Pretty standard lineup for Davey Johnson's Nationals today, with the only change to the normal starting eight position players being Jesus Flores getting the nod behind the plate in Wilson Ramos' stead. Jayson Werth is in today's lineup after being pulled from yesterday's game after six innings. Werth has been dealing with a mild hip injury. The Nats will look to tee off against Carlos Zambrano, who is 0-0 with a 3.75 ERA in two career starts against Washington. Here are the lineups for...

The Orioles have been hammering the homers so far this year. They have hit 21 in the season's first 13 games and they have hit 14 in the seven games on this road trip. The Orioles hit seven homers in Toronto and seven in Chicago. The Orioles are second in the majors in homers behind only Texas with 23 and third in the majors in slugging percentage, back of only Texas and St. Louis. The Orioles have five multi-homer games. They have hit 15 solo shots They have hit five two-run shots They have...

After opening their homestand by going 6-1, I guess you could say a game like last night's was inevitable. There are only so many comebacks, only so many times when the Nationals could pull some eighth inning magic and send the fans home happy. "Can't win every game," Ryan Zimmerman said. On top of that, you can't get seven or eight shutout innings from your starters every single night out. It just won't happen. We've been spoiled by some stellar starting pitching through the first...

Not all young players will thrive instantly in their first seasons of pro baseball like Dylan Bundy has. Bundy plays on a Single-A Delmarva squad filled with some young talent but some of his teammates have already experienced some struggles at the minor league level. This time last year Nicky Delmonico was playing for Farragut High in Knoxville, Tenn. In June, the Orioles selected him in the sixth round of the draft. To get him out of a firm college commitment to Georgia, he was signed to an...

There's not much a baseball team can do about games like the Nationals' 11-4 loss Thursday night to the Houston Astros. The pitching, overpowering so far in 2012, was shelled for 17 hits, including three triples off starter Edwin Jackson in the first inning. The bullpen offered little relief, with Tom Gorzelanny surrendering six runs and eight hits of his own. Aside from Ryan Zimmerman's first home run of the season, a three-run shot in the third inning, the offense was unproductive with...

The Orioles are currently in first place. But by the end of a 162-game season they won't be, and it's largely due to the fact that baseball is a fair sport. First, let's define fairness in this context. Fairness doesn't relate to payroll. The balance of baseball bucks decidedly favors roughly a quarter of major league teams. Instead, I use fairness in relation to the concept of "May the best team win." Stated simply, a 162-game regular season doesn't allow for flukes. Love it or hate...

Jayson Werth has been dealing with a hip injury lately, and with the Nationals trailing by six runs late in the game on a cool night, manager Davey Johnson opted to pull Werth entering the seventh inning. Werth, who was replaced in right field by Mark DeRosa, declined to speak to reporters after the game, but his injury is not thought to be serious. Davey Johnson meets with the media after the Nats' 11-4 loss to the Astros Tom Gorzelanny's ERA took a big-time jump tonight, from 0.00 before...

Nationals right-hander Edwin Jackson was fresh off a spectacular complete game two-hitter Saturday over the Reds, 4-1. Jackson was taxed for only 92 pitches, striking out nine and walking one. Cincinnati managed one runner past second base the entire game. But it was a whole different story Thursday. Facing a Houston team that had scored five runs in three games of the series against the Nationals, the Astros set a franchise record with three triples in a five-run first inning to stun Jackson...

Two monster innings doomed the Nationals tonight. They were almost able to overcome the first. They had no chance of overcoming the second. The Astros put up five runs in both the first and sixth innings tonight, and cruised to an 11-4 win over the Nats, spoiling Washington's shot at a four-game sweep. Nationals starter Edwin Jackson allowed five runs over five innings of work, but the main damage was done in the sixth, after the Nats had crept back to cut the Houston lead to 5-4. Tom...

For the last two weeks, Ryan Zimmerman's been talking about how he feels like he's swinging the bat well, but just isn't getting the results. He got some results in the third inning tonight. Facing Astros starter Bud Norris, Zimmerman got the Nationals right back in tonight's ballgame, ripping a three-run homer to deep left field. It's the first home run of the season for Zimmerman and cuts the Nats' deficit to just one at 5-4 after they had trailed by five just two innings prior. The...