BOWIE - A few years before he became a first-round draft pick with a big signing bonus and later a marked man in professional baseball, right-handed pitcher Grayson Rodriguez was just another teenager in Nacogdoches, Texas, rooting for the big league team closest to home. But the team he rooted for lost a lot. They were rebuilding. The teenage Grayson would get to see that team go from worst to first and win the World Series. Now as an Orioles minor league pitcher with Double-A Bowie, he is one...

The Nationals understand there are going to be growing pains as they play out the string of a season that has now long since morphed from one with legitimate visions of success into one that is solely about starting a difficult organizational rebuild. But it's one thing when those growing pains come in the form of rallies made possible by a superior opponent's performance. It's quite another when they come in the form they did this afternoon during a nightmare of a 7-6 loss to the...

Davey Martinez underwent a planned, minor foot procedure earlier this morning, and though he's expected to be at Nationals Park in time for today's series finale against the Phillies, bench coach Tim Bogar may take over his duties for the game. Martinez had previously scheduled the procedure, expecting today to be an off-day for the Nationals as originally planned. Wednesday's rainout, though, pushed the game to this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. Martinez went ahead and had the procedure this...

As bad as the rain was Wednesday, and as awful as the weather has been for weeks now, boy is today a nice pay-off. Fall has arrived in full force, and it's going to be a glorious afternoon for baseball as the Nationals and Phillies wrap up their delayed series finale. The postponement was probably good for the Nats bullpen, which was beginning to run on fumes given a heavy workload of late. Everyone should be available to pitch today in relief of Paolo Espino, who should be good for his...

The Nationals' recent decision to require all full-time, non-playing employees to be vaccinated for COVID-19 will result in the departures of some staff members, including one of general manager Mike Rizzo's top lieutenants: Bob Boone. Boone, who has worked in the front office since the club arrived in Washington in 2005, has informed the organization he will step down instead of getting the vaccine, sources familiar with the decision confirmed. A handful of other employees are expected to...

Orioles reliever Cole Sulser made quick work of the Toronto Blue Jays to record the save on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre. On 12 pitches he recorded a 1-2-3 inning to pick up his sixth save as the Orioles beat Toronto 4-2. For Sulser it was the continuation of a solid year - one in which he now has effective weapons to get out both left- and right-handed hitters and now is no longer a big reverse-splits-only guy. In 49 innings, Sulser is 3-3 with a 3.12 ERA, allowing 38 hits with 1.204 WHIP...

A couple of bases-loaded walks tonight in the second inning gave the Orioles a lead and some evidence that they can work a count and offer their manager the type of at-bats he's been pleading for during the season. Those walks, by Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle, weren't intended to provide the bulk of the offense. The Orioles would need to back them with some clutch hitting and hope the bullpen also could step up. Jorge Mateo led off the sixth with a double against Tayler Saucedo, his...

The Orioles aren't playing tonight. They have an off-day in New York. We should all be so lucky. "Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Broadway?" "Practice, practice, practice." I've already mastered the art of the mailbag. How to gather questions, provide answers - or at least make the attempt - and exhibit tremendous patience while repeating myself. And also how to make it conversational at times, which ain't easy with the mail. I implore everyone to be as expansive as you'd like...

Some nights, when you get solid pitching and defense and a few timely hits, you can win and even beat some of the better teams. The Orioles had a game like that last night when they beat Toronto 4-2 at Rogers Centre. They held the Blue Jays to six hits, and while Toronto went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, the Orioles went 3-for-7 and that was big in a low-scoring, close game. And while the Orioles have been near the bottom of the league in batting with RISP this year, they have hit...

For a rookie pitcher who was a Rule 5 draft pick last December, one with just 34 big league games under his belt and no career saves, it was a big-time situation. Orioles right-hander Tyler Wells came in to face Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the last of the seventh last night at Toronto's Rogers Centre. There were two on and two outs and the Orioles were leading 4-2. Guerrero had hit his 39th homer an inning before on a 97 mph fastball. The night before, he had homered twice. In 11 games this year...