PHILADELPHIA - The Phillies have committed four errors through five innings of play.
Somehow, they've still managed to grab a 1-0 lead.
Chase Utley has committed three errors himself, two of which came on one play in the fourth that put Jayson Werth on third with two outs. Michael Young committed a two-base error in the fifth that put Kurt Suzuki in scoring position with no outs.
The Nationals converted neither opportunity.
As sloppily as the Phillies have played defensively, the Nats...
PHILADELPHIA - For the last handful of weeks, Jordan Zimmermann has been pitching through some mild stiffness in his neck.
After tonight's outing, in which he allowed two runs over 6 1/3 innings in a loss to the Phillies, Zimmermann acknowledged that the neck issue could lead him to skip the All-Star Game, which he was selected to for the first time in his career.
"I mean, it's a possibility," Zimmermann said. "I'm not real sure yet about what I'm going to do, but we'll see how the...
PHILADELPHIA - Anthony Rendon and Wilson Ramos are raking lately, but they're not alone.
There's also Jayson Werth, whose recent hot streak is worth taking note of.
Since June 15, a span of 24 games, Werth has posted a .373/.454/.614 slash line with five homers, five doubles and 17 RBIs.
He has at least one hit in 19 of those 24 games, and is 8-for-21 with three homers and seven RBIs in six games against the Phillies over the last month - all at Citizens Bank Park in front of fans who...
PHILADELPHIA - If you haven't heard much about Henry Rodriguez lately, it's because the former Nationals reliever, who was traded to the Cubs a month ago, hasn't seen a whole lot of action with his new team.
Prior to last night, Rodriguez had appeared in just four games since heading to the Cubs on June 11, and just one since June 23. Rodriguez got into a game last night, entering a blowout in the fifth inning. He faced five batters and didn't retire any of them.
The five batters went...
A lot of the All-Star Game chatter concerning the Nationals this year will be focused on Bryce Harper - and for good reason. It makes sense given the context of the scenario, his age, and the debate of whether or not he should be hitting in the Home Run Derby. But all of that aside, I think people need to shine a little more light on Jordan Zimmermann's first game as an All-Star.
He's bounced back from Tommy John surgery and could be a No. 1 starter on a majority of teams in Major League...
PHILADELPHIA - It might sound a bit silly at first, but Davey Johnson thinks a key to the Nationals' 5-1 win over Cliff Lee and the Phillies tonight was his team's aggressive approach in batting practice.
Aggressive approach? In batting practice?
By that, Johnson doesn't mean that there are some days where his players just stand there in the cage and choose not to swing. (Or, for the Seinfeld fans out there,
PHILADELPHIA - Davey Johnson jokingly has given himself the nickname "Captain Hook" because he tends to err on the side of caution with his starting pitchers.
The Nationals' skipper tends to have a fairly quick hook with his younger starters, and rarely sends them out for that extra inning in the middle or late innings, in an effort to have their start end on a positive note and leave them with a shot at a win.
But this season, we've seen Johnson give the starters at the top of his...
Denizens of Natstown were pleased that Bryce Harper was voted into the starting outfield at the All-Star Game, no small achievement considering No. 34 has spent so much time on the disabled list recovering from left knee bursitis, which may or may not be related to his frequent run-ins with outfield walls with varying degrees of give.
And D.C. was giddy yesterday when the Mets' David Wright named the 20-year-old slugger to his squad for the July 15 Home Run Derby that precedes the Midsummer...
PHILADELPHIA - Christian Garcia's rough 2013 continues.
The right-hander, who made his major league debut with the Nationals last season and played a big factor in the Nats' bullpen down the stretch, has suffered a hamstring injury and will miss his next scheduled appearance for Triple-A Syracuse, manager Davey Johnson said today.
Garcia will get an MRI on the hamstring to determine the severity of the injury.
This is the third separate injury issue that Garcia has had to deal with this...
PHILADELPHIA - Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said the other day that he doesn't envision making any major deals prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, feeling that there are no "big splashy moves that are remaining" for the Nats this season.
Still, there are those who feel that with Ross Detwiler having landed on the DL twice in the last two months and Dan Haren proving to be inconsistent in the first half of the season, the Nats would be wise to add another starting...
PHILADELPHIA - Anthony Rendon broke open a scoreless tie four pitches into the fifth inning.
Wilson Ramos didn't waste much time copying Rendon and giving the Nationals a 2-0 lead.
After Gio Gonzalez and Cliff Lee had each started tonight's game with four scoreless innings, Rendon took an 0-2 Lee fastball out to left for his fourth homer of the season.
That was the first home run Lee has allowed all season on an 0-2 pitch.
The ball left the yard so quickly it looked like it had been shot...
PHILADELPHIA - The Nationals have struggled mightily against left-handed pitching this season, and they'll face one of the toughest left-handers in the bigs tonight when they take on Cliff Lee.
Lee is 10-2 with a 2.73 ERA this season, and he held the Nats to two runs over eight strong innings back on June 18 in a Phillies win here at Citizens Bank Park.
The Nats are hitting .215/.281/.336 against left-handers this season. What's there to that?
"I don't know," Adam LaRoche said last...
PHILADELPHIA - Davey Johnson can't really explain why the Nationals look so locked-in offensively one day and then produce so little the next.
Neither can Adam LaRoche, who admits it's a bit frustrating the way the Nats have been so feast-or-famine offensively of late.
"A little bit," LaRoche said. "We'll get into a game and we'll be in the sixth, seventh inning with two or three hits. Where the night before we had 15 hits. I can't explain it. It's one of those things you try to go...
PHILADELPHIA - Two days ago, the Nationals deficit in the National League East had been cut to four.
Just like that, it's back to six.
Two Nats losses here in Philly coupled with two Braves wins over the Marlins, and there goes the momentum again.
The good news for the Nats is that they'll now send Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmermann to the mound in the final two games of this series against the Phillies.
Want to know just how good that news is? Let's go to the numbers.
When either...
PHILADELPHIA - Here are the number of runs the Nationals have scored in each of their last 10 games: 13, 10, zero, one, eight, eight, five, 11, two, two.
Of those 10 games, the Nats won six. Take your best guess which six ended in a Nationals handshake line on the field after the final out.
The Nats have shown in the last couple weeks that they're capable of producing - and producing in a big way - offensively. But they've also followed those big offensive ballgames with ones where their...
Coming off of a four-game winning streak the Nationals have dropped the first two in a four-game series to Philadelphia and there is nothing to worry about. But because it is D.C., people are going to worry. After this weekend, the Nationals suddenly found themselves only four games back from the Braves in the division, after the Braves lost two of three to the Phillies, and the Nationals swept the Padres. But then the Nationals played the Phillies while the Braves played the Marlins, and now...
PHILADELPHIA - As he is before his first at-bat of every game here at Citizens Bank Park, Jayson Werth was booed heavily when he stepped into the batter's box in the top of the second inning tonight.
Werth responded to the jeers from his former fanbase by reaching out and crushing a Cole Hamels changeup into the bleachers in left-center, giving the Nationals an early lead.
It wasn't a bad pitch from Hamels; the changeup was down in the zone and away from Werth. He stayed on the pitch,...
Between innings, players will get a drink of water, talk to teammates or grab a fresh piece of gum.
Ian Desmond shaves his goatee.
In the first inning of tonight's game against the Phillies, Desmond - and his goatee - walked up to the plate and then promptly grounded into a double play.
By the time the third inning arrived, MASN cameras showed a clean-shaven Desmond, beard nowhere to be seen.
Postgame, he said to reporters, "The goatee was weighing me down."
After an 0-for-8 drought,...
PHILADELPHIA - Scott Hairston's stocky, solid, 6-foot, 205-lb. frame doesn't really scream "leadoff hitter."
Yet, that's what Hairston will be tonight for the 100th time in his career.
Hairston is listed atop the Nationals' lineup tonight, as manager Davey Johnson has opted to give Denard Span the night off and put Hairston in there against Phillies lefty Cole Hamels. Hairston hits lefties well, and he hits Hamels very well, so that made the decision easy for Johnson.
"I expect him to...
PHILADELPHIA - Not only is Scott Hairston making his Nationals debut tonight in just his second day with the team since coming over in a trade with the Cubs, he's also in the leadoff spot.
I did expect to see Hairston in the lineup tonight. I did not expect him to lead off. Anyone that says they did is probably lying.
Hairston will play left field tonight, bumping Bryce Harper over to center. Denard Span will get the night off.
This is the first start for Harper in center field this...