DENVER - The Nationals wrapped up their 14th season of baseball in the District this afternoon. That this particular season, already a disappointment, ended with a 12-0 pasting at the hands of a Rockies club that now heads to Los Angeles for a Monday tiebreaker game to decide the National League West didn't mean much in the larger picture.
No, what meant the most was the question that loomed over this game at Coors Field and really loomed over the entire 2018 season. Was this Bryce Harper's...
DENVER - Trea Turner wanted to play every day, and he indeed did play every day for the Nationals this season.
Upon stepping up to bat in the top of the first this afternoon at Coors Field, Turner officially appeared in his 162nd game of the season, and in the process became only the second player in Nationals history to reach that mark.
Ryan Zimmerman, who started all 162 games as the Nats' third baseman in 2007, had stood alone in the club's 14-season history until Turner matched him this...
DENVER - As we saw one year ago, Mike Rizzo doesn't necessarily have the final say on this, but the Nationals general manager did reiterate today before the finale of his team's disappointing season he expects Davey Martinez and his entire coaching staff to return in 2019.
"Nothing's changed," Rizzo said about an hour before the Nats faced the playoff-bound Rockies in Game 162. "We haven't considered anything else."
Rizzo had already expressed a similar sentiment about Martinez last...
DENVER - For the last time in 2018, hello from the ballpark. The scene today at Coors Field should be a wild one, with the Rockies seeking their first division title while also keeping an eye on what's happening in the Dodgers-Giants game at AT&T Park. They could end the day as National League West champs, as the league's second wild card or still tied with the Dodgers and heading to L.A. for a tiebreaker game Monday.
Suffice it to say, there are some things at stake - for Colorado, not...
DENVER - As the rest of his teammates look forward to the physical and mental rest that awaits them following today's season finale, Juan Soto just wants to keep playing more baseball.
Never mind that the 19-year-old has played in 153 total games this season between the minors and majors, a workload far beyond anything he's ever experienced. He's still going strong straight through this final weekend, and as he worked in the cage before Saturday's game with Kevin Long he suggested to his...
DENVER - The Nationals wrapped up a seventh consecutive winning season tonight, and in the process ensured they will play a role in a wild Sunday in the National League, with four Game 162s all set to be played in unison to determine the winners of two divisions.
But not with Max Scherzer participating.
The Nationals' 12-2 drubbing of the Rockies left a crowd of 47,781 at Coors Field hoping to celebrate the franchise's first-ever NL West title muttering, occasionally booing and walking out of...
DENVER - Max Scherzer will make one more start in 2018 after all.
The Dodgers' victory in San Francisco this afternoon prevented the Rockies from having a chance to clinch the National League West title tonight, making Sunday's regular season finale meaningful. And that means Scherzer will take the mound for the Nationals one last time this season.
Scherzer and the Nats had decided earlier this week he would pitch if the Rockies were still playing for something, out of respect for the Dodgers...
DENVER - It doesn't look like the Nationals are going to take any chances playing Ryan Zimmerman this weekend and will shut down the veteran first baseman with back tightness.
Zimmerman, who tweaked his bat swinging during Wednesday's home finale in Washington, wasn't in Friday night's lineup against the Rockies and he's again not in tonight's lineup. With nothing left to play for - aside from impacting Colorado's playoff position - manager Davey Martinez doesn't sound inclined to...
DENVER - This hasn't been Stephen Strasburg's most memorable season. He will have made only 22 starts, his lowest total since 2013 (when he was recovering from Tommy John surgery). Unless he tosses six scoreless innings (or nine innings of one-run ball) tonight, he'll finish with the highest ERA of his career.
Strasburg, though, can wrap up a disappointing 2018 season on a legitimate high note. If he pitches well tonight at Coors Field - where he owns a 7.20 ERA, but the vast majority of the...
DENVER - With his team trailing by two runs in the bottom of the sixth and a left-handed batter leading off for the Rockies, Davey Martinez made the move most managers would make to try to keep the game close. He brought in a lefty from his bullpen to face that one batter: David Dahl, who has received only 64 plate appearances against southpaws this season and batted a mere .210 with a .557 OPS.
What happened next could not have come as much surprise to anyone who has observed the Nationals all...
DENVER - The Nationals emerged from the dugout at Coors Field this evening, the temperature already down to 51 degrees on its way to 42 degrees by the time the game ended. A sellout crowd of 48,089 packed into the ballpark for the opener of what could be a momentous weekend here to wrap up the regular season.
Alas, the visitors who had to break out their red jackets and hoodies for the first time in a long time weren't the ones playing for something meaningful. Aside from clinching second...
DENVER - Ryan Zimmerman celebrated his 34th birthday today by getting treatment on his ailing back and then bundling up to watch from the dugout as the Nationals faced the Rockies on a 51-degree late-September evening at Coors Field.
Zimmerman was not in the Nats lineup two days after he tweaked his back on a swing in the team's home finale, an injury that forced him to come out of the game after two at-bats. He hoped to play tonight, but common sense told him it wasn't worth it.
"It's...
DENVER - Max Scherzer doesn't really have any reason to pitch Sunday - "I've made 33 starts, thrown 220 innings," he said today. "So that's a full workload." - but Game 162 could mean everything for the Rockies, who enter the weekend trying to win either their first division title or fourth wild card berth.
So Scherzer and the Nationals have made a decision how to proceed. If Sunday's game matters for Colorado's postseason chances, Scherzer will start. If it doesn't, he'll sit.
"The...
DENVER - Hello from Coors Field, where it's been in the 50s all afternoon and is expected to dip into the 40s tonight, with a sellout crowd expected for a must-win game for the home team seeking its first division title. In short, it's going to be a playoff-like atmosphere tonight. Maybe not the playoff atmosphere the Nationals wanted to experience, but it nonetheless will add some juice to their final series of a disappointing season.
The Nats intend to play this out, at least as long as the...
Mike Rizzo's primary goal at the outset of each season is for his team to be playing meaningful games in late September. (The ultimate goal, of course, is to then be playing meaningful games in late October, but that can't happen without meaningful games in late September.)
Well, the good news is that the Nationals indeed will be participating in meaningful games during this final weekend of September. Alas, the games are meaningful only for the opposition: the Rockies, whose 2018 fate hangs...
The focus Wednesday obviously was on Bryce Harper, whose potential farewell to Nationals Park didn't quite go as hoped, both for performance and weather-related reasons. But there was plenty else going on during the course of the Nats' 9-3, seven-inning win over the Marlins. Let's run through some of the other notable developments ...
* Victor Robles had the best game of his brief major league career. The rookie center fielder went 4-for-5 with a double, a homer and five RBIs, and in the...
He was up at 5 a.m., dealing with movers set to transport his stuff from his Arlington apartment to his offseason home in Las Vegas. He was at Nationals Park several hours later, already in full uniform at 1 p.m. for a 4:05 p.m. game, prompting wisecracks from teammates.
And once he took the field for the Nats' 2018 home finale, every move Bryce Harper made was greeted with an ovation, usually a sustained one.
They cheered Harper when he received his Nationals Player of the Year Award. They...
Bryce Harper is the center of attention today at Nationals Park, but Kyle McGowin is trying to get everyone to notice him as well.
The rookie right-hander, making his first career start, has retired the first nine Marlins batters he has faced, four via strikeout to introduce himself to a crowd that has gathered on a warm Wednesday afternoon for what could be Harper's final home game in a Nats uniform.
Given the starting assignment in place of Tanner Roark, who remains at home in Atlanta with...
For his team's final home game of the season, and then final road series of the season, Davey Martinez doesn't envision doing anything in a different manner than he's done it all year long. In other words, the games themselves will take precedence over individual moments the rookie manager might otherwise try to create for his most popular players.
Bryce Harper is, of course, in the lineup batting third and playing right field. And though this could be his final game at Nationals Park as a...
And so we have arrived at the final home game of the 2018 season. Which, of course, also means it could be the final home game of Bryce Harper's Nationals career. This isn't the manner anyone expected or wanted it to happen, on a late Wednesday afternoon against the Marlins, with nothing at stake and rain in the forecast. But this is the reality of the situation.
We don't know for sure what today has in store, but there will be opportunities for fans to salute Harper, beginning at roughly...
