The actor who played Steve Urkel on "Family Matters" - Jaleel White - threw out the first pitch before today's ballgame. He fired a strike in on the outer half. Must've actually been Stefan Urquelle sneaking onto the mound without anyone noticing. The Nats lead 2-1 midway through the fourth inning thanks to a two-RBI double by Jesus Flores. But this wasn't your standard two-RBI double. The ball traveled to the base of the 377-foot marker in left-center field despite the fact that...

Orioles pitchers are 0-for-9 at the plate with eight strikeouts in interleague games this year, which might seem like an obvious failing except that they were 9-for-22 (.409) last season, setting American League single-season records for most hits and highest batting average by pitchers in interleague competition. Wei-Yin Chen has struck out in both of his at-bats this season, and that's an obvious failing. He'll be the first to admit, through his interpreter, that he's a bad hitter. He had...

Nationals right-handed reliever Ryan Mattheus said everything went well with his foot in his latest rehab game at Double-A Harrisburg. He is feeling no complications as he recovers from plantar fasciitis in his left foot. Mattheus threw 26 pitches of scoreless ball over one inning. A club source on hand said Mattheus "looked great." Mattheus told me he will have two more rehab assignments on back-to-back days to see how the foot reacts to a pair of games in a row. If everything goes as...

Because of a vendor distribution problem, the Oriole Park 20th anniversary tumbler giveaway scheduled for Saturday, June 23 will not arrive in time to be handed out as originally planned, the Orioles announced Saturday. Instead, those eligible for the original promotion (the first 10,000 fans 15 and over) will receive a "Greetings from Birdland" T-shirt on June 23, along with a voucher to be redeemed for the tumbler once they arrive. The voucher will explain the methods of redemption, but...

We're under two hours until today's first pitch. Why has the Nationals' lineup still not been posted yet? Another injury, that's why. Trainers are currently looking at shortstop Ian Desmond, who has been battling what manager Davey Johnson referred to as "one of those side injuries." Sounds like yet another oblique issue, something which has also plagued Adam LaRoche and Mark DeRosa this season and is becoming one of the more common injuries around baseball. Johnson was first made...

The Orioles have traded minor league left-handed pitcher Cole McCurry to the Atlanta Braves for cash. McCurry had been with the Orioles since they drafted him in round 43 of 2007. The trade was culminated late last night and came about for two main reasons. One reason is that the Braves have had interest in McCurry before, and two, the Orioles have a roster crunch with too many pitchers for too few spots right now at Triple-A. They recently added Jamie Moyer and Rich Rundles to that Norfolk...

Before the Orioles took the field on Thursday for the final game of their homestand, manager Buck Showalter responded to a reporter's question by confirming that Chris Davis could play first base again this season. He also noted that Davis might play third or left field as part of a double-switch, one of those moves commonly made in National League ballparks. Showalter's point was that Davis shouldn't be regarded exclusively as a designated hitter despite making 17 starts in that role, one...

I heard someone say once that you can't win 'em all, and so the Orioles' five-game win streak came to an end last night with a 4-2 loss in Atlanta. There were a few differences between the O's 12-6 win on Thursday and last night's loss: The Orioles went from 16 to six hits. They went from 10 extra-base hits to just two. But maybe the biggest one was they went from 8-for-17 batting with runners in scoring position to 1-for-7. The Orioles also hit into four double plays last night after...

If you didn't catch tonight's game, you might check the box score and think the Yankees demolished the Nationals in the opener of their much-anticipated three-game series. The Nats don't feel that was the case. "It wasn't like we got crushed tonight," shortstop Ian Desmond said. "The score probably says so, but we were in the game. Just like I said, a couple mistakes." Some of those mistakes came early, when the Nats left two runners on in the first and then only managed one run...

The Nationals have been playing good baseball. Tonight, they faced a team playing just as well. When you face a team like the Yankees, it takes more than good starting pitching to win. For six innings, the Nats were in this thing, down 2-1. But a four-run seventh inning decided it, and the Yankees cruised 7-2, with five runs in the final three frames. One way the outcome could have been different would have been if the Nationals had taken advantage of chances they had early against Yankees...