Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. has been intrigued with the idea of opening a Twitter account. He just needed a reason to do it beyond the interaction with fans, something he did tirelessly in person during a 21-year major league career. Most notably in 1995 as he closed in on Lou Gehrig's record for most consecutive games played. Ripken found his excuse and, as usual, it tied into his desire to help other people. Using his new account (@CalRipkenJr.), which already was approaching 3,000...

You've been spending way more time at home than usual and your television set is working overtime. Normally at this time of year, MASN would be bringing you live Nationals games, but maybe you've been catching some of the wide variety of sports competition (taped back before the world went on lockdown) that MASN presents daily: auto, motorcycle, air and speedboat racing, Bundesliga soccer, PBA bowling and poker tours, to name a few. Of course our bread and butter is baseball. So while our...

It was great to get an update regarding shortstop Yasel Antuna after the young Nationals prospect was out of almost all games due to injury for more than a year. The 20-year-old Antuna lasted only three games last season for Rookie-level Gulf Coast League after playing in 87 games at low single-A Hagerstown in 2018. MLBPipeline.com rates Antuna as the No. 12 Nats prospect in their 2020 top 30 list. He is a 6-foot infielder that hails from the southern coastal area of Peravia, Dominican...

Honest opinion: What was your reasonable, best-case scenario for the Nationals in the first two games of the World Series? Maybe you had a pie-in-the-sky dream of snatching both games from the Astros and returning to D.C. flying high, but realistically you just wanted to see them win one of two on the road. Especially when those two games were started by Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander. Right? Well, after beating Cole in Game 1, the Nats returned to Minute Maid Park the next night for Game 2...

Over the next few weeks, let's take a look at some aspects of the Orioles and how they were shaping up at the time that spring training was halted. Today, a look at the outfield. Earlier, I made my projection for the five-man rotation in this entry and an infield with a roster of seven in this entry. While we may see rosters larger than 26 players when baseball does start this year, we are going with a roster of 26 for this exercise. So with five in the rotation and eight in the bullpen...

Devils Backbone Brewing Company and the Washington Nationals are proud to announce that Curly W India Pale Ale, a brand-new beer celebrating the World Series champions, is available at retail locations throughout the D.C. area beginning on Monday, April 6. Curly W is a 6% ABV, 28 IBU crisp and juicy golden IPA that includes Pilsner, Pale Wheat, CaraHell, Golden Naked Oats, Acidulated, Carafa Special 2, and Victory malts - in honor of the 2019 World Series title. The pale malts are balanced out...

My mind keeps spinning back to past Orioles teams that I've covered as an adult or watched as a kid. Anything to limit my screen time during this shutdown. Let me pose a question this morning while we resist the urge to panic shop. (Don't be that person. You don't need 12 dozen eggs and all the toilet paper and liquid hand soap.) Which homegrown Orioles started out good, fooling you into thinking that they'd become future All-Stars or at least longtime contributors, and then fizzled? Got...

Third baseman Drew Mendoza (Twitter: @MendozaDrew22) knew from his first few weeks with the Nationals organization that he wanted to make some adjustments to his swing. The 2019 Baseball America second team All-American was a standout third baseman at Florida State, but was ready from his first few days in pro camp to add power to his approach. It is the Nationals' policy with drafted players in their initiation to professional baseball to allow them a full month to get acclimated and pitch...

The Nationals and their fans waited a long time to reach the World Series for the first time. So, really, who was going to complain about the extra six days they had to wait after sweeping the National League Championship Series before finally taking the field in Houston for their first appearance in the Fall Classic? The long layoff may have been a dominant storyline entering the World Series, but it sure didn't hold up for long. By the end of their tense Game 1 victory - 5-4 over the...

Chris Davis was not the only Oriole with a strong spring training at the plate. Third baseman Rio Ruiz had a solid spring and was spraying a few line drives around ballparks all over Florida. Ruiz led the club in hits in spring training, batting .440 (11-for-25) with three doubles, a homer and two RBIs. He posted a .464 OBP and a .680 slugging percentage in that small sample. In a game March 1 against the Phillies in Clearwater, Ruiz went 3-for-3, hitting all three base knocks on the screws. He...