The Nationals announced the winners of the fifth annual end-of-season awards voted on by members of the local media. Outfielder Juan Soto was voted the 2020 Nationals Player of the Year. Right-hander Max Scherzer was named Pitcher of the Year. Reliever Sean Doolittle won the "Good Guy" Award, given to the player for his professional dealings with members of the media and representing the Nats organization with class on and off the field. Soto, 21, has had a Most Valuable Player-caliber...

The Orioles began the delayed and shortened 2020 season on July 24 in Boston. And this 60-game campaign will end today in Buffalo as they face the Toronto Blue Jays in the season finale. As recently as Sept. 8, the Orioles were 20-21 after beating the New York Mets 11-2 and were just a half-game back of the New York Yankees for the final American League playoff spot. But they have gone 4-14 since then falling to 24-35 and now are eight games behind Toronto, which is currently the No. 8 AL...

The Orioles are finishing their "two-part season" today, as manager Brandon Hyde calls it. Players who were hot early and faded this month. A team that made a run at the playoffs and fell hard down the stretch. "I think a lot of guys are disappointed in the last 20 games and how they're finishing up, and that's really them putting pressure on themselves, wishing from a team aspect they could have done more to help us in the last 20 games," Hyde said today in his final pregame Zoom...

No, the Nationals' season finale doesn't really mean anything in the big picture. They were eliminated from postseason contention earlier in the week. And the Mets were eliminated Saturday, so they don't have anything to play for, either. But there are still a few things of note at stake when the two teams take the field today for the final time in 2020. The Nationals enter at 25-34, the Mets at 26-33. So if the Nats win, they'd end up tied for fourth place in the National League East. (And...

The 2020 season ends today for the Orioles with Keegan Akin on the mound for his sixth major league start. The Orioles are one game ahead of the Red Sox for fourth place in the American League East. Akin made his first start against the Blue Jays in Buffalo and was tagged with two unearned runs with six strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. He's walked one batter and struck out 15 in his last two starts over nine innings. Austin Hays is batting .388/.423/.612 (19-for-49) with three home runs and 11...

The Washington Nationals announced the winners of the fifth-annual end-of-season awards as voted on by members of the local media. Outfielder Juan Soto was voted 2020 Nationals Player of the Year, while right-handed pitcher Max Scherzer was named Pitcher of the Year. Left-handed pitcher Sean Doolittle was given the "Good Guy" Award, given to a player for his always-professional dealings with members of the media, and for representing the Nationals organization with class both on and off the...

There is no month on the baseball calendar more misleading than September. It happens every year: Somebody puts up big numbers during the season's final month, convinces everyone he's going to pick up where he left off the following spring and then never duplicates the feat. So take these stats with a healthy grain of salt, because it's probably foolish to assume they will carry over into 2021. Here goes: Andrew Stevenson is batting .351 with a .415 on-base percentage and 1.117 OPS that...

On the next to last day of the 2020 season, Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias talked at length about this year and what lies ahead for the Orioles. It was another Zoom interview, but we didn't really zoom through it. He was asked a lot of questions and there was a lot to absorb and wrap our heads around. No news was really made, nor were there any proclamations. Elias didn't commit to having an instructional league in the weeks ahead, but it sure sounds like the...

The penultimate game of the 2020 season found John Means on the mound again for the Orioles and Randal Grichuk out of the Blue Jays' lineup. Means hasn't caught a lot of breaks this summer. Give him that one. Then again, maybe he didn't need it the way he's been pitching down the stretch. Coming off a 12-strikeout gem last weekend in Baltimore, Means kept the Blue Jays hitless tonight until Cavan Biggio homered with two outs in the sixth. Grichuk entered the game in the top half of the...

The time for reflection begins today. The Orioles are playing their final game of a wacky season. Some would call it "truncated." Everyone would agree that it's so far from the norm that proper evaluations are complicated. A passing grade is earned by the promotions and successes of outfielder/first baseman Ryan Mountcastle - in that order - and pitchers Keegan Akin, Dean Kremer and Bruce Zimmermann. The rookies should comprise three-fifths of the rotation in spring training 2021, but...