The Nationals will attempt to avoid a costly sweep and keep their season afloat without first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, third baseman Yunel Escobar and center fielder Michael A. Taylor in tonight's starting lineup. Zimmerman tweaked his left oblique during a swing on Monday and also continues to be bothered by soreness in his left foot. Clint Robinson, who was 2-for-3 with an RBI and run scored last night, will again start for Zimmerman at first base. Taylor has been bothered by a sore right...

NEW YORK - Adam Jones will sit for the second straight game tonight while nursing a sore right shoulder. Gerardo Parra will start in center field. Ubaldo Jimenez ranks 10th among Dominican-born pitchers with 1,426 career strikeouts, one shy of Ramon Martinez for ninth place. Martinez serves as special assignment pitching instructor with the Orioles. Jimenez ranks third among active pitchers from the Dominican behind Ervin Santana (1,563) and Bartolo Colon (2,228). The Orioles are 2-3 on their...

When the Eastern League playoffs begin tonight, the Double-A Bowie Baysox hope the hot bat they watched first baseman Trey Mancini sustain for 84 games this year can stay hot for a few more. Bowie (79-63) plays at Altoona (74-68) tonight in Game 1 of a best-of-five series. Altoona hosts Game 2 tomorrow, and then the series shifts to Bowie for Game 3 Friday and Games 4 and 5 if necessary Saturday and Sunday. The 23-year-old Mancini was promoted from Single-A Frederick to the Baysox June 5. In 84...

Few books have garnered the accolades that describe "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. As the years pass, the truth of this book grows; the history of mankind confirms the book's insights and humans join the farm, just as the farm joined humans when the book was published. The 70th anniversary of the publication of "Animal Farm" was last month. The story is as important today as when first printed. Unless mankind changes, the book will resonant for centuries to come. Joe McIlvaine picked this...

This isn't going to be popular opinion, but I find myself reminiscing of Nationals baseball in the early days at RFK Stadium as of late. RFK was by no means the "right" place to put a brand new baseball team within a city that, up to 2005, hadn't had baseball for so long that they got used to that fact and seemed relatively underwhelmed when it returned to the District of Columbia. What RFK had going for it was that it was grungy, run-down and gritty enough to adopt the Nats and give them a...

For Triple-A Norfolk right-hander Terry Doyle, his 2015 season is ending up very differently than it started. Hoping to break spring training with Norfolk, he was instead sent to Double-A Bowie, where he was not even on the active roster on opening day. But on April 17, he was activated by Bowie. On May 10, he joined the Baysox rotation and pitched great. On Aug. 3, he was promoted to Norfolk, and tonight, he will pitch the playoff opener for the Tides at home against Columbus to start a...

In a season filled with many regrets and excuses, the Nationals can direct your attention to several reasons why they are nearing the end of the road. One problem that's so glaring it's blinding is the collapse of the bullpen. Try to digest this: The Nationals were in position to erase the Mets' 6 1/2-game lead in only nine games. The Nats led entering the sixth inning in all four losses over the last nine days. Twice they took multiple-run leads to the seventh and once to the eighth. After...

On a night that began with Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo calling this a must-win game, the bullpen that Rizzo constructed collapsed, as the playoff hopes crumbled in a mind-boggling 8-7 loss to the Mets. New York has now taken a commanding six-game lead over Washington with just 24 games remaining. "We got ourselves backed up against a wall here, but I don't think anyone in this clubhouse doesn't think that we can overcome this," closer Jonathan Papelbon said. "If we come out here...

The Nationals dropped a stunner to the Mets 8-7 Tuesday after they led 7-1 heading to the top of the seventh. For the second straight game against the Mets, the Nationals allowed huge seventh innings: three runs Monday in an 8-5 loss and six runs Tuesday night that erased a big lead, tying the game at 7-7. Nationals manager Matt Williams attempted to pull out all the stops in the seventh, using three relievers. But Blake Treinen, Felipe Rivero and Drew Storen combined to allow six walks, three...

We all know Chris Davis as Crush Davis, but last night, he earned the nickname of Clutch Davis. Much of Tuesday night's game was dominated by pitching. Through the first eight innings, the only runs came from Ryan Flaherty and Alex Rodriguez's solo home runs in the sixth inning. Then came Crush ... I mean Clutch Davis. Davis stepped to the plate to lead off the ninth inning of the 1-1 ballgame. With a 2-0 count, Davis launched his league-leading 41st home run of the season to put the Orioles...