With last night's 7-1 win over the Rockies, the Nationals reached their highwater mark so far this season - seven games over .500. They're still a half-game behind the Braves (who have now won six straight) in the National League East, but things are definitely trending upward for Matt Williams' bunch the last few weeks. It's only one game, but things appear to be trending upward for Jayson Werth, as well, this after Werth went 2-for-3 with two doubles, three RBIs and two walks last...

It's July, it's almost the All-Star break, and infielder Danny Espinosa is still on the Nationals' 25-man roster. After being sent down to the minors in 2013, he had a choice - either embrace the situation and work harder than ever before or settle for where he'd been sent to. Espinosa chose to embrace the situation and seems to have made his way back to the majors with a reputation for being consistent defensively and occasionally productive offensively. Once 2014's spring training was...

Professional baseball players are pretty lucky. They have been granted amazing talent from genetics and probability. They have taken that talent and applied considerable amounts of hard work. The recent draft will result in about 750 new professional baseball players. Roughly a third of those new hires will have received a signing bonus greater than $100,000 before taxes. The remaining two thirds have a mean signing bonus of $1,000 before taxes. For their three-month first season, the most they...

To the fans who kept asking why Orioles manager Buck Showalter chose the "awful" T.J. McFarland to start last night, I'll challenge them to look up his June stats - since the ones I posted apparently went ignored - and to come up with a better solution at Triple-A Norfolk. McFarland was fortunate to surrender only two runs, but the bottom line is he gave Showalter five much-needed innings and left with an 8-2 lead. He induced ground balls, as Showalter anticipated when he put Ryan Flaherty...

The starting pitching has been tremendous for weeks now. The defense has really turned around in a big way. And now, with the opening day lineup finally back in place after nearly three months, the offense is starting to churn out big-time performances. The Nationals put up a seven-spot for the third straight game, marking the first time the team has done so since September of 2012 (when the Nats scored seven or more five games in a row), and Stephen Strasburg went 7 2/3 innings, allowing...

The Nationals got the all-around performance they wanted from Stephen Strasburg on Tuesday. He almost was able to close out the game, leaving after 7 2/3 innings after he allowed just one run on five hits with eight strikeouts. It was a more consistent outing for Strasburg after three previous starts in which he had allowed 14 earned runs. "I just tried to execute pitches better," Strasburg said. "I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. I think I just wanted to go out there and trust my...

Tonight was T.J McFarland's second career start, but unlike the first outing, he left with a win this time. McFarland pitched a career-high five innings, allowing seven hits and two runs as the Orioles beat Texas 8-3. He said yesterday he would have some nerves out there, and he did. "I'm always going to be a little nervous before. ... I mean even when the phone rings in the bullpen, I get, you know, a little stomach dropping," McFarland said. "But it's all good emotions that I should...

Orioles manager Buck Showalter isn't ready to name a starter for Sunday. He's only willing to include T.J. McFarland in the mix. It's a small mix. McFarland or Kevin Gausman. McFarland stated his case tonight by allowing two runs over five innings in the Orioles' 8-3 win over the Rangers at Camden Yards. "He pitched as well as we thought he could," Showalter said. "One of the reasons why we wanted to be as good as we could in the infield was because we felt like if he's doing well,...

In his second major league start, T.J. McFarland went five innings to get the win, and for the second night in a row, the O's starter got plenty of early run support. The Orioles hit three homers in the first two innings on their way to an 8-3 win over Texas tonight at Camden Yards. They've taken the first two of this four-game series. The Orioles improved to 44-39 and stay one game back of first-place Toronto, who beat Milwaukee this afternoon. For the second night in a row, the Orioles...

Orioles manager Buck Showalter would have signed up for it in blood. Left-hander T.J. McFarland, pulled from the bullpen tonight to make his second major league start, lasted five innings and gave up two runs. Showalter didn't call upon his first reliever until Ryan Webb headed to the mound in the top of the sixth. McFarland had one clean inning, retiring the Rangers in order in the fourth on two strikeouts and a ground ball. Texas was 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and failed to...