WASHINGTON - On a night the Orioles shut out a hot-hitting Washington Nationals team and starter Aaron Brooks did the heavy lifting for six innings, right-hander Hunter Harvey's eighth inning will be the one remembered around Birdland for a while. Pitching in just his fourth big league game, the kid was called on to protect a 2-0 lead on the road in the eighth. And against a team that was 15-4 in its last 19 games scoring 143 runs. Harvey threw a couple of 98 mph fastballs to pinch-hitter...

The most telling quote to come out of the Nationals' clubhouse after Tuesday night's 2-0 loss from the Orioles wasn't about the surprising lack of offense from a lineup that had been unstoppable all last week. It wasn't about Patrick Corbin's rough first inning but strong bounce back after that. It wasn't about the squandered eighth inning rally. And it certainly wasn't the same line that was uttered by four different people to describe this strange loss: "That's baseball." No, the...

The first inning did not go Patrick Corbin's way, but it could have been worse. The Nationals left-hander allowed two runs to the Orioles in that first frame, but escaped the inning and then fired six scoreless innings. In the end, the Nats offense could not muster any runs against Orioles starter Aaron Brooks and four relievers as Baltimore stunned the Nats 2-0. Orioles third baseman Hanser Alberto went after Corbin's first offering, a 91.9 mph two-seam fastball, smacking the pitch into...

For nine innings the crowd at Nationals Park waited anxiously for the rally that was sure to come at some point. This was the Nationals lineup, after all, and this was the Orioles pitching staff, after all. It was going to happen at some point, right? The seventh inning? The eighth inning? How about the ninth inning? Nope. Nope. And nope. The Nationals, both the hottest team and owners of the hottest lineup in the majors at the moment, were shut out tonight by the Orioles, who most certainly...

WASHINGTON - The Washington Nationals are pushing for a playoff berth. The Orioles are just trying to get better, as individuals and as a team. Tonight, the last-place Orioles pulled off a baseball upset. The Nationals' expensive free agent lefty, Patrick Corbin, threw another strong game. But he was outdueled by an O's right-hander added July 6 on a waiver claim. Aaron Brooks silenced the red-hot Nats bats on two hits over six innings as the Orioles blanked Washington 2-0 in front of 24,746...

It seems that when Nationals left-hander Patrick Corbin ever gets into trouble, it happens early. The Orioles got to Corbin very early in Tuesday's series opener. Hanser Alberto singled on the game's first pitch. Corbin then hit Trey Mancini with a pitch. Anthony Santander doubled to deep left field to score Alberto and the Orioles led 1-0. One batter later, Jonathan Villar's line drive sacrifice fly to center field brought home Mancini to make it 2-0 Orioles. The Nationals looked like they...

The month of August is down to three days after today and it used to serve as a countdown to the final trade deadline. The one where players first had to pass through waivers before changing teams. And the media kept posting names that surfaced on the waiver wire as if it meant something. Pretty much every player was put on waivers to give teams a truer sense of interest within the industry. And perhaps to move a bad contract like Randy Myers' in 1998. The Padres were burned like a campfire...

MASN broadcaster Tom Davis will receive the John F. Steadman Lifetime Achievement Award at the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame banquet on Nov. 7 at Martin's West. Davis, 71, and the late Jim Margraff, longtime football coach at Johns Hopkins University, will be honored with the award named for John F. Steadman, a longtime sports editor and columnist for the Baltimore News American and columnist for The Evening Sun and The Baltimore Sun. They will be joined at the ceremony by five new...

Sean Doolittle's pending return to the Nationals bullpen is significant, no doubt. But the other left-hander on the verge of rejoining that unit could prove to be quite significant himself. Roenis Elías, who faced only two batters after his July 31 acquisition from the Mariners before straining his right hamstring running the bases, appears to be entering the final days of his rehab and could join Doolittle on the active roster by the end of the week. Elías threw off a mound today, the...

The Nationals returned home after a successful road swing to more good news. Closer Sean Doolittle is making steady progress in his recovery from right knee tendinitis that has kept him on the shelf since August 18. "I've been staying pretty busy. Kind of the general, overall philosophy we've been working on is rather than like sitting around and letting it rest, I think the best way to handle it was to kick start the engine a little bit," Doolittle said at his locker prior to tonight's...