LOS ANGELES - Dodgers southpaw Hyun-Jin Ryu was hard to solve and Corey Seager blasted a grand slam Sunday in a 6-0 shutout of the Nationals.
The left-hander did not allow a base hit until the eighth inning, thanks to another gritty at-bat from veteran Gerardo Parra. Seager put the game away with his second career grand slam in the eighth. The Nats were held to that Parra double.
Brian Dozier earned the only walk off of Ryu, but finished 0-for-2 with two strikeouts against his former...
The pitcher who used to light up radar guns wouldn't mind if they were set ablaze and never replaced.
Put them on a raft in the bay and give it a shove.
Dylan Bundy insisted again yesterday morning that his dip in velocity during Saturday's start wasn't due to an injury. Might have been based on mechanics or the weather. He's trying to figure it out. But he knows how his arm feels.
"My arm feels great," he said.
So he's got that going for him. Which is really important.
Bundy's injury...
Orioles lefty John Means had to navigate through some traffic on the bases early on today. He did. Then he needed to pitch efficiently later in the game to get through six innings. He did.
He gave up a solo homer to Mike Trout - who hit two here this weekend - but Means was solid once again for the Orioles, who beat the Los Angeles Angels 4-1 at Oriole Park. They improve to 14-26 and avoided a three-game sweep. The Orioles today snapped their fifth four-game losing streak of the year. They've...
Chris Davis found the cleanup spot again. Which happens when a former slugger appears to be regaining his stroke.
Left-hander John Means is finding the rotation to be an ideal fit, his tendency to hold opponents to one run a most endearing trait.
Davis led off the top of the second inning today by launching a 93 mph fastball from Angels starter Griffin Canning onto the flag court in right field. The swing and the sound were quite familiar. They've just been buried for a while.
The 0-for-33...
LOS ANGELES - A tremendous pitching battle is unfolding on a sun splashed Sunday afternoon in Southern California between right-hander Stephen Strasburg and Dodgers left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu.
Ryu began with strikeouts of Brian Dozier and Juan Soto in the first inning. He retired the first nine batters he faced, holding the Nationals without a base hit for the first three innings.
Strasburg struck out Joc Pederson to begin the game and enjoyed a 1-2-3 first inning.
But the Dodgers plated a run in...
LOS ANGELES - Nationals players are wearing special commemorative caps, socks and using pink bats in the series finale today against the Dodgers on Mother's Day.
"I'd like to wish all the mothers a happy and wonderful Mother's Day," Martinez said to open his pregame availability. "Everybody thinks my job is hard, but I can only imagine what moms go through every day and we thank you from the bottom of our heart."
On the field, Martinez elected to give infielder Howie Kendrick the day off...
The Orioles and Los Angeles Angels remain hopeful that they will play baseball today at Camden Yards, but rain has been falling through the day and the game will not start on time.
Shortly after 12 p.m. today the O's posted this via their Twitter account - "RAIN UPDATE: We are starting today's game vs. the Angels in a delay. We remain optimistic to be able to play baseball this afternoon. We are continuing to monitor weather reports and will share updates as we receive them."
After losses...
LOS ANGELES - Stephen Strasburg is nearing another milestone in his career. The San Diego native is three wins away from 100 for his career. He is the all-time leader in Nationals starts with 214.
Earlier in the month, he reached 1,500 strikeouts, which shows Nationals manager Davey Martinez how good the right-hander has been for 10 seasons. He is now at 1,512.
"That's impressive, I mean it really is," Martinez said. "Here's a guy that missed a considerable amount of time in his career and...
A day after Orioles starter Dylan Bundy raised some concerns over his decline in velocity and poor command, the sense within the organization remains that he isn't hurt.
"I feel fine physically and that's the most important thing," Bundy said this morning.
Manager Brandon Hyde checked again on Bundy this morning.
"His velo was down a little bit all game long," Hyde said. "What we saw, and I talked to him about it - he understood totally, too - in the fifth inning there his velo dropped a...
LOS ANGELES - Right-hander Max Scherzer earned his second win of the season Saturday night thanks to a former teammate.
Scherzer played alongside new National Gerardo Parra in Arizona in 2009.
Parra delivered a grand slam Saturday night lifting the Nationals to a 5-2 win over the Dodgers. Scherzer said Parra had a flair for the dramatic even back then.
"It's been 10 years since I played with him. He was a little kid when he came up," Scherzer said. "I told him I remembered when you hit that...