WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – It’s been an encouraging start to the spring season for the Nationals, who have won four of their first six games, gotten some pretty good pitching and seen their top young prospects deliver in their first big league camp. At some point, though, you’d also like to see their projected regulars start producing a little more at

The Orioles got some national attention this week when MLB Network aired its “30 clubs in 15 days preview” on the Orioles on Thursday afternoon.  If you missed it, the analysts are high on the 2024 Orioles with former player Cliff Floyd projecting another 100-win year. Yes, expectations are very high for a club that was 47-115 in the 2018 seas

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Four years into his big league career, Kyle Finnegan has established himself as good late-inning reliever. And he’s done so with a fairly simple repertoire of pitches. He throws a high-90s fastball most of the time (70 percent on average). And he mixes in a slider to right-handed batters and a splitter to hitters from both s

SARASOTA, Fla. – No one in the Orioles organization is enjoying Colton Cowser’s hot start in exhibition games more than teammate and friend Heston Kjerstad, who doesn’t ponder how it might impact his own chances of making the Opening Day roster. Kjerstad isn’t wired that way. He wants everyone to be electric, to put up good numbers. And he remains

JUPITER, Fla. – This wasn’t Tanner Rainey’s return from Tommy John surgery. That came late last September, when he tossed a scoreless inning in Atlanta as a reward for all the time and effort he put in over the previous year-plus. What was the significance of Rainey’s 1-2-3 inning today at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium? Consider it his return to a n

SARASOTA, Fla. – Orioles leadoff hitter Jackson Holliday swung at the second pitch from Paul Skenes today and grounded to second baseman Nick Gonzales. The first-overall pick in the 2022 draft retired by the first-overall pick in the 2023 draft, with the assist going to the seventh-overall selection in 2020. And after catcher Henry Davis, the top s

JUPITER, Fla. – It’s not unusual for former players to speak to the Nationals and offer advice to the organization’s younger up-and-comers. Certainly not this spring, which has seen Ryan Zimmerman spend a week at camp and Sean Doolittle and Gerardo Parra take on full-time coaching positions. But those are all former Nationals, guys with distinct co

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Orioles might not be a last-chance stop for pitcher Julio Teheran and second baseman Kolten Wong. However, they’re grateful to be detached from the free-agent market and the uncertainty in their futures, and hope to seize the opportunity as late arrivals in camp. Their minor league deals became official yesterday and they found

JUPITER, Fla. – The temperature has slowly been rising each day this week, to the point where it’s starting to become a little bit steamy down here. It could crack 80 degrees this afternoon, with some humidity, when the Nationals face the Cardinals at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. This is the Nats’ sixth exhibition game, and for the sixth straight

SARASOTA, Fla. – Jackson Holliday is playing second base again and leading off this afternoon against the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, pitting the 2022 first-overall draft pick against the 2023 first-overall selection. The hype keeps building. Adley Rutschman, the first-overall selection in 2019, is catching and batting directly behind Holliday. Heston Kj