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...
It has been a frustrating two seasons for Matt Wieters, there's no denying that. A four-time All-Star in Baltimore, he hasn't come close to duplicating that kind of performance since coming to the Nationals. And he'll depart as a free agent this winter, unsure what the market will be for a 32-year-old catcher with diminishing numbers.
Which isn't to say this has been a complete disappointment for Wieters, either. He may not have stats that turn any heads, but he has been front-and-center...
Even in this record-setting era for strikeouts in baseball, the 300 mark remains a rarely achieved gold standard reserved only for the sport's very best pitchers.
Only six major leaguers have reached the big number since 1990, and they need no qualifiers added before their names to be recognized as the best of the best: Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale.
And now, Max Scherzer.
Scherzer, whose career accomplishments already have set him on a path in...
Bryce Harper's second-half resurgence earned the slugger his first Nationals Player of the Year honor.
Harper, who turned his season around after the All-Star break, was named the Nationals Player of the Year this afternoon. He'll be presented with his award along with Max Scherzer (the club's Pitcher of the Year) and Sean Doolittle (winner of the annual Good Guy Award) during a ceremony immediately before Wednesday afternoon's home finale against the Marlins.
It's the first time Harper...
Max Scherzer's quest for 300 strikeouts continues tonight in what is expected to be his second-to-last start of the season. The Nationals ace is currently sitting at 290, so he's got a chance to get there tonight with a strong outing against the Marlins.
If he does it, Scherzer will become only the sixth pitcher to strike out 300 batters in a season since 1990. The others: Randy Johnson (six times), Curt Schilling (three times), Pedro Martinez (twice), Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale. That's...
Mock it as an old-school milestone, one that doesn't accurately reflect a player's offensive performance. Just know this: Major leaguers still care about RBIs, and Bryce Harper knew well when he took the field tonight he needed one more to reach the century mark for the first time in his career.
"It's an unbelievable milestone," manager Davey Martinez said before the Nationals' 7-3 victory over the Marlins on another waterlogged night on South Capitol Street. "Those guys that do it...
The Nationals may need to do some more rotation finagling this week, with Tanner Roark's status again uncertain.
Roark, whose wife gave birth to the couple's third child last week, returned to his home in Atlanta on Sunday. Manager Davey Martinez said the right-hander is still penciled in to pitch Wednesday's home finale against the Marlins, but the club is making plans in case that doesn't happen.
"Tanner went home, so we'll address that," Martinez said. "I'm going to talk to him in...
If you've stepped outside today, or even just looked out a window, you know what the weather has been like and is supposed to continue to be like through the evening. In a word: rain. The conditions, of course, were similar yesterday and the Nationals and Mets still managed to play, thanks to near-constant work on the infield by a grounds crew that has earned plenty of overtime this season.
That crew is back at it right now, prepping the infield. The Nationals took the previously uncommon step...
From the moment he first reached base for the Nationals - the date was Sept. 1, 2015, the site Busch Stadium in St. Louis - Trea Turner was destined to break the club's all-time stolen base record.
Turner stole second base in that game. He returned permanently in the summer of 2016 and stole 33 bases in only 73 games. Last year he stole 46 (establishing a new single-season Nats record) in only 98 games. And though his pace has cooled off somewhat this season, he still boasts a league-leading...
If these final games of the 2018 season - one that officially became about something other than trying to reach the playoffs on Saturday - are about giving young players some final opportunities to stake their claim for key spots in 2019, Erick Fedde's start today carried some real significance.
Fedde, the 2014 first-round pick whose path has been slowed by arm injuries, has shown glimpses of his potential in his 12 previous big league starts, but he has yet to show he can put it all together...
Stop us if you've heard this before: The tarp is on the field at Nationals Park, with no end in sight to the rain that already has been falling all morning. Stop us, as well, if you've heard this before: It appears they're going to wait this out and hope they can find a "window" in which the Nationals and Mets can play their season finale against each other.
"Right now, it's all up to MLB," manager Davey Martinez said during his pregame media session at noon. "We're going to sit a...