Major League Baseball has suspended Nationals pitcher Sean Nolin five games and manager Davey Martinez one game after determining Nolin intentionally hit Braves slugger Freddie Freeman with a pitch Wednesday night in Atlanta.
Nolin, who was also fined an undisclosed amount, initially appealed his suspension and was to remain on the active roster until his case was heard, but the Nationals later announced the lefty dropped his appeal and began serving the suspension tonight. Martinez is serving...
If you're interested in silver linings, here's one for you: The Nationals are done playing the National League's division title contenders for the season. Yep, they're wrapped things up against the Braves, Phillies, Mets, Brewers, Giants and Dodgers, and though there are still series remaining with the wild card contending Reds and Red Sox, the worst of the schedule is now behind them.
And that could be significant, because of this fact: The Nats finished a dismal 22-55 against those six NL...
We are inching toward the finish line of this most unusual season. The Nationals have 22 games left to play, none of them against the National League East's three remaining contenders. It's going to be the Pirates, Marlins (home and home), Rockies (home and home), Reds and Red Sox to close out the 2021 campaign, so there appear to be both winnable games and some interesting matchups with playoff contenders still on tap over the final three weeks.
Before the Nats get a weekend series going in...
If the final month of this lost season is about giving young players a chance to grow and establish their place within the Nationals' plans in 2022 and beyond, tonight's 7-6, 10-inning loss to the Braves provided no shortage of evidence for several potential building blocks on the roster. In both positive and negative ways.
The positives: Carter Kieboom and Lane Thomas delivered clutch hits in the late innings. Luis GarcÃa produced a highlight-reel sequence at the plate and in the field in...
For all the good he has done since joining the Nationals last month - and he's done a lot of good - Lane Thomas has one curious blemish on his otherwise sparkling resume: baserunning blunders.
The 26-year-old outfielder has twice been thrown out on the bases not because of anything the opposing defense did, but because of his own lack of awareness of the rules.
It happened Tuesday night during the ninth inning of the Nats' 4-2 win over the Braves. Leading off from first base with nobody out,...
The Nationals gutted out a 4-2 victory Wednesday night in Atlanta, thanks to 8 2/3 innings from six relievers who were thrust into overtime duties after Sean Nolin was ejected eight pitches in for throwing at Freddie Freeman. Where does that leave them for tonight's series finale at Truist Park?
Well, first and foremost, they need innings from Erick Fedde. That's a big ask for a guy who needed 80 pitches just to get through three innings against the Mets last weekend. Not to mention a big ask...
Sean Nolin's ejection eight pitches in Wednesday night added some drama to what might otherwise have been an insignificant ballgame in Atlanta. But it also set in motion a link of falling dominoes that would impact not only that game but tonight's series finale and perhaps some portion of this weekend's series in Pittsburgh.
For those who missed it: Nolin was ejected by plate umpire Lance Barksdale after twice throwing fastballs at Freddie Freeman - the first one sailed behind his head, the...
For Sean Nolin and the Nationals, the message (standing up for a star teammate against an opponent that appeared to hit him on purpose the previous night) superseded all else. If it meant the rest of the pitching staff would face an extreme uphill battle from that point on, so be it. The message, even if nobody would publicly admit it after the fact, was more important.
And when Nolin intentionally threw at Freddie Freeman on successive pitches in the bottom of the first tonight in Atlanta,...
Keibert Ruiz's much-hyped Nationals debut came eight days ago, in the club's homestand opener against the Phillies, with fellow former Dodgers prospect Josiah Gray on the mound. Since then, the rookie catcher has gone a pedestrian 3-for-21 at the plate, started four games, fouled a ball off his right knee and spent three days recovering from the bone bruise that caused.
The Nats can only hope Ruiz will find his rhythm now that he's back in the lineup for tonight's game against the Braves....
What's the best thing the Nationals could do to give themselves a better chance of winning tonight against the Braves? How about a quality performance from their starter, allowing them to avoid falling into an early hole yet again and asking their lineup to battle back just to make it interesting late?
As impressive as the offense has been with all these rallies of late - they've come back to at least tie the game six straight times - the task would be so much simpler if they weren't giving...
When Ryan Zimmerman drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the ninth Friday night, Nationals manager Davey Martinez immediately sent Andrew Stevenson out to pinch-run for the veteran. And wouldn't you know it, but minutes later Stevenson was racing around the bases and ultimately colliding with Mets catcher Chance Sisco en route to scoring the game-tying run.
So when Zimmerman drew a two-out walk in the bottom of the eighth Monday afternoon, all eyes turned to the home dugout to see if Stevenson...
All weekend, over the course of five games in four days, the Nationals battled their way back against the Mets. Three times they trailed, once by a whopping nine runs, and rallied to tie late, only to ultimately lose in the end.
But today, in their final matchup of the season, the Nats finally finished the job.
Down a run in the bottom of the ninth but owning at least some confidence in their ability to rally against the New York bullpen, the Nationals stormed back to win, 4-3, getting a...
Keibert Ruiz has a bone bruise in his right knee, the result of a foul ball he hit off himself Saturday, and remains unavailable to catch for today's series finale against the Mets.
The Nationals planned to have their rookie start multiple games of this five-game weekend series, but he wound up catching only the first half of Saturday's doubleheader. Fouling a ball off his right knee in the second inning, he writhed in pain for several minutes before returning to the batter's box and...
At long last, the Nationals and Mets wrap up their five-game holiday weekend series, not to mention their 19-game season series, this afternoon. These two teams have been playing each other way too much lately. In fact, 11 of the Nats' last 25 games have come against the Mets. I think I speak for everyone who has had to cover or watch all these games when I say: Thank God.
As for today's finale, it's Patrick Corbin on the mound, trying desperately to put together a quality start and perhaps...
As you watched Josiah Gray alternate between misfiring pitches well outside of the strike zone to his arm side and leaving them right over the heart of the plate to be hammered by Mets hitters Sunday afternoon, you couldn't help but be alarmed.
This was a bad start, and there was no way to try to frame it as anything other than that. It included six runs and seven hits allowed in three innings, two more homers surrendered and 82 pitches thrown. There was nothing for Gray to hang his hat on at...
On a day in which they watched their brightest young starting pitcher get beat around for the second time in a week, the Nationals yet again found a way to overcome an early deficit and make the Mets sweat.
And they yet again found a way to turn a potentially inspiring comeback into a calamitous, late-inning meltdown that made it all moot.
At some point, this young team needs to show it has the ability to finish what it starts. Comebacks are nice, but curly W's are better.
So it was that in...
Josh Rogers is going to get another chance to pitch for the Nationals. Gerardo Parra may not get another chance to play for them.
The club decided to keep Rogers on the active roster following his impressive debut Saturday night as a fill-in starter for a doubleheader split with the Mets, and manager Davey Martinez said the left-hander is likely to going to make at least one more start.
In order to keep Rogers on the roster, though, the Nationals placed Parra on the 10-day injured list with...
The Nationals and Mets have already played three games in this holiday weekend series, and they're not even close to wrapping it up just yet. They face off this afternoon, then will return Monday afternoon for the Labor Day finale of a rare, five-game set.
After the craziness of Saturday's doubleheader, everyone would appreciate a simpler affair today. And the Nats would love to get another quality start from Josiah Gray, who failed to turn in a quality performance last time out for the first...
Juan Soto has known for some time now opponents aren't going to pitch to him. At least not with any regularity.
He's drawn 48 walks in 42 games since the All-Star break, far and away most in the majors. And that has produced a whopping .516 on-base percentage during that time, also far and away the highest in the majors.
If you've been paying even scant attention, you already know this. We're not treading into new territory with this subject.
But here's what has changed in more recent...
The Nationals understand there are going to be growing pains as they play out the string of a season that has now long since morphed from one with legitimate visions of success into one that is solely about starting a difficult organizational rebuild.
But it's one thing when those growing pains come in the form of rallies made possible by a superior opponent's performance. It's quite another when they come in the form they did this afternoon during a nightmare of a 7-6 loss to the...