CINCINNATI - Adam Eaton thought he had already experienced the emotional high point of his return from reconstructive knee surgery two weeks ago when he played in his first Grapefruit League game in West Palm Beach, homered and then motioned to his pregnant wife and young son in the stands.
Little could the Nationals outfielder have known what still awaited him this afternoon at Great American Ball Park.
It's not just that Eaton went 5-for-5 with 10 total bases during a 13-7 thumping of the...
CINCINNATI - Matt Adams supplied the early power. Adam Eaton supplied the sustained offense all afternoon. Stephen Strasburg supplied another gem. And then Brian Goodwin supplied the biggest blast of all late to ensure the Nationals would open the season with back-to-back wins.
Today's 13-7 victory over the Reds featured a little bit of everything, with contributions aplenty. And thanks to that, the Nats are 2-0 with a chance to sweep the series Sunday afternoon at Great American Ball...
CINCINNATI - Matt Adams is making the most of his first start with the Nationals.
Given a chance to bat cleanup on the second day of the season with Ryan Zimmerman on the bench, Adams launched a three-run homer into the far reaches of the right-center field bleachers at Great American Ball Park. That first-inning blast, which measured 460 feet, gave the Nationals an early lead over the Reds, which they went on to extend to 5-0 in the fourth inning.
With two on and one out in the top of the...
CINCINNATI - The sight of today's lineup may have induced a sense of dread for more than a few Nationals fans who are curious why Ryan Zimmerman and Michael A. Taylor are sitting out the season's second game.
Manager Davey Martinez, though, insists he was planning to do this all along. Not as a reaction to anything Zimmerman or Taylor did on opening day but as a way to make sure Matt Adams and Brian Goodwin don't waste away on the bench.
"Coming into the series, I had different lineups,...
CINCINNATI - And we're back. With the anticipation and hoopla of opening day behind them, the Nationals now begin the long grind this afternoon. It's Game 2 of 162, and it's a little bit of a quick turnaround with a 2:10 p.m. start here at Great American Ball Park.
The Nationals send Stephen Strasburg to the mound for his first start of the season, his first meaningful outing since his Game 4 victory at Wrigley Field in October. The conditions won't be nearly as tough today in Cincinnati,...
CINCINNATI - The Nationals are going to score a lot of runs this season via big blasts and sustained rallies. There's simply too much thunder in their lineup to believe otherwise.
But sometimes you've got to manufacture a run or two to win a ballgame. And that's what made Friday's 2-0 opening day victory over the Reds particularly encouraging.
The Nationals scored their runs by virtue of three singles (one of them on a bunt), a stolen base, some well-executed baserunning and three...
CINCINNATI - Davey Martinez wasn't expecting it. His mind was still racing moments after his team had finished off a 2-0 opening victory over the Reds, the first of his managerial career. So he never saw it coming when Nationals players ambushed him in the clubhouse with a celebratory beer shower, the olfactory remnants of which were still evident 30 minutes later after Martinez had taken an actual shower to try to clean himself off.
"I was a little wet," he said. "A lot wet,...
CINCINNATI - The day began with Davey Martinez answering questions about his unconventional lineup decisions. The day ended with the Nationals' new manager needing no explanation for sticking with the conventional bullpen order that closed out his team's 2-0 victory over the Reds and made Max Scherzer a winner on opening day for the first time in three career tries.
Scherzer dominated for six innings, striking out 10 with only one walk issued, putting himself in line for the win after he took...
CINCINNATI - Though he's not on the big league roster to begin the season, Daniel Murphy is going to be hanging out with the rest of the Nationals for at least a little while.
Murphy, who is on the 10-day disabled list while completing his rehab from October knee surgery, made the trip to Cincinnati with the Nats, was introduced on the field alongside everybody else on the roster before today's opener and will stay with them until he's ready to play in minor league rehab games.
"He's one...
CINCINNATI - Davey Martinez had been thinking about his opening day lineup for some time. He had scribbled out different varieties, with and without players who were trying to return from injuries this spring. And once he knew for sure who he'd have available to him for today's game at Great American Ball Park, he didn't hesitate to write it down in pen on his first official lineup card as a big league manager.
Even if it had Trea Turner batting sixth.
That unconventional decision surely...
CINCINNATI - They're playing a ballgame here today. No, really. They are. Pay no attention to the tarp that has been on the field at Great American Ball Park, or the rain that started falling yesterday and hasn't stopped since. It's going to clear up in time for first pitch at 4:10 p.m. That's what everyone insists, so we have no choice but to believe them.
The Nationals face the Reds on opening day for the first time, and so maybe it's appropriate that there's a first in today's lineup:...
CINCINNATI - The precise figure varies depending on your preferred method of calculation, but here's one fact that holds true no matter the math: The Nationals have one of the highest payrolls in baseball this season.
The Nationals' opening day payroll of $180,193,628 (by USA Today's calculations) ranks fourth in the majors, trailing only the Giants ($220,881,444), Red Sox ($206,247,686) and Cubs ($182,560,002). The Associated Press has the Nats tied with the Dodgers for fourth place, behind...
Though they won't play until Friday, the Nationals were nonetheless required to submit their opening day roster to Major League Baseball this morning along with the sport's 29 other clubs.
The 25-man roster contains no surprises. The transactions the Nationals made Sunday night upon leaving West Palm Beach already revealed their intentions.
The Nationals will carry an eight-man bullpen to open the season, with only four players on their bench. That arrangement could change in relatively short...
So we always run this feature on opening day. It's a tradition, now in its ninth consecutive season, spanning three different websites. The idea is to reveal these predictions just before the Nationals take the field for their first game of the season. Just one problem: They're not playing today. (Thanks, Cincinnati weather!)
Well, rather than postpone the publication of this season's media predictions - and thus have to come up with some other story idea I never planned for - I made the...
The long wait is over. After a torturous offseason defined not by the free agents who were signed but the free agents who weren't signed, the 2018 major league season has arrived at last.
Spring training has wrapped up in Florida and Arizona. Teams have now scattered throughout the country to begin the regular season, and 15 games are on the slate Thursday. (We'll see how many of those are actually played, though, with rain a factor in several cities, most notably Cincinnati, where the...
The time is nearly here. After a quick stop back home to unpack and face the Twins in this afternoon's exhibition game, the Nationals head to Cincinnati and open this season of significance Thursday against the Reds ... weather permitting. (The forecast in the Queen City calls for a 100 percent chance of rain on opening day, then more rain the rest of the weekend. Can't wait!)
Byron and Pete will have you covered at the ballpark today, but before things get going down there I figured I'm...
Spend six weeks watching a ballclub prepare for the season and you can't help but make a big deal out of a few things. Maybe it's one particular job competition. Maybe it's somebody's injury. Maybe it's a position that looks like a problem area.
Whatever the case, there are always a handful of topics that dominate spring training coverage. And, inevitably, sometime during the course of the season you look back and think to yourself: Why did I bother making such a big deal out of that? And...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The Nationals will open the season with an eight-man bullpen and a four-man bench, a decision that may have as much to do with ensuring they didn't lose anyone from their organization who was out of options as it was about in-game strategy.
As the club's flight home to Washington was departing this evening, the Nats announced they had optioned infielders Matt Reynolds and Adrian Sanchez to Triple-A Syracuse. The domino effect of that: All the relievers remaining in big...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - If the goal was to end the spring on a high note, to break camp under the warm Florida sunshine feeling good about things before heading north into the still-thawing-out D.C. area, the Nationals sent the right guy to the mound today.
Stephen Strasburg, facing the Cardinals' regular lineup, was dominant for 5 2/3 innings, striking out 10 and building up his pitch count to 96 during the Nats' 4-2 victory in their Grapefruit League finale.
"He was good, really good,"...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - When they board their flight to Washington this evening, the Nationals will have played 31 Grapefruit League games over the last month. And they almost certainly will not have tried out the starting lineup they'll be using on opening day.
With Ryan Zimmerman having spent all but one day this spring playing in minor league games, and with others having shuffled in and out of the lineup, manager Davey Martinez won't get a chance to try out his ideal batting order, the...