Yet again, Ian Desmond will watch from the bench as his Nationals teammates take on a division rival.
Desmond will remain sidelined tonight because of a sore left oblique, an injury which has now knocked him out of the lineup three straight days.
Unfortunately for Desmond, it appears that the time off so far - both the four days of rest over the All-Star break and the last two days in which he's been held out of the Nationals lineup - hasn't allowed the oblique to make major strides in the...
Think the Nationals will be happy to be done with the Marlins for a while?
They've averaged just 2.8 runs per game against the Marlins this season and 4.3 runs per game against everyone else.
They're 4-5 against Miami and 47-30 against everyone else.
They're 2-5 at Marlins Park and 25-18 at every other road ballpark.
Yeah, it'll be nice not to see Ozzie Guillen and his boys for a couple of weeks.
The Marlins, on the other hand, have a .555 winning percentage against the Nats, and a...
Ryan Zimmerman is 3-for-3 with a single, a home run and a double.
Danny Espinosa is 3-for-3 with a triple, a single and a double.
The two guys are each a knock away from recording the cycle, and they've combined to drive in two of the Nationals' three runs so far tonight.
The only problem is the Nats still trail 4-3 entering the seventh.
Edwin Jackson wasn't his sharpest tonight, and a four-run Marlins third inning has then up entering the late-innings.
Miami got on the board on Carlos...
The Nationals will be without Ian Desmond for tonight's series finale against the Marlins.
Desmond also sat out yesterday's game against the Marlins because of a sore left oblique which tightened up on him. He had played every inning for 71 straight games prior to missing yesterday's contest.
With Desmond out of the lineup, the Nationals will again go with Danny Espinosa at shortstop and Steve Lombardozzi at second base.
They'll face veteran right-hander Carlos Zambrano tonight at...
Over the last three days, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez and Stephen Strasburg have allowed a total of two runs in 18 innings pitched.
The Nationals' trio of aces is at it again.
All three put up incredibly impressive first halves, and all three are coming out of the gates strong after the All-Star break. You could certainly argue this is the best trio of starting pitchers on any team in baseball. In fact, it might be hard to argue against it.
And that got me thinking. If you had one game...
So let me get this straight: We've got another pine tar incident on our hands?
The first time around, it involved Joe Maddon and the Rays, with Joel Peralta being ejected for having pine tar on his glove. This time, it's Marlins skipper Ozzie Guillen, who always seems to find himself in the headlines, accusing Bryce Harper of having pine tar too high up on his bat.
The timing of this incident is comical, considering that during the All-Star Game festivities just last week, Harper got a...
There's been no shortage of fireworks through the first few innings of today's ballgame.
We've got Ozzie Guillen dropping F-bombs in the direction of Nationals players or their manager, Roger Bernadina laying out to make a diving, run-saving grab, Davey Johnson giving it to first base umpire D.J. Reyburn and Stephen Strasburg sending his OPS to ridiculous levels.
The Nationals lead 2-0 in the sixth thanks to RBI singles from Strasburg and Steve Lombardozzi. Strasburg's base knock came...
For the first time in 71 games, Ian Desmond will not be at shortstop when the Nationals take the field today.
Desmond and his sore oblique will get the day off, with Danny Espinosa sliding over from second base to play shortstop and Steve Lombardozzi filling in at second.
Interestingly enough, Desmond needs the day off just two games into the second half of the season, after getting four days of rest over the All-Star break.
Desmond started all but one game over the first half, and has...
Davey Johnson typically isn't a huge fan of giving away outs by sacrificing and relying on the small-ball game.
Tonight, Ozzie Guillen's Marlins have done just that. And they have two big runs on the board as a result.
In the fourth, Jose Reyes reached on a leadoff single and was immediately moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Omar Infante. One batter later, Reyes came around to notch the game's first run on an RBI single to right-center off the bat of Carlos Lee.
The Nationals tied...
Remember when the Nationals tried signing Mark Buehrle this offseason and he spurned their advances only to sign with another National League East team, the Marlins?
Remember when the Nats then filled the void in their rotation by trading for Gio Gonzalez?
Today, the two lefties, whose offseason maneuverings were intertwined, will face off when the Nats look to take their second straight game from the Marlins.
Buehrle, 33, ended up signing a four-year, $58 million deal with Miami this...
For the first six innings of last night's ballgame, the Nationals played about as well as a team can play.
They did it all. They brought their bats to the party, putting up five runs on a pitcher who they had never beaten in 15 starts, knocking two-time All-Star Josh Johnson from the game after just 5 1/3 innings. Ryan Zimmerman stayed scorching hot, Adam LaRoche and Ian Desmond combined for five hits, and Jesus Flores ended an 0-for-17 skid with a big two-run single in the sixth.
They ran...
The All-Star break can't slow down Ryan Zimmerman.
In his last 14 games before the break - after getting a cortisone shot in his sore right shoulder - Zimmerman hit .333 with five homers and 18 RBIs.
If you were concerned about four days off affecting Zimmerman's recent tear at the plate, worry no more.
So far today, Zimmerman is 2-for-3 with a two-run homer off that weird multicolored sculpture in left-center. That home run has helped propel the Nationals to a 5-0 lead over the Marlins...
Jordan Zimmermann (5-6, 2.61 ERA) will take the mound in Miami, looking to lead the Nats to a win in the second-half opener. The Nationals will be facing Josh Johnson (5-5, 4.06 ERA).
For the Nationals:
LF Steve Lombardozzi
CF Bryce Harper
3B Ryan Zimmerman
RF Michael Morse
1B Adam LaRoche
SS Ian Desmond
2B Danny Espinosa
C Jesus Flores
P Jordan Zimmermann
For the Marlins:
SS Jose Reyes
2B Omar Infante
1B Carlos Lee
LF Logan Morrison
3B Hanley Ramirez
RF Justin Ruggiano
CF Emilio Bonifacio
C...
It took a while, but the Nationals have signed their 2012 first-round pick, prep right-hander Lucas Giolito.
With just minutes remaining until the league-imposed signing deadline of 5 p.m. this afternoon, the Nationals reached terms with Giolito, the 17-year-old they selected with the No. 16 overall pick in the June draft.
The two sides agreed on a deal which gives Giolito a bonus of $2.925 million, according to reports, an amount which exceeds the Nationals' bonus pool limit. The Nats will...
Only twice this season has Jordan Zimmermann allowed more than three earned runs in a start. One of those two outings came against the Marlins.
Zimmermann gave up four runs on eight hits over six innings against the Fish back on May 28 in Miami in a game that the Nats lost 5-3.
Surprisingly, Zimmermann has never beaten the Marlins in six career starts against them, making them the only National League East team he's yet to conquer. The righty has put up an 0-3 record and a 4.81 ERA against...
By the time the clock hits 5 p.m. today, the Nationals' minor league system could be significantly stronger than it is right now.
Today marks the last day that teams can sign their 2012 draft picks, and for the Nationals, there's really only one guy they have left to do business with: Lucas Giolito, the 16th overall pick in the June draft.
Giolito is a hard-throwing high schooler out of Harvard-Westlake (Calif.) School who can hit 100 mph with his fastball, has a power curveball that...
It was announced this afternoon that Bryce Harper was named as the Nationals' team winner of the 2012 Heart and Hustle Award, given out by the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association.
The award honors active players who demonstrate a passion for the game and best embody the values, spirit and tradition of the game of baseball.
What a shocker - Harper winning an award for demonstrating passion and hustle. If there was ever was an award that screamed out "Bryce Harper," it's this...
Remember that stretch earlier this season where the Nationals played 32 straight games against teams from either the National League East or American League East?
That was a massively important span of games in the Nats' first half. It was a portion of the schedule which was either going to validate the Nationals as legitimate contenders or show them as a team still a year away from being able to compete with the big boys.
The Nats came through that 32-game stretch with an 18-14 record....
With the All-Star Game behind us - and boy, I'll miss it oh, so dearly - we can now start looking ahead to the second half of the season and some of the hot topics which await us.
One of those hot topics is the trade deadline and how the Nationals might attack negotiations with other clubs given their legitimate playoff aspirations.
There's been talk for a while now about the Nationals having interest in a center fielder with speed who can stabilize the leadoff spot. That's a hole that...
Could we have Game 1 of the World Series in the nation's capital?
The National League All-Star team is helping do its part to at least make that a possibility.
The NL squad is dominating the American League All-Stars tonight, and has an 8-0 lead.
Three San Francisco Giants have played a major factor in the lopsided score. Pablo Sandoval ripped a bases-clearing triple in the first inning, Melky Cabrera crushed a two-run homer in the fourth and starter Matt Cain pitched two scoreless...