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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The Nationals managed to avoid the rain yesterday and play their full exhibition game against the Cardinals. They'll try to do the same today against the Mets, with the forecast again iffy.
Stephen Strasburg makes his fourth start of the spring. He's been very good to date: two runs allowed in 10 2/3 innings, with 13 strikeouts. He'll face a Mets lineup that includes Robinson Canó and Michael Conforto.
Most of the Nationals' regulars, who started each of the last...
SARASOTA, Fla. - Austin Hays slashed .351/.385/.892 in 12 exhibition games this spring. His 13 hits included three doubles, a triple and five home runs. He scored 10 runs and drove in 13. He proved that his surgically repaired ankle was healed and wouldn't restrict him on the bases or in the field, where he played a superb center and moved to both corners.
Hays did everything in camp except win a roster spot.
The Orioles have optioned Hays, outfielder Anthony Santander, pitchers Yefry Ramirez,...
SARASOTA, Fla. - The Orioles are making roster cuts this morning and the group includes outfielder Austin Hays, one of the standouts in camp.
Also leaving the complex are pitchers Branden Kline and Cody Carroll and infielders Stevie Wilkerson and Christopher Bostick.
Pitcher Gabriel Ynoa was packing his equipment bag, so I'm assuming that he's been reassigned.
More on this later.
Cedric Mullins is in center field today as the Orioles face the Yankees in Sarasota on MASN. Mark Trumbo is the...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Right-hander Mason Denaburg, the Nationals' 2018 first-round pick in the First-Year Player Draft, is making very good progress in his first spring training. The 6-foot-4, 195-lb. right-hander did side work Saturday in preparation for his first live pitching session Tuesday.
He threw 40 pitches Saturday and now will have two days off. Denaburg will pitch in a live simulated game Tuesday where he will throw fastballs, changeups and curveballs. He gets six days off between...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Alex Anthopoulos first fell in love with AnÃbal Sánchez in December 2012, when the then-Blue Jays general manager flew to Miami to court the then-free agent pitcher. Over the course of two days, Anthopoulos met Sánchez and his wife, dined at Joe's Stone Crab and became convinced this was a pitcher he needed on his roster.
"I was just really impressed with the person and the human being," Anthopoulos said earlier this spring. "He was our No. 1 target in that...
SARASOTA, Fla. - Orioles right-hander Alex Cobb said he'd never done it before and it was, in his words, "a gametime decision" yesterday. What he did was pitch from the stretch for his entire 69-pitch outing. Where he could have chosen to pitch from a full windup with no runners on base, he just stayed throwing from the stretch position.
He went out and had four dominant innings against a Toronto split squad lineup that featured maybe only two or three regulars. But he was dealing. He struck...
SARASOTA, Fla. - The arrival of another Sunday signals a third round of roster cuts.
A pattern has developed with reductions the past two Sundays. There could be four or five players optioned or reassigned this morning.
Forty-six players remain in camp. Pitcher Gregory Infante never reported and continues to seek treatment in Miami for an undisclosed illness.
The Orioles could hold onto all five of their catchers while Austin Wynns remains unavailable with an oblique injury, but he's hopeful...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - It's easy to take Sean Doolittle for granted, because he's been so automatic for the Nationals when healthy the last 1 1/2 seasons. Maybe Doolittle even takes himself for granted sometimes, especially during a spring in which he had retired 12 of the 13 batters he had faced before taking the mound in the ninth inning this afternoon.
The left-hander won't do that anymore, not after a disastrous appearance that saw him allow five runs and turn a 5-3 lead into an 8-5...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Despite allowing an early run, Nationals ace Max Scherzer was his regular season self Saturday as the club gets closer and closer to opening day.
Scherzer threw 87 pitches, 63 for strikes over six innings, allowing only a first-inning run to the Cardinals. The Nats built a 5-1 lead, but the Cards came back late to post an 8-5 win. Scherzer struck out nine, walked none and at one point retired 14 batters in a row, getting into a nice rhythm with his new backstop, veteran...
DUNEDIN, Fla. - If spring training is for working on things for certain veterans, Orioles opening day starter Alex Cobb sure did that today. And we might see more of his experiment.
In a game the Orioles won 4-3, he pitched from the stretch throughout his 69-pitch five-inning outing against the Toronto Blue Jays at Dunedin Stadium. He was rolling with it, throwing a no-hitter for four innings before allowing three runs in the fifth. He liked how it went so much that we could see more of this....