nationals buzz

Rachel Levitin: Questions in the infield

April 30, 2014, 4:53am

When Danny Espinosa was sent down to the minor leagues during the 2013 season, it was clear he had to demonstrate true worth and production value or run the risk of not playing in the big show down the line. His replacement at second base, Anthony Rendon, settled into the new role nicely with few growing pains and looked quite comfortable on the right side of the diamond as opposed to third base. It's 2014 now, and Espinosa is back at second. The only way to get Esipnosa back at second was if...

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Stuart Wallace: For LaRoche early returns are familiarly unfamiliar

April 28, 2014, 11:30am

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Stuart Wallace: For LaRoche early returns are familiarly unfamiliar

The offensive start to the 2014 season by the Nationals has been mildly surprising. Second in the National League in runs scored per game at 4.42 (behind the Rockies' 5.38 runs per game), this early-season surge in scoring has been paced by some surprising sources of production. With five players in the top 50 in National League weighted on base average (wOBA) with a minimum of 80 plate appearances, the Nationals have displayed a potent lineup, even with the musical chairs approach to lineup...

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Marty Niland: Guys like Roark, who come out of nowhere, are what's great about baseball

April 28, 2014, 5:45am

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Marty Niland: Guys like Roark, who come out of nowhere, are what's great about baseball

The #Nats sector of the Twitterverse was abuzz Saturday as Tanner Roark stroked the canvas that was the mound at Nationals Park. When he had finished his masterpiece, a complete-game, three-hit shutout of the San Diego Padres, the accolades came quickly and lasted longer than the 2 hours, 19 minutes it took the 27-year-old to dispatch the Padres. The most prescient among those followed here came from @TheNatidude, who tweeted, "You can see Harper, Stras & Rendon coming a mile away, but...

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David Huzzard: Tracking the Nationals and their trends

April 24, 2014, 4:56am

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There are times that I forget that baseball is about the journey and not the destination, but I become so focused on the destination, the unknown future, that I get frustrated when it isn't reached. These Nationals are predicted to win a World Series at some point. The ultimate potential of players like Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg is too great for them not to be a winning team for the foreseeable future, or at least that is what the experts say. So far with those two players together,...

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Rachel Levitin: Going through growing pains

April 23, 2014, 5:05am

Nationals

Rachel Levitin: Going through growing pains

There's been a lot of going on at Nationals Park this week with the Los Angeles Angels in town. Fans in attendance at Tuesday night's game witnessed history as Angels first baseman Albert Pujols slugged his 499th and 500th career home runs. The three-game series, which concludes this evening, also marked the first time young guns Mike Trout and Bryce Harper's ballclubs have faced each other. But all of that aside, what's been most notable from a Nationals perspective is that this team is...

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Stuart Wallace: Could Werth be at start of defensive decline?

April 22, 2014, 6:19am

Nationals

Stuart Wallace: Could Werth be at start of defensive decline?

It's been a decidedly dismal start to the season for the Nationals defensively. They find themselves in sole possession of last place in the National League in terms of team fielding percentage, while also leading the NL in errors with 22 after last night's series opener against the Angels. This total would have been higher were it not for a scoring change of Yadier Molina's liner at Jayson Werth in Thursday's 8-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals -- a ball Werth either lost in the lights...

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Marty Niland: Espinosa's play should win fans' hearts as well as games

April 21, 2014, 4:11am

Nationals

Marty Niland: Espinosa's play should win fans' hearts as well as games

For those who are afraid the Nationals' 2014 season will be a sad repeat of 2013, take a good look at last weekend's four-game split with the St. Lois Cardinals. The knock on the Nats has been that they can rack up cheap wins at the expense of the Marlins and Mets, but come up up empty against teams they may ultimately have to contend with in the postseason, like the Braves and Cardinals. A week ago, they seemed to prove their critics right, dropping three games in Atlanta, showing the same...

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Harper takes field with baseball legends

April 18, 2014, 7:48am

Nationals

Harper takes field with baseball legends

At just 21, Bryce Harper is one of the most well-known names in the baseball world. Loyal Nationals fans have come to expect hard-nosed play, extreme amounts of hustle and intense ferocity from the slugger. On the field, Harper has stood out and made himself into one of the most well-known players of this century. In Major League Baseball's latest "For the Love of Baseball" spot, Harper has been edited into old baseball footage, so it appears as if he's playing on the field alongside...

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David Huzzard: Exploding the myth of the window of opportunity

April 17, 2014, 5:02am

Nationals

David Huzzard: Exploding the myth of the window of opportunity

Nationals fans have heard a lot about the window of opportunity lately, how it is only open for a limited amount of time and how they need to take advantage of the opportunity while they have it. The main focus of this window is on the core of the team, and who that core is or how many players it consists of could be up for some debate, but there is evidence that the window of opportunity is a lie. That evidence exists in the form of tonight's opponent, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals'...

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Rachel Levitin: A few thoughts about expectations

April 15, 2014, 8:32pm

Nationals

Rachel Levitin: A few thoughts about expectations

After being swept by their most formidable division rival in Atlanta over the weekend and an 11-2 loss to Miami, the Nationals are struggling to establish a steady, winning momentum. It's only April, so the standings aren't an accurate representation of where all teams will end up at the end of the season. But that doesn't mean this isn't the perfect time for a little wake-up call. When I posted up shop at a local D.C. bar for happy hour waiting for a friend, the fellow sitting next to me...

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Stuart Wallace: Decrease in Jordan's velocity is troublesome development

April 14, 2014, 6:38pm

Nationals

Stuart Wallace: Decrease in Jordan's velocity is troublesome development

It has been a rough start to the season for sinkerballer Taylor Jordan. An ERA a little under 5.00, a FIP a little under 4.00 and a hike in walks/nine innings (3.18 compared to 1.92 in 2013) all point to the 11-plus innings pitched so far not being kind to the young righty after an encouraging spring training that solidified his standing as the Nationals' No. 5 starter. While this tiny selection of numbers is troublesome, there is one other set of numbers that are more concerning for the...

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Marty Niland: Flashing back to happier times after a lost weekend

April 14, 2014, 5:09am

Nationals

Marty Niland: Flashing back to happier times after a lost weekend

The Academy Award-winning film "The Lost Weekend" details an alcoholic's troubles in giving up his bad habits during an especially rough weekend. Sound familiar, Nationals fans? There will be plenty of time to reflect on the Nats' lost weekend in Atlanta. The injuries, the errors, the baserunning mistakes and all their other failures in their sweep at the hands of the Braves will no doubt be analyzed ad nauseum in the coming days. Where we choose to begin today, however, is the part of the...

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Win autographed gear using #masnNationals

April 07, 2014, 11:13am

Nationals

Update: Tweet with #masnNationals now to be entered to win a signed Gio Gonzalez jersey! For many sports fans, Twitter is a perfect tool for talking about their team. Through Twitter, we can see Nationals fans thoughts on the lineup, game commentary and more. Well, we want to reward you for getting social. All this week, you can enter to win signed Nats gear simply for tagging your tweets with #masnNationals. Send us pictures of your set-up to watch the game or tweet about your favorite...

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David Huzzard: Early returns on Matt Williams and the Nats

April 10, 2014, 6:52am

Nationals

David Huzzard: Early returns on Matt Williams and the Nats

The early-season magnifying glass is intense. Coming into the series against the Marlins, Bryce Harper was in a bad slump. His upper and lower halves were not in sync and he struggled to get around on the ball, and because it was the only sample size people had, they put more meaning to it than it deserved. If Harper had had two bad series in the month of June, no one would have noticed, but because it is April everything is noticed. The same can be said of Stephen Strasburg and the two bad...

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Stuart Wallace: The good and bad of an aggressive approach at the plate

April 07, 2014, 12:27pm

Nationals

Stuart Wallace: The good and bad of an aggressive approach at the plate

In the infancy of the 2014 season, the Nationals have already had a pair of at-bats that sans a hit or run scored have resonated with the team and fans alike. Last week, it was Danny Espinosa's eight-pitch at-bat against New York Mets reliever Bobby Parnell, culminating in a walk and a new look for the oft-maligned second baseman - that of a patient, strike zone-savvy hitter. In Sunday's game against Atlanta Braves starter Alex Wood, it was Nate McLouth's 13-pitch duel that turned heads,...

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Marty Niland: Rizzo's moves take some sting out of Zimmerman's injury

April 07, 2014, 5:02am

Nationals

Marty Niland: Rizzo's moves take some sting out of Zimmerman's injury

A collective sigh of relief swept through Nationals Park when Ryan Zimmerman stepped up to pinch-hit in the eighth inning against the Atlanta Braves. Although he struck out (a bit awkwardly, at that), the appearance was a sign that whatever is bothering Zimmerman's troublesome right shoulder is not enough of a concern to keep him from swinging a bat. Zimmerman has insisted since he was first injured in 2012 that he does not feel any soreness at the plate, but this was a sure sign that the...

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#masnFirstPitch winner: Where there's a Will, there's a way

April 02, 2014, 5:23am

Nationals

#masnFirstPitch winner: Where there's a Will, there's a way

To start the season off right, we wanted to give away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to a lucky Nationals fan. We asked MASN Nationals followers to tweet out why they should throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Nats Park on April 5. We saw hundreds of creative tweets tagged with #masnFirstPitch. By the time the contest wrapped up, we selected early frontrunner Will as our winner. The 13-year-old Nats fan will take the mound during the home opener, having the same honor as many famous...

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Rachel Levitin: Baseball, rebirth and the natural rhythms of life

April 02, 2014, 5:29am

Nationals

Rachel Levitin: Baseball, rebirth and the natural rhythms of life

And so the marathon begins. The 162-game grind that die-hard baseball fans know all too well. Spring is here, too (for the most part), and the Nationals are back at it again. While it's easy to get bogged down in statistics and numbers from seasons past, I prefer looking at the game through a different lens. It's like Paul Dickson once wrote, "beyond the statistics, there are countless fascinating anthropological aspects of baseball." Those are the stories that spark my interest most and...

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Stuart Wallace: For Strasburg and Clippard, still work to be done

April 01, 2014, 9:52am

Nationals

Stuart Wallace: For Strasburg and Clippard, still work to be done

For a pair of Nationals pitching veterans, it was a season opener that would probably be better forgotten. Despite populating the win column, the performances of both Stephen Strasburg and Tyler Clippard, the anchors of the rotation and bullpen, respectively, left a lot to be desired. For Strasburg, the start of his 2014 regular season was a laborious one, highlighted by a 26-pitch first frame and a three-run homer by Mets outfielder Andrew Brown. Despite settling down as the game progressed,...

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Marty Niland: Five reasons the Nationals offense should rebound in 2014

March 30, 2014, 1:48pm

Nationals

Oh, the burdens of Washington sports fans' high expectations. Where else can a team be considered a failure when it completes its second straight winning season after seven straight years of finishing .500 or below? But that's how we roll in the nation's capital, where 86-76 isn't good enough, especially after the retiring manager proclaims "World Series or bust." After the national media jumped on the bandwagon, those expectations seemed to drag down down the Washington Nationals'...