PHILADELPHIA - Juan Soto keeps climbing up the Major League Baseball teenage ladder.
Soto launched a two-run homer off Jake Arrieta in the top of the fourth tonight, his 17th home run of the season, which leaves him in some exclusive company.
The Nationals rookie outfielder, who won't turn 20 until October 25, is now fourth all-time in major league homers by a teenager, having passed Ken Griffey Jr. tonight. The only players ahead of him: Tony Conigliaro (24 in 1964), teammate Bryce Harper (22...
PHILADELPHIA - We're back for the nightcap of today's doubleheader. The field has held up, and most importantly the rain has held off all day. Now the Nationals look to sweep their second doubleheader in four days and move to within 1 1/2 games of the second-place Phillies, who are in serious trouble right now.
The challenge for the Nats will be tougher tonight, with Jake Arrieta getting the start. Davey Martinez is using the same top five guys in his lineup, with changes only to the bottom...
PHILADELPHIA - The infield was playable. The rain held off. Gabe Kapler used 23 of his 39 available players. Erick Fedde put forth the best start of his young career. Spencer Kieboom lost a tooth and then hit his first career home run.
And there's still another game to be played tonight at Citizens Bank Park.
Who knows what the nightcap of this doubleheader has in store, but the Nationals certainly can't complain about what took place during their 3-1 victory over the Phillies in the...
PHILADELPHIA - The Nationals are preparing to play two games today at Citizens Bank Park. They have no way of knowing if they'll actually be able to play two games, but they have no choice but to prepare and hope the hours of work the Phillies grounds crew put in to dry out and smooth a rain-soaked infield did the trick.
"It's better," manager Davey Martinez said at 1:30 p.m., roughly 90 minutes before scheduled first pitch of the doubleheader. "It's better than yesterday. We'll see....
PHILADELPHIA - Hello again from Citizens Bank Park, where the blowtorches were back out on the infield at noon today, only three hours before scheduled first pitch of this doubleheader. They've since been moved off to the side, but there's still a lot of tilling/rolling/drying work being done on the infield, so I'm not sure you can say with any confidence yet that today's action will start on time (or at all, if we want to consider the worst-case scenario). Oh, also there's a good chance...
PHILADELPHIA - The Nationals mostly were able to laugh off Monday night's bizarre postponement at Citizens Bank Park due to an infield that was unplayable, the first Major League Baseball game that couldn't be played because of "wet grounds" since Sept. 21, 1987 at Milwaukee's County Stadium.
But they won't be laughing at the end of this week if they aren't able to play the seven games on their schedule that all could be threatened by bad weather, creating the potential for some tricky...
PHILADELPHIA - In this, the summer of rain delays and rainouts and agonizing losses and surprise comebacks, the Nationals tonight experienced something that would have sounded impossible if not for everything else they've experienced in recent months: a game postponed not because of rain that fell today but several days ago, making the infield unplayable.
Yes, tonight's series opener against the Phillies had to be called off because - despite the frantic efforts of the Citizens Bank Park...
PHILADELPHIA - After experiencing two postponements and a doubleheader that wasn't completed until 1:42 a.m. this weekend in Washington, the Nationals are now looking at a likely delay (and potential postponement) in Philadelphia due to an unplayable infield that was not covered while the Phillies were out of town in recent days.
Yes, the status of tonight's series opener at Citizens Bank Park is up in the air at the moment because the infield may not be playable in time, despite the furious...
PHILADELPHIA - Hello from Citizens Bank Park, where it is currently ... raining. Ah, there's a certain sense of comfort in traveling away from home but still feeling like you're home. The forecast actually doesn't look terrible for tonight: a 30 percent chance of showers. By Nationals standards of late, that's downright beautiful!
The Nationals arrive here weary from a ridiculously long weekend against the Cubs that included three games played in two days, two postponements and a final out...
He entered via the passenger's seat of the bullpen cart, his feet propped up on the dashboard, his glove covering his mouth to conceal the laughter underneath it all. It was the top of the eighth inning, it was 11:57 p.m., and Sean Doolittle was back pitching for the Nationals after two months on the disabled list.
And, as he promised all along, he rode in on the cart, becoming the first pitcher from either the home or visiting team at Nationals Park to partake of the recently unveiled...
It began with a rain delay. It ended after another rain delay. In between, the Nationals played two baseball games with the Cubs, saw Max Scherzer throw a complete game, inducted Jayson Werth into their Ring of Honor, saw Bryce Harper launch a go-ahead home run off the bullpen cart, saw Sean Doolittle become the first pitcher ever to enter Nationals Park via said bullpen cart and saw Greg Holland record the save at 1:42 a.m. in front of perhaps 200 fans.
Oh yeah, the Nationals also swept a...
There will be those who look at Jayson Werth's name on the façade of the upper deck down the first base line at Nationals Park, unveiled tonight and there to stay as long as this stadium lives, and question whether the outfielder was worthy of such an honor.
Those people probably have always scoffed at the $126 million contract the Nationals gave Werth way back in December 2010 and still don't believe it was the right move for the franchise.
But if you watched the ceremony that took place...
This was going to be a long, aggravating day and night at the ballpark no matter what took place on the field. Such is life when you're attempting to play a doubleheader after failing to even complete 1 1/2 innings the previous night due to rain, with more rain certain to fall in different waves during the course of this day and night.
But for all the aggravation, there was at least this bit of consolation for the Nationals and their fans: They were going to get to see Max Scherzer pitch. And...
Hope you didn't stray too far from your TV, cause we're already back for the nightcap of today's doubleheader. Yes, it's starting a little later than planned thanks to the 2-hour, 10-minute rain delay before the opener. And yes, there's a chance for more rain later tonight before this one is completed. But hey, at this point why complain anymore? Nothing any of us can do to change it.
The Nationals had a clear pitching advantage in the opener, with Max Scherzer facing Jaime Garcia, who...
They may have had different reasons for it, but the Nationals and Cubs were united in their displeasure with the end result of Friday night's scheduled game.
For those who missed it (or fell asleep along the way), a recap: The start of the game was delayed 1 hour, 21 minutes due to rain, then started only to be halted after 23 minutes due to more rain. Then after waiting another 2 hours, 54 minutes for the rain to clear out, the game was postponed and rescheduled as a straight doubleheader...
After a long and frustrating Friday night at the ballpark that featured fewer than two innings of baseball, the Nationals and Cubs are going to spend a long Saturday afternoon and night at the ballpark, hopefully playing 18 innings of baseball.
Everything that happened last night is wiped out, officially speaking. They'll start from scratch at 3:05 p.m. today, with Max Scherzer and Jaime Garcia on the mound for their respective clubs. Cole Hamels will pitch the nightcap for Chicago; the Nats...
They waited 1 hour, 21 minutes for the first storm to clear out and then started the game.
They played for 23 minutes, completing the first inning and the first two outs of the second inning, before the second wave of rain became too intense and forced both teams to leave the field.
And then after another 2 hours, 54 minutes spent watching the heavens open up again, then stop, the Nationals' game against the Cubs was finally postponed, some 4 1/2 hours after it was originally scheduled to...
What would Sean Doolittle have thought, the Nationals closer was asked today, if told when he first noticed what felt like a minor left toe injury on July 7 that he wouldn't return for two months?
"I would've said you were crazy," the left-hander said. "I was feeling really good, and I was pitching better than I ever have in my career. If you had told me when I came out of that game that night that I was going to have to wait two months to get to do that again, I would've said you were...
It's been 425 days since Joe Ross last pitched in a major league game. Something didn't look right with the right-hander on July 9, 2017 when he lasted only 3 1/3 innings against the Braves and saw his velocity drop. Turns out he had a torn ligament in his elbow that required Tommy John surgery, and we all know how long it takes to return from that.
Tonight, Ross will take the mound at Nationals Park again, just shy of 14 months later. He'll be facing a tough Cubs lineup, not to mention an...
With left-handers starting for the Cubs the rest of the weekend, Victor Robles is most likely going to get some significant playing time and get his first major league start of the season. We got a taste of the dynamic rookie late during Thursday night's game, though, when he took over in center field as part of a double switch and found himself right in the center of action.
Robles pinch-hit in the bottom of the seventh with a runner on first and nobody out. He grounded to third but managed...
