After going 3-2 on their brief homestand, the Nationals packed the bags and took off for the west coast, where they'll play 10 games in 10 days. First is a stop in Los Angeles for three against the Dodgers, who shockingly have started the season 15-21 and are currently last in the National League West. Yup, the team with the $216 million payroll sits behind the Rockies and Padres nearly a quarter of the way through the season. You can't predict ball. Following their three-game set...

A baseball team can't win on talent alone. It also takes discipline, maturity and courage, qualities that key members of the Nationals seemed to be lacking against the Chicago Cubs this weekend. In dropping games Saturday and Sunday to the last-place team in the National Legaue Central, the Nats' 24-year-old pitching phenom and 70-year-old manager both showed they have something to learn about handling both adversity and success. Stephen Strasburg has shown plenty of talent since the Nats...

MINNEAPOLIS - Orioles reliever Pedro Strop seems to have straightened himself out after an extremely rough stretch of games. His cap is still crooked, but he's straightened out. More on that later. Strop tossed another scoreless inning yesterday at Target Field, again throwing eight of 12 pitches for strikes, just as he did Saturday night. Velocity good. Movement on his slider good. Results good. Strop hasn't allowed an earned run in his last 10 outings, and he hasn't permitted a run or...

We all saw what happened Friday night, as the Orioles came back and defeated the Minnesota Twins after being down 6-0. Six runs isn't the greatest comeback of all time, however there's certainly a difference between that and being down by one or two. I think that in all sports there comes a point in a game where a team feels somewhat secure in its lead. In the NFL, I'd say that a 21-point lead is fairly safe, and the same would be true of a 15-point lead in the NBA. Minnesota had the...

In the third inning yesterday, Adam Jones hit a line drive homer. It got out of the park in a hurry. When I say in a hurry, no home run hit in the major leagues this season exited the park faster. According to ESPN Stats and Information, that homer had a flight time of 3.09 seconds, the quickest of any home run this season. Does any play-by-play guy even have a call that fast? While the homer was impressive maybe an at-bat Jones had last Wednesday in the first inning of a game was impressive...

MINNEAPOLIS - Orioles manager Buck Showalter spent most of his postgame session with the media this afternoon talking about Wei-Yin Chen's injury and whether it's regarded as serious at this point. Showalter is being optimistic. That's the only approach he's going to take until finding out more about the injury on Monday. "I was just talking to him about it," Showalter said following a 6-0 victory over the Twins. "He just felt it the last two or three pitches. I didn't hear oblique,...

It's hard to see any moment in this afternoon's 2-1 Nationals loss looming larger than Davey Johnson's decision to pinch hit for Gio Gonzalez leading off the bottom of the seventh inning. The Nationals held a 1-0 lead at the time, and Gonzalez had thrown seven scoreless innings, needing just 86 pitches to do so. He still appeared to have plenty left in the tank, but with the Nats managing almost nothing offensively and with a rested Drew Storen and Rafael Soriano in the bullpen, Johnson...

MINNEAPOLIS - Orioles left-hander Wei-Yin Chen is hoping that today's injury is nothing more serious than cramping on his right side. Chen is listed as having a strained right oblique, but he will be re-evaluated Monday in Baltimore. Chen said he felt the discomfort while facing his last batter, Eduardo Escobar, in the bottom of the fifth inning, and it intensified on the final pitch. Meanwhile, Jake Arrieta didn't make his scheduled start today with Triple-A Norfolk because of a tender...

The last inning was not exactly how catcher Kurt Suzuki wanted it to go. A double steal attempt by the Cubs was set up Alfonso Soriano racing to third base in the top of the ninth of a 1-1 game. Suzuki's throw to third base hit Welington Castillo's bat. The ball rolled into foul territory, which allowed Soriano to score the go-ahead run. Later, a called third strike and subsequent argument with home plate umpire John Tumpane got him tossed. Who could have thought the Nationals appeared...

The Orioles won another game. They won another series. They won again on the road. But did they lose a starting pitcher? Wei-Yin Chen pitched five shutout innings today in the Orioles' 6-0 win over Minnesota, but he left the game with a strained right oblique. Chen appeared on his way to going deep into a game for an O's staff that could have used it. Orioles starters had pitched just eight innings in this series and had allowed 16 earned runs over 14 innings in the last three games. Now...