When last we saw him on the mound, Max Scherzer was slogging his way through a 27-pitch top of the first against the Mets, clearly not right. Turns out he had "tweaked" his right hamstring the previous day and decided he shouldn't try to continue to pitch through it.
Six days later, Scherzer is back on the mound, back facing the Mets, believing the same thing won't happen again. He passed all his required tests during the week, but the real test will come in the bottom of the first tonight...
He homered in the top of the second. He doubled down the third-base line in the top of the fourth. He doubled again in the top of the fifth, driving a ball over center fielder Brandon Nimmo's reach to drive in two runs. He walked in the sixth. And then he homered again in the seventh, this time on a pitch below his knees that he basically could only reach with one hand.
That's a 4-for-4, two-homer, two-double, one-walk, five-RBI night for Asdrúbal Cabrera, who made it look remarkably easy...
Life on the road in 2020 is nothing like life on the road in 2019. With one exception: The Nationals are still winning.
There may not be fans in the stands or anywhere to go for breakfast, lunch or postgame entertainment, but the Nationals kicked off their delayed first road trip of the season with an all-too-familiar result: a lopsided victory over the Mets.
Two home runs by Asdrúbal Cabrera, a solo shot by Trea Turner and a 463-foot blast by Juan Soto that cleared the big apple behind...
After throwing two days ago and testing out his hamstring, Max Scherzer went up to Davey Martinez and said he could pitch that night. The manager chucked today as he recalled the story and the three-time Cy Young Award winner who would make such a ridiculous offer.
"Your day is coming up," Martinez told him. "So be ready."
That day is Tuesday. Scherzer will start against the Mets at Citi Field, making his scheduled turn in the rotation as promised when he had to depart his last outing after...
The Nationals' remarkable run to a championship last October was defined by victories away from Washington. The Nats won Game 5 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium. They won Games 6 and 7 of the World Series at Minute Maid Park. All told, they went a stunning 8-1 on the road during the postseason, the only loss coming in their first NLDS game in Los Angeles. For whatever reason, this team was really comfortable playing on the road.
Which brings us to tonight, when the...
The Nationals woke up this morning in a vaguely familiar, yet wholly foreign place: in a hotel room in New York.
It's the first time anyone with the team has spent the night anywhere other than his Washington-area place of residence since summer training camp opened more than five weeks ago. That's an unprecedented stretch for any baseball club not to travel in-season, made possible only by the unprecedented nature of the 2020 season.
The Nats should have gone to Toronto and Miami by now....
Had things played out the way the Nationals wanted them to Saturday night, we'd be talking this morning about Austin Voth's impressive start. Of course, by the end of a disastrous, 5-3 loss to the Orioles, Voth's outing was an afterthought, bumped by Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson's eighth-inning meltdown.
In the bigger picture, though, Voth's performance was significant. The second-year starter continues to show he has the stuff to be effective at this level. He just needs to show he...
Asked Friday if Sean Doolittle's struggles might force him to shift the veteran late-inning reliever into a lower-leverage role, Davey Martinez was adamant in showing faith in the left-hander who has been an integral member of the Nationals bullpen for three years now.
"In order for us to pull this off," Martinez said, "we need Sean Doolittle."
Barely 24 hours later, the Nationals manager admitted he may have no choice but to start devising a plan for success in 2020 that doesn't include...
The Nationals believe Max Scherzer is on track to make his next start Tuesday against the Mets at Citi Field.
Scherzer, who has been dealing with what he calls a "tweaked" right hamstring, is throwing a standard bullpen session this afternoon. It's exactly what he would do three days before starting a game, under normal circumstances.
"He's treating it as if he's getting ready for his next start," manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame Zoom session with reporters.
The veteran...
Nothing went right for the Nationals Friday night during an 11-0 whitewashing at the hands of the Orioles. They can only hope for a better result tonight in the second game of the weekend series.
Most of Davey Martinez's lineup remains the same, with two exceptions: Eric Thames is back at first base, because the Nats are facing a right-hander (Thomas Eshelman), and Asdrúbal Cabrera is back at third base instead of Carter Kieboom.
That lineup had better have the right approach against...
There are any number of factors you can point to when trying to explain the Nationals' inconsistent start to this season at the plate, but as is so often the case with this lineup it's always appropriate to start at the top.
As Trea Turner goes, so go the Nationals. That was especially obvious in 2019, when the club's early season struggles coincided with the leadoff man's finger injury and the subsequent resurgence coincided with his return to the active roster.
There's no injury this...
An opening month of fits and starts for the Nationals re-started tonight with the first of 13 straight scheduled game days, a development Davey Martinez was excited about, hoping it might finally provide some sense of normalcy and consistency in a season that is anything but normal or consistent.
After a lopsided loss to the Orioles, Martinez might want to revisit that line of thinking. The Nationals didn't look excited to be out there tonight at all. It showed both on the scoreboard and on...
Sean Doolittle is healthy. The Nationals coaching and training staffs keep asking him, and he keeps replying there's nothing physically wrong with him.
Something, though, is out of whack when Doolittle attempts to pitch right now. The veteran reliever didn't look right during intrasquad games and the brief exhibition season. And he hasn't looked right during his three appearances since the regular season began.
"He says he feels fine," manager Davey Martinez said today during his pregame...
They've had more days off than days on recently, but that changes tonight for the Nationals, who begin a stretch of 13 consecutive days with games on the schedule with the opener of a weekend series against the Orioles.
There's still uncertainty about the status of the top two members of the Nats rotation, so that puts some added pressure on the guys beneath them to do their job in the interim. Tonight that responsibility falls upon AnÃbal Sánchez, who makes his second start of the...
They've had a bunch of days off in the last week, but the Nationals are going to make up for it with a bunch of doubleheaders later in the season.
Major League Baseball announced a slew of schedule changes Thursday to account for all the games lost due to coronavirus outbreaks among the Marlins and Cardinals. And in order for the Nats to make up their postponed weekend against Miami, they're going to have to play three doubleheaders in two cities before season's end.
The Nationals and...
Whatever concern the Nationals had about their veteran pitchers' ability to make it through the 2020 season healthy after a grueling 2019 that didn't end until they hoisted the Commissioner's Trophy on Oct. 30 seemed to vanish once it became clear the 2020 season wouldn't start until midsummer and would be severely reduced in length.
What a perfect opportunity for Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, AnÃbal Sánchez, Sean Doolittle, Daniel Hudson and even former Astro Will...
The images were unusual and alarming. Max Scherzer, throwing at less than full velocity and with less than full extension. Looking uncomfortable as he walked off the mound at the end of a laborious top of the first. Talking with the training staff upon returning to the dugout as Erick Fedde began furiously warming up in the bullpen.
The Nationals lost tonight's ballgame, 3-1 to the Mets. They can only hope they didn't also lose their ace to a significant injury, not that any injury is...
Max Scherzer threw 112 pitches in his last start, most by any major leaguer so far in 2020. Tonight, the Nationals ace threw only 27 pitches before departing with what appears to be a physical ailment.
Scherzer was pulled after one laborious inning against the Mets, unexpectedly replaced by Erick Fedde in the top of the second.
The Nationals didn't immediately announce a reason for Scherzer's departure, but he could be seen talking to a trainer in the dugout after his one inning of work....
Juan Soto last came up to bat in an official major league game 280 days ago. You may or may not remember this, but he actually made the final out of the 2019 season for the Nationals, flying out to center field to end the top of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series. He, of course, had drawn a critical walk off Zack Greinke in the top of the seventh and then delivered an RBI single in the top of the eighth, so it's not like there was any reason to remember that final at-bat.
Tonight, Soto...
The Nationals burst out of the gates tonight to take a quick five-run lead on the Mets. Then they decided to find out if they could make those five runs hold up behind Patrick Corbin and four relievers, with a rain delay thrown into the middle of it all for good measure.
The answer: They could. By the skin of their teeth.
Tonight's 5-3 victory over New York didn't quite go according to script. Not that Davey Martinez could've predicted this particular script, which included an out-of-nowhere...