PHILADELPHIA - The Nationals went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base in tonight's 3-2 win over the Phillies. Their offense didn't win them this game. Their defense did. The Nats made a couple huge defensive plays in the late innings tonight, keeping the Phillies off the scoreboard and ensuring their three runs put up on Philadelphia pitching would be enough. The first defensive gem came in the bottom of the seventh after the Nats had just tied the score at...

The road trip is over. After nine games in three cities, it's finally done. Talk about a buzz-kill. So much hype surrounding it, and the Orioles lost two of three games at each stop. They didn't get consistent starting pitching, they didn't hit in the clutch, they didn't show any signs of putting together the kind of run necessary to blow past the clubs ahead of them in the division and wild card races. Can a team that hasn't won more than five consecutive games string together enough...

When a starter only goes 2 1/3 innings, the result is fairly predictable. Not many teams are going to win those games. The Orioles managed to tie tonight's game and take left-hander Zach Britton off the hook, but Kevin Gausman allowed two runs in the fifth inning in a 6-4 loss to the Indians at Progressive Field. This all-important road trip ends with the Orioles losing six of the nine games. They're now 15-7 in two-run games. They're heading in the wrong direction. Gausman, Francisco...

In a tie ballgame, every play matters. Jordan Zimmermann found himself in a bit of a jam in the seventh inning with two men in scoring position and only one out. Kevin Frandsen came to the plate and ripped it down the third base line, but Ryan Zimmerman snatched it and got the lead runner going to the plate. Cesar Hernandez came to the plate with two on and two outs, the game tied at 2-2. He hit a grounder past Adam LaRoche, and well, I'll let the video explain the rest ... Click here to...

Well, that road trip could have gone better. The Indians scored twice in the fifth inning to break a 4-4 tie and beat the Orioles 6-4 at Progressive Field. The Orioles lost all three series on this trip and went 3-6 in the nine games at Boston, New York and Cleveland. The Orioles, who began the night three games out of the second American League wild-card spot, could fall four back later tonight. The Orioles have lost seven of the last 11 games, are 8-13 over the last 21 games and 73-65...

The Gulf Coast League announced its All-Star team Wednesday, and five Nationals were honored on the squad. The GCL Nats manager Patrick Anderson, Manager of the Year, led his team to a league-record 49 wins and the championship banner. The GCL Nats' .845 winning percentage is the best domestic winning percentage by a team in minor league history. The 1992 Dominican Summer League Blue Jays East team went 68-2 (.971) but lost in the playoffs. Third baseman Drew Ward hit .292 and was in the...

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - Right-hander Christian Garcia will continue his rehab assignment this week with the high Single-A Potomac Nationals during their Carolina League Northern Division playoff series against the Lynchburg Hillcats. Garcia has missed the entire season with a partial tear of a ligament in the wrist and forearm, and later, a pulled hamstring. He said he will pitch one inning Friday for the P-Nats. If the best-of-three series is completed prior to Friday and the P-Nats advance,...

PHILADELPHIA - The hope, after last night's slopfest, was that the Nationals and Phillies had gotten all the ugly baseball out of their systems and would put together a clean, smooth ballgame tonight. That hasn't been the case through the first two innings of play. The Phillies lead 2-1 going to the third, in a game in which Roy Halladay has already walked four and hit a batter and Jordan Zimmermann has surrendered four hits and a walk of his own. Halladay has been all over the place,...

Big start for Zach Britton tonight and a big disappointment in the first inning. Britton allowed four runs and five hits in the opening frame against the Indians, with one walk and one strikeout. Yan Gomes and Mike Aviles had RBI singles, and Ryan Raburn delivered a two-run double. Left fielder Nate McLouth threw out Raburn at the plate on Aviles' single to end the first, but the damage clearly was done. The Indians sent eight batters to the plate. They also sent a message that they...

PHILADELPHIA - Bryce Harper has played through some hip soreness in each of the first two games of this three-game set with the Phillies, but Harper isn't in the Nationals' lineup tonight for the finale. Manager Davey Johnson has opted to give Harper the day off to rest his ailing hip, this after Harper admitted to his skipper today that the hip is still "barking." "I talked to him the last two, three days about how he was feeling, and he gave me the thumbs up," Johnson said. "But he...