to something no other major North American professional sports league can claim: Very few franchise relocations in recent times.

For five decades, in fact, there was only one MLB relocation: the Expos’ move to Washington prior to the 2005 season to become the Nationals. In spite of all of the sport’s other issues, this was a particular point of pride for baseball when comparing itself to the NFL, NBA and NHL.

And then came this week’s news of MLB owners unanimously approving the Athletics’ plan to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas, and all of a sudden an issue that has barely been on baseball’s mind for a half-century is now the predominant story in the sport.

Baseball, of course, experienced plenty of franchise relocations prior to this long run of stability. The 1950s saw the Dodgers and Giants head west, the Braves move from Boston to Milwaukee, the St. Louis Browns become the Baltimore Orioles and the A’s transfer from Philadelphia to Kansas City. The 1960s then saw the original Senators become the Minnesota Twins, while the Braves (Milwaukee to Atlanta) and A’s (Kansas City to Oakland) relocated again. And the early 1970s saw the Seattle Pilots become the Milwaukee Brewers after only one season and the expansion Senators bolt for Texas to be rebranded as the Rangers.

But that’s ancient history at this point. Modern baseball has been defined by the stability of its franchises, and the addition of expansion teams to grow the league to an even 30 organizations. So the Oakland-to-Vegas announcement feels like a really big deal because in this sport it is a really big deal.

With one of the lowest payrolls in Major League Baseball, the Orioles were still able to pull off a 101-win season that led them to the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

There certainly seems to be room for that payroll to grow and get larger. How large no one knows and no one from the front office will tip their hand. Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias is the man that will need to manage that payroll with the knowledge that any big dollar mistakes could set back the team.

The margin for error is much less than for the big market, big spending teams.

No doubt some fans are skeptical that the O's could do some spending this winter and you won't get Elias to suggest that or promise that. But I still asked the question in our recent interview when I wondered what he could do to prove to fans that the club is willing to invest more dollars in the big league payroll?

“I think there is a point there I often neglect to mention – the ultimate goal here is wins and success and having a healthy organization. How much you are spending to do that – whether it is free agents or on infrastructure – it’s sort of secondary. To me, I care about that – I care about the wins and the organizational health, success and talent. But I think that if you’re a fan, you should see that we are on upward climb and an upward path and that has involved and will involve the major league payroll.

Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias was the latest from the organization to pick up an award yesterday. An award that really honors the entire organization for a rebuild that started with 115 losses and ended up this year with an AL East championship, the club’s first playoff berth in seven years and 101 wins.

But Elias is at the head of the club’s baseball operations department, and he put together the front office that yesterday got such deserved recognition.

And he was named MLB's Executive of the Year. 

“It’s been just really gratifying seeing Baltimore, the city of Baltimore and Maryland, back as a baseball capital, like it should be,” Elias said Tuesday morning in an interview on MLB Network. “Seeing Camden Yards back alive and our city, they love this group of players. It was a terrific regular season. We came up very short in the playoffs and I think it’s keeping us hungry as we start this offseason. But definitely a season to remember. And the recognition for our front office and our organization is really meaningful to me.”

The first two draft picks made by Elias and his regime in the 2019 MLB Draft were Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. They were such a huge part of the rebuild. To that he added much more homegrown talent, building what he said he would – an elite talent pipeline. One that now has the No. 1 ranked farm in the sport and a growing international program that this year in catcher Samuel Basallo, produced its first top 100 prospect.

The scores of the games will tell us that the Orioles offense had its problems late in the 2023 season. They scored two runs or less seven times in the last 11 regular-season games. They did that twice more in the American League Division Series as they scored three runs total in games one and three.

But if we were to judge this offense over the full season, it likely ends up getting decent or better grades. Unless you consider ranking fourth in the American League and seventh in MLB at 4.98 runs per game not good enough. It was not good enough to be first or the best, but it was better than most. It was well above the AL average of 4.55 runs per game.

The average AL team scored 738 runs this year. The Orioles scored 807. That was seventh-most in team history and the most since the 2004 O's team scored 842.

So, in the best stat to judge offense, they scored well.

The Orioles ranked sixth in the AL in team batting average (.255), tied for seventh in OBP (.321), seventh in slugging (.421) and eighth in OPS (.742).

We sure can’t say the 2022 Major League Baseball playoffs have lacked in surprises or drama. We saw three road teams advance, a 15-innings thriller, a six-run ninth inning rally, an ear inspection and a team trailing 8-1 in the fifth inning rally to win.

So yeah, a lot going on in just three days of ball.

The madness resumes today with four Division Series matchups, three of which are interdivision matchups. Should be fun and no doubt we will see more surprises and more drama.

I did not expect to see the Toronto Blue Jays go two and (barbe) que. One of baseball’s best offenses got shutout in Game 1 and Seattle rallied from seven runs down to win Game 2. Wowser. Maybe this series provided the latest example that how a team ends its season matters little in the postseason. Toronto went 22-11 in September and the Orioles saw it first-hand when they played them three times and lost all three series. But even at loud and crazy Rogers Centre, which was rocking at times again in October, they lost.

Tampa Bay was also two and done versus Cleveland. I was a bit surprised that some O’s fans took pleasure in the Jays and Rays getting eliminated. For me, I kind of like the talk of how strong the AL East is and was again this year, but teams losing in the opening round takes some shine off that. I can see not rooting for Boston and New York, but it seems some O’s fans want all four to destruct in October.

Major League Baseball’s expanded postseason bracket takes center stage for the first time this October. Even without the Nationals involved for the third straight season, it should be an interesting month of playoff baseball.

Instead of two teams playing in each of the Wild Card Games that were used in nine of the last 10 seasons (the shortened 2020 season had eight teams each from the National and American leagues make the playoffs), there are now three wild card teams in each league to complete in the 12-team field.

The 12 teams are placed in a bracket similar to the National Football League’s old 12-team playoff field, with the top two seeds in each league receiving a first-round bye while the Wild Card Series are played. The difference being there is no reseeding after the first round.

Without reseeding in the Division Series, the matchups in the first round are the No. 3 seed hosting the No. 6 seed (winner to play the No. 2 seed) and the No. 4 seed hosting the No. 5 seed (winner to play the No. 1 seed). This is so the No. 3 seed, the third division winner, cannot match up with the No. 1 seed, the league’s best record, in the second round.

But is this format more beneficial for the lower seeds?

Grayson Rodriguez is confident that he’ll pitch again in September.

The progress he’s making from a strained lat suggests that he’s right.

The Orioles say Rodriguez is scheduled for another bullpen session, followed by live batting practice and a simulated game. All of it happening this week down in Sarasota, Fla.

A prolonged shutdown period led to flat-ground throwing with increased distances, a half-mound session and then regular bullpen sessions.

Throwing live batting practice and in a sim game finally allow Rodriguez to face hitters as he nears a return.

For much of Monday, the prospect of the first postponed opening day due to a labor fight looked inevitable. As representatives of Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association gathered yet again at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., for yet another day of negotiations, even the most optimistic observers were left believing a deal couldn't be reached in time to satisfy the league's Feb. 28 deadline to ensure an on-time start to the season.

Ask any knowledgeable baseball fan of a certain age about the significance of Aug. 12, 1994, and you'll get a shudder and a scowl out of them. That's the day Major League Baseball players went on strike, a decision that ultimately led to the cancellation of the World Series and a delayed start to the following season.

For the second time in three years, the Major League Baseball season will not start on time. And for the first time in 27 years, it's because of a labor dispute.

Unable to come to terms with the MLB Players Association on a new collective bargaining agreement before the league's self-imposed, once-postponed 5 p.m. deadline today, commissioner Rob Manfred officially announced opening day will not take place as scheduled March 31, then added he has canceled the first week of the regular season.