PHILADELPHIA - Ask a bunch of people around baseball - players, coaches, managers, executives, scouts, media members - for a list of the best pitchers in the National League, and you're likely to get several recurring names: Kershaw, Arrieta, Scherzer, Strasburg, Bumgarner, Cueto, Lester, Syndergaard, Fernandez.
All, of course, are excellent pitchers, all deserving of the recognition they receive. But how many voters are including Tanner Roark on their list?
"If they're not," Jayson Werth...
PHILADELPHIA - While their offense remains very much in hit-or-miss mode, the Nationals at least know they can still count on Tanner Roark to deliver a big-time start when they most need one.
The Nationals scored two quick runs off the Phillies tonight, then sat back and watched as Roark and the bullpen took care of the rest, tossing a combined shutout during what became a 4-0 victory by night's end at Citizens Bank Park.
Roark handled the first seven of those shutout innings, never entirely...
PHILADELPHIA - Dusty Baker planned to give Ryan Zimmerman his share of days off down the stretch, regardless of the veteran's performance. So the fact Zimmerman was not in the Nationals lineup for tonight's series opener against the Phillies wasn't a shock.
Baker, though, didn't want Zimmerman to take the day off altogether. No, the two spent considerable time (along with other members of the coaching staff) in the batting tunnel at Citizens Bank Park earlier in the afternoon working on...
PHILADELPHIA - It has taken a while, and it has included a few more bumps than they would have liked, but the Nationals have reached the final leg of their 20-games-in-20-days stretch. That also means they've almost reached September and the home stretch of a season they hope to continue well into October.
Make no mistake, the Nationals are well aware of all this.
"You start checking off the months until the season goes by. Now, we're down to one-sixth of the season," manager Dusty Baker...
PHILADELPHIA - Hello from Citizens Bank Park, where the Nationals wrap up this 20-games-in-20-days stretch with one final series against the Phillies. And there's plenty going on here already.
The Nats have made a roster move: Michael A. Taylor was recalled and Lucas Giolito was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse. That gives the team a full bench again. With an off-day Thursday, the club can afford to go with four starting pitchers for the moment. And remember, players who are sent down at the end...
Rain in Colorado prevented it from happening in his first attempt. Then an erratic performance in Atlanta prevented it from happening in his next attempt.
Fortunately for Gio Gonzalez, the third time was the charm in his pursuit of 100 career wins, thanks to one of the left-hander's better starts in a while and some much-appreciated run support from his teammates during an 8-5 victory over the Rockies.
"I'm just happy it came," said Gonzalez, who has notched 62 of those wins while wearing a...
Gio Gonzalez kept giving back the leads his teammates provided, but the Nationals kept providing enough run support until the left-hander settled down and then handed the game over to his bullpen, which finished off an 8-5 victory over the Rockies.
Gonzalez, who allowed two runs and four hits over six innings, earned his 100th career win.
Jayson Werth and Daniel Murphy homered for the Nationals, who won their second straight after a four-game losing streak.
Werth got the Nationals on the board...
For a generation of Washington baseball fans, there always has been no bigger figure in this town than Frank Howard. And that's only in part because of Hondo's 6-foot-7 frame.
Howard has long been remembered as by far the best to ever play for the expansion version of the Senators that called D.C. home from 1961-71. He wasn't good enough to merit serious consideration for the Hall of Fame, but he was good enough to merit a statue outside Nationals Park, alongside permanent Cooperstown...
The road to recovery from Tommy John surgery is long and lonely, and tests the mind just as much as it tests the reconstructed elbow of a pitcher. Aaron Barrett was far down that road in late July, a full 11 months removed from his surgery and fully confident he'd be ready to pitch in a big league game for the Nationals after only one more month of rehab.
Barrett was standing on a mound on one of the practice fields in Viera, Fla., on July 22, 10 pitches into a scheduled 20-pitch simulated...
After the excitement and drama of the four-day, two-city Beltways Series, the Nationals get back to business this weekend with the Rockies in town.
Max Scherzer saved the bullpen last night with his dominant eight-inning performance. But in order to keep that bullpen from getting burned up again, Gio Gonzalez will need to follow up his rotation mate with a strong start of his own tonight.
Gonzalez will be working with Jose Lobaton, a pairing that has enjoyed plenty of success in the past. That...
Marc Rzepczynski was taking a nap in Northern California when he was startled to find out he'd just been traded from the Athletics to the Nationals.
Not upset, mind you, because he was suddenly heading from a last-place club to a first-place club for the final six weeks of a pennant race. But the veteran left-hander's life was suddenly being uprooted, and his new team needed him on the other side of the country ASAP.
"I was actually taking a nap when this happened," Rzepczynski said. "We...
Jose Lobaton doesn't get very many opportunities to catch Max Scherzer. He's only been behind the plate with the Nationals' $210 million right-hander eight times in two seasons. But, boy, does he savor those opportunities, especially when they come in particularly big games like tonight's 4-0 win over the Orioles.
"He's in the moment," Lobaton said. "He wants to show that he's the guy. I love that. I love that."
Scherzer most definitely was "the guy" tonight. With his team mired in...
Max Scherzer strikes out a lot of batters but gives up lots of homers. The Orioles lineup strikes out a lot but hits a lot of homers.
Which makes for an intriguing matchup tonight in the finale of the Beltway Series at Nationals Park. One that so far is being dominated by Scherzer.
The Nationals ace has retired the first nine Baltimore batters he's faced, striking out six of them. He's done this on a scant 35 pitches.
As is so often the case, Scherzer offers up ample evidence early what kind...
Marc Rzepczynski has arrived in Washington. And apparently traffic was light enough getting into town from Dulles that the newly acquired reliever has made it to Nationals Park in time to be eligible for tonight's game.
"There's a chance," manager Dusty Baker said earlier this afternoon, perhaps underestimating how difficult it typically is to make that 30-mile drive into town during rush hour.
Turns out Baker's optimism was warranted, though, and so Rzepczynski will be at his disposal out...
The Nationals didn't expect to find themselves in this position, needing to beat the Orioles tonight to avoid a four-game sweep, but here they are nonetheless. They'll ask Max Scherzer to stop the bleeding and give this team the dominant start it so desperately needs.
No word yet if the newly acquired Marc Rzepczynski - I'm getting good at spelling his name without having to check first - will be here in time to be activate for tonight's game. At this point, the Nats haven't announced a...
Desperate for left-handed relief after Felipe Rivero was traded, Sammy Solis was injured and Oliver Perez was ineffective, the Nationals have acquired veteran Marc Rzepczynski from the Athletics for minor league infielder Max Schrock.
The trade also includes cash coming from the A's to the Nationals to cover some of the roughly $600,000 Rzepczynski is still owed this season.
Rzepczynski - his name is pronounced "zep-CHIN-skee" but he also goes by the nickname "Scrabble" - owns a 3.87 ERA...
Trea Turner knew he had gone 8-for-8 over the last two nights - "I mean, if you don't, you're lying," he said. "Everyone thinks about it." - but he didn't know he had tied a franchise record in the process.
Not until Turner went back to watch video of his final at-bat of Wednesday night's game, his ninth-inning strikeout, did he see a graphic on the screen pointing out he needed one more hit to break the record set previously by the Expos' Andre Dawson in 1983 and the Nationals'...
They came up to bat in the bottom of the ninth at the end of a miserable night during a miserable week during which it has felt like they've been fighting an uphill battle every step of the way. Three quick outs and the Nationals' fourth straight defeat would be in the books, a second straight lopsided loss to the Orioles.
It didn't quite happen like that, though. The end result - a fourth straight loss - may have been the same, but the manner in which it happened, with the Nationals...
For all their pitching struggles and overuse in the last two weeks, the Nationals had to at least take solace knowing one of their most reliable starters would be on the mound tonight: Tanner Roark.
Then Roark took the mound and picked up where the rest of the Nationals pitching staff left off. And that's not a good thing.
Roark labored mightily through his first inning, throwing 39 pitches to nine batters, with four of them scoring to give the Orioles a commanding early lead.
It has been a...
The Nationals plan to keep A.J. Cole and have him start Saturday night against the Rockies, but manager Dusty Baker said that plan remains tentative and Lucas Giolito will be available to rejoin the big league rotation this weekend if needed.
Pressed into emergency duties Monday when Stephen Strasburg had to be placed on the disabled list with a sore elbow, Cole impressed in only his second career big league start, going seven innings in a 4-3 loss to the Orioles. That performance appears to...