Stephen Strasburg wants to face hitters in a real game as soon as possible. But before he can do that, he feels like he needs to face hitters in a simulated game.
Thus, Strasburg will pitch against his Nationals teammates Wednesday afternoon, perhaps the right-hander's final step before returning from a nerve impingement in his wrist to make his delayed season debut.
After Strasburg threw 31 pitches off the bullpen mound Sunday, manager Davey Martinez gave him the option of throwing another...
The 2020 Major League Baseball season is now 19 days old, and for the first time the Nationals are playing a division opponent. Add that to the list of strange facts about this strange season.
After three games with the Yankees and four games with the Blue Jays (followed by three postponed games with the Marlins) the Nats finally face the Mets tonight in the opener of a two-game series between National League East rivals. The Nationals haven't played in five days. The Mets just snapped a...
When last we saw them on the field in an actual game, the Nationals were wrapping up a two-game road sweep of the Blue Jays that took place in their own ballpark. Juan Soto was still waiting to be cleared by the D.C. Department of Health to return to work. Stephen Strasburg had not thrown off a mound in more than a week. The Marlins were stuck in a hotel in Philadelphia. The Cardinals were looking forward to their weekend series in Milwaukee.
It's only been five days, but in 2020 a lot can...
It's only been a week, and these things can change quickly and dramatically, but at this point Tanner Rainey looks like an outlier among major league pitchers.
While others are watching their workload or dealing with noticeable drops in velocity, Rainey is thriving. He's one of only six National League relievers to appear in five games so far, and the others all pitch for teams that have played 10 games this season to the Nationals' seven. His average fastball velocity (95.3 mph) ranks among...
Though he's throwing off a mound without pain in his right hand, Stephen Strasburg won't be rejoining the Nationals rotation in time for this week's series against the Mets.
Strasburg threw 31 pitches off the bullpen mound today before his teammates participated in a simulated game at Nationals Park. Manager Davey Martinez said the right-hander's next step will be to throw a "regular" bullpen session Wednesday.
"Right now, he says he feels really good," Martinez said on a Zoom call with...
After a week of frustrating bombshells - Juan Soto testing positive for coronavirus, Stephen Strasburg getting scratched from his season debut due to a hand injury - and uninspired play, the Nationals were just starting to find their groove this week.
They won a thriller of a 10-inning game with the Blue Jays on Wednesday night, then came right back and won again Thursday afternoon to sweep the bizarre road series in their home ballpark.
Things were starting to feel normal. Or, at least as...
The Nationals placed Will Harris on the 10-day injured list this morning with a right groin strain, an injury that cropped up in recent days and kept the veteran reliever from pitching in what seemed like an obvious situation for him during Thursday's win over the Blue Jays.
The transaction is retroactive to July 29, making Harris eligible to return Aug. 8 at the earliest.
Harris appeared in only two of the Nationals' first seven games this season, and looked shaky in each. He made his debut...
As the bottom of the eighth arrived Thursday evening, the Nationals leading the Blue Jays by three runs, Davey Martinez needed to decide which two relievers he would put on the mound to try to close out this victory.
Based on both track record and recent usage, the answer appeared to be obvious: Will Harris for the eighth, Sean Doolittle for the ninth.
Neither would pitch in the game.
Instead, it was Tanner Rainey (pitching for the third straight day and for the fifth time in six days) in the...
Stephen Strasburg is no longer feeling the nerve pain in his right hand that prevented him from making his first two scheduled starts of the season, and the Nationals are planning for the veteran right-hander to throw off a mound this weekend and then potentially make his 2020 debut shortly after that.
Strasburg, sidelined with what he referred to as a nerve impingement in his right wrist, has thrown off flat ground each of the last two days with no issues, according to manager Davey Martinez....
There were several moments late in Wednesday night's game at Nationals Park that seemed to be screaming for Howie Kendrick to grab a bat and step to the plate.
The veteran infielder was scratched from the Nationals' original lineup against the Blue Jays due to upper back stiffness, but in announcing that change several hours before game time the club also stated he would be available to pinch-hit.
Kendrick, though, never was seen in the dugout during the game. And despite situations that...
Whether played in Washington, Toronto, Buffalo or Sheboygan, tonight's game between the Nationals and Blue Jays deserved to be played in front of a packed house. It was that good.
Alas, you can't play a ballgame in front of anyone right now, so the select few who were allowed inside Nationals Park to witness this taut pitchers' duel that ended as a 4-0, 10-inning victory for the Nats could only appreciate it for everyone else watching at home.
Playing under Major League Baseball's funky new...
Who's ready for some poutine, fastball velocities measured in kph instead of mph and the Nationals wearing their gray coloured pants inside their home ballpark?
It's Bizarro World on South Capitol Street for the next two nights. Because the Canadian government won't allow teams to travel in and out of the United States without going through 14-day quarantines, and because the Triple-A stadium in Buffalo won't be up to major league standards for another week, the Blue Jays are forced to play...
Ask anyone who was around the 2019 Nationals what turned their season around and you'll get two answers: They got healthy after a rash of injuries devastated the roster in April and early May, and they relaxed and started having fun on and off the field.
Five games into the 2020 season, the Nationals are again dealing with the absence of several key players (Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Ryan Zimmerman) for a variety of reasons. And they most certainly don't look like they're having fun on...
There's no delicate way to put this: The Nationals are a listless bunch on the baseball field right now.
It's perfectly understandable, given the circumstances. They're trying to play through a pandemic. Their top slugger remains stuck in quarantine even though he's passed two official coronavirus tests and several more unofficial ones. Their World Series MVP is sidelined with a nerve injury in his hand. Their face of the franchise is sitting at home watching on TV after opting out of this...
The Nationals are playing the Blue Jays tonight at Nationals Park in the finale of a two-game series in which they are the home team.
Then the two clubs will play again Wednesday and Thursday at Nationals Park, with the Blue Jays becoming the designated home team because they're not allowed to play in Toronto and their replacement home in Buffalo isn't ready yet.
Then the Nationals will have the entire weekend off because they can neither play the Marlins as scheduled in Miami nor at home in...
This has become a recurring theme every day during this unprecedented season: The Nationals spend the morning and afternoon dealing with major news events, then have to actually take the field to play a ballgame in the evening. So far, that has resulted in a 1-3 record. They'll try to flip that back in a more positive direction tonight in the second of four games with the Blue Jays.
Austin Voth will try to do what AnÃbal Sánchez couldn't do last night: keep Toronto's hitters in the...
Some news and notes on this Tuesday morning ...
* Baseball can be a respite from world events. Right now, it's also a respite from baseball.
After spending all of Monday morning and afternoon consumed with the news of the Marlins' coronavirus outbreak, the Nationals went out and played their own game. They went on to lose, 4-1 to the Blue Jays, but nobody was attributing their performance to the distraction of that far more important development.
"Honestly, once the game starts you get so...
A flurry of singles and well-struck balls should have portended a good night at the plate for the Nationals. It didn't.
Ten singles and a double by the home team only produced one run, and that wasn't nearly enough to make up for the four solo homers the Blue Jays launched off AnÃbal Sánchez during a 4-1 victory at Nationals Park that only served to add to the defending champs' frustration during the opening stretch of this unusual season.
The four blasts off Sánchez - two by...
As we're quickly learning, much of the morning and afternoon right now is spent dealing with serious news stories involving people's health, and then the evening arrives and we remember there's a ballgame to be played. Strange times, and I'm not sure we'll ever get used to this daily ritual.
The Nationals, after dropping two of three to the Yankees in frustrating fashion, now host the Blue Jays for four games at Nationals Park. Er, sort of. They're hosting the first two games of this...
The Nationals formally signed Josh Harrison to a major league contract today and will have the veteran utilityman in uniform for tonight's series opener against the Blue Jays.
Harrison, 33, was released by the Phillies last week before playing in a regular season game for them. The nine-year veteran and two-time All-Star is a career .273 hitter with 53 homers, 277 RBIs and a .714 OPS, the vast majority of his time coming with the Pirates.
The Nationals had expressed some interest in acquiring...