The Nationals' long-term pitching plans took another hit last week when prospect Seth Romero had Tommy John surgery to repair a torn ligament in his elbow. Romero, the Nationals' first-round pick in the 2017 draft and fifth-rated prospect entering the season according to Baseball America, is expected to miss the entire 2019 season while recovering from surgery. The procedure was performed Thursday in Los Angeles by orthopedist Neal ElAttrache, according to a Nats spokesman. It's a...

The Washington Nationals announced the signing of two-year Player Development Contract extensions with the Single-A Potomac Nationals of the Carolina League and the Single-A Hagerstown Suns of the South Atlantic League on Monday. The extensions, which begin in 2019, run through the 2020 season. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo, Nationals Vice President and Senior Advisor to the General Manager Bob Boone, Assistant General Manager and Vice President of...

Homecoming Week at Nationals Park continues. First, it was Gio Gonzalez and the Brewers. Coming up Thursday it'll be Daniel Murphy, Brandon Kintzler and the Cubs. But today it's Matt Adams and the Cardinals in town. Adams is batting third and starting at first base this afternoon, but it's been a slow start for Big City in his return to St. Louis. He's 3-for-21 with zero extra-base hits since the trade two weeks ago. Adams and his cohorts will be taking their hacks against Max Scherzer, who...

KANSAS CITY - He had a winning Major League debut, one that featured a nice cheering section of family and friends on Tuesday night at Camden Yards. It produced a feel-good story as Orioles left-hander Josh Rogers, the kid from a small town in Indiana, won on the big stage. Using a two and four-seam fastball on 53 of his 85 pitches that ranged from 90 to 92 mph, Rogers beat Toronto 12-5 in his debut. Over five innings he gave up seven hits and three runs with one walk and two strikeouts. He...

The lasting image of Sunday's game for most will be of the two towering home runs surrendered by Jefry Rodriguez and Tim Collins during a seven-run fifth inning that turned the Nationals' series finale against the Brewers upside-down. For Austen Williams, the lasting image will be of the sixth and seventh innings. Yes, the game already flipped to the opponent's favor, with Milwaukee holding a 9-4 lead it would not relinquish. But the score doesn't matter so much when a young pitcher makes...

Following a weekend sweep at the hands of the second-worst team in baseball, the Orioles remain the worst team in the game at 40-97. They are barreling toward one of the worst campaigns in team history and are starting a rebuilding process that is expected to be measured in trips around the sun rather than mere months. I'm going to bet many Orioles fans chose not to watch much of this weekend's series against the Royals in Kansas City. College football got underway, the U.S. Open tennis...

SEATTLE - If the Orioles really like reliever Pedro Araujo, they keep him for at least the first 17 days of the 2019 season. Araujo's Rule 5 status will carry over, as it did this year with outfielder Anthony Santander. Manager Buck Showalter told the media in Kansas City yesterday that Araujo won't pitch again this season after going on the disabled list June 11 with a strained right elbow. Some eyebrows were raised, of course, when Araujo was put on the shelf. He had a 7.71 ERA and 1.679...

KANSAS CITY - It was just a few days ago that the Orioles swept three straight from Toronto. They stole bases, played some crisp defense and scored 29 runs in three games. Here in Kansas City it was very different. The team with the second-worst record in the majors swept the team with the worst, with Kansas City winning 9-1 today. It capped a weekend where the Orioles lost twice by blowouts and once on a walkoff in the ninth. So they've had better weekends. How could they play so well versus...

KANSAS CITY - Well it at least started well for the Orioles this afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. Shortstop Jonathan Villar hit an opposite-field homer to left to provide a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. It went downhill pretty fast after that. If this weekend was about determining which team most deserved the top draft pick in 2019 by being the worst this year, there was some separation this weekend. The Kansas City Royals beat the Orioles 9-1 this afternoon to complete a three-game sweep of...

There are any number of reasons, many of them having already been outlined over the last month, for the Nationals' hugely disappointing 2018 season. But if anyone was having trouble remembering, two of them were on full display today for all to see during a calamitous top of the fifth that proved the decisive frame of a 9-4 loss to the Brewers. The Nationals' pitching staff - most notably the back end of the rotation and the left-handed portion of the bullpen - have been flaws all along. So,...