Well, opening day certainly proved to be eventful, if not exactly satisfying for the Nationals.
They learned Juan Soto had tested positive for the novel coronavirus and couldn't open the season on the active roster. They raised their World Series flag and pennant in an empty stadium with no fans to cheer them on. They joined the Yankees in kneeling on the field following a recorded video on racial justice before standing for the national anthem. Then they got to play only five full innings...
It should've been a glorious day, a chance to celebrate what happened at the end of the 2019 season and begin the 2020 season with a marquee matchup.
Alas, July 23, 2020 will not be remembered fondly by anyone in these parts. Unless you're a Yankees fan glad your team was awarded a rain-shortened 4-1 victory over the Nationals to cap off an evening that didn't go according to anyone's plan.
The Nationals lost their season opener after managing one hit (Adam Eaton's first-inning homer) in...
And so it begins. The strangest season in baseball history gets underway with the strangest opening night in baseball history. The defending champion Nationals will raise a flag and a pennant and face the sport's most-storied franchise, even though it comes from the American League. It will be televised nationally, with artificial crowd noise pumped through the otherwise empty stadium's public address system.
And the Nationals' star slugger won't be in the lineup after he tested positive...
The Nationals' season-opening roster will not include the team's best and brightest young star.
Juan Soto was not included on the Nats' initial 30-man roster and will not be active for tonight's opener against the Yankees after testing positive for COVID-19, general manager Mike Rizzo announced this afternoon.
Soto, like others on the team, was tested Tuesday. He is asymptomatic, but early this morning his test result came back positive, said Rizzo, who added all other tests taken by...
The 2020 Major League Baseball season begins tonight, and did you ever think those words would mean what they do right now?
This promises to be a season unlike any other, and we don't know yet if that will be for positive reasons, negative reasons or a little of each. It may be different, but that doesn't mean it won't include a few familiar traditions. Like this one.
For 11 seasons now, members of the Nationals beat have graciously agreed to make season predictions, publish them and then...
When they take the field Thursday night for the first time in 2020, the Nationals will do so as defending World Series champions, having just raised a flag and pennant minutes earlier. They'll be sending their potential future Hall-of-Famer Max Scherzer to the mound. The opponents, the Yankees, are merely baseball's most-storied franchise, one sending its new ace, Gerrit Cole, to the mound in its first step toward competing for its 28th World Series title.
This would be a blockbuster event...
Though Wander Suero and Roenis ElÃas have rejoined the Nationals and have been cleared to work out with the club, neither reliever will be ready to open the season on the active roster.
Suero and ElÃas were among the group of 11 players who were not initially cleared to participate in summer training at Nationals Park, either because they tested positive for COVID-19 or were exposed to someone else who did. Both were placed on the 10-day injured list July 13.
ElÃas, though, was cleared...
Are the Nationals ready for what awaits them Thursday night, when the atmosphere inside Nationals Park will be no different than it was for tonight's exhibition finale - a rain-shortened, 6-4 victory over the Orioles - but the stakes will be ramped up by a factor of 10?
It's impossible to know at this point, but here's what we do know after three exhibition games played in empty ballparks:
* Many pitchers' velocity is down, some to concerning levels.
* Some hitters are locked in despite the...
It has taken an extraordinarily long time for the Nationals' exhibition finale to arrive. And yet it still feels like it sneaked up on us without notice, doesn't it? Such is life when you've had a four-month hiatus in the middle of the exhibition season, then only three games upon returning to action.
This is the last chance the Nats will get, though, before facing the Yankees for real Thursday night. So if there's anyone or anything Davey Martinez still needs to look at before then, this...
Think back, if you can, to the offseason and one of the most pressing questions facing the Nationals as they prepared to defend their title in 2020: Who was going to replace Anthony Rendon as the No. 3 hitter?
There never was a perfect answer to the question, but there were several potential answers, each earning a few weeks in the spotlight before getting replaced by another.
Remember when we thought it might be Trea Turner? Forget about his blazing speed, the Nationals shortstop really was...
The Nationals passed their first test of the exhibition season, successfully hosting a game against the Phillies. Now they face their next important test: a road game.
It's not really a road trip, just a short bus ride up to Camden Yards and back. No overnight stay in a hotel. No flights. But there are different protocols and considerations they must follow for tonight's game against the Orioles, and at the end of the night, they'll hopefully have a better idea what they're in for once they...
They've played only one exhibition game, but the Nationals have no choice but to start thinking seriously about finalizing their opening night roster, which must be submitted 72 hours from now.
In some ways, this is a trickier proposition than it usually is, given the lack of time and lack of performance to make such player judgments. And yet in some ways it's also a simpler task than usual, because they're allowed to keep 30 players on the active roster for the season's first two...
Victor Robles is convinced he'll be ready for opening night. The Nationals have four days to decide if they concur.
Robles, who was cleared to participate in workouts Saturday for the first time this summer, said today that despite his lack of baseball activities while in quarantine, he expects to be good to go for the Nats' season opener against the Yankees.
"Absolutely. I think I have the ability and the youth that helps me get ready quickly," the young center fielder said, via...
Given an opportunity to write out what may very well be his opening night lineup for Saturday's exhibition opener, Nationals manager Davey Martinez included one mildly unexpected name: Asdrúbal Cabrera.
Two weeks after suggesting rookie Carter Kieboom would be his everyday third baseman for this shortened season, Martinez offered a clue that probably won't be 100 percent true. Cabrera, not Kieboom, got the nod against the Phillies and appears the likely choice to start Thursday against the...
They stretched and played catch in the outfield, just like they always do. Max Scherzer warmed up in the bullpen, just like he always does. After a moment of silence for late Rep. John Lewis, everyone lined up and listened to the national anthem, just like they always do.
And then, as pump-up music blared over the sound system and PA announcer Jerome Hruska introduced the Washington Nationals, the defending World Series champions took the field to face an opposing team at Nationals Park for the...
The final missing piece of the Nationals lineup has joined the club at last.
Victor Robles was spotted in the home dugout during tonight's exhibition opener against the Phillies, the center fielder having completed his District of Columbia-mandated quarantine more than two weeks after Nats summer training opened.
Robles was part of a large group of Nationals players that traveled to Washington from the Dominican Republic, one of whom tested positive for COVID-19 during Major League Baseball's...
And so, here we go again.
When last we saw the Nationals on the field playing against another team, their biggest concerns were whether the pitching staff would suffer from all the extra innings they threw during the postseason, whether Carter Kieboom deserved to start at third base, how much playing time Ryan Zimmerman would get and whether Joe Ross would win the No. 5 starter's job.
Those are not their biggest concerns tonight as they take the field to face the Phillies in the first of three...
They've spent the last two weeks working first in small groups, then as a full (socially distanced) unit. They took grounders. They took batting practice. They threw off the bullpen mound. They simulated some game situations. And they played several intrasquad games.
And now, at long last, the Nationals will take the field and play a baseball game against an opposing team for the first time in 127 days.
It's not a real game, merely an exhibition. But this Saturday evening gathering with the...
He's had only two days in camp after spending 14 days in mandatory quarantine. He'll get to play in only three exhibition games. But Howie Kendrick insists he'll be at Nationals Park on Thursday night, in the lineup as his team opens its title defense against the Yankees.
"I'll be ready," the veteran hitter said today in his first Zoom session with reporters of the summer. "Whether I am or not, I'll be ready."
Kendrick was ready to go when camp opened two weeks ago, but District of...
The Nationals released Fernando Abad this morning, cutting ties with the veteran reliever, who had been among the group of players waiting the last two weeks to be cleared to participate in summer training.
Abad, a non-roster invitee to big league camp back in the spring, had been a viable candidate to make the opening day bullpen, all the more so after Major League Baseball announced this abbreviated season will begin with 30-man active rosters.
But the left-hander, a native of the Dominican...