SAN DIEGO - At this point, there's no sense agonizing when Gio Gonzalez gets himself into early jams and racks up a high pitch count. It may frustrate everyone wearing a Nationals uniform, or rooting for them, but Gonzalez has shown time and again he'll find a way to get out of the trouble with minimal, if any, damage.
Gonzalez is up to his old tricks again tonight against the Padres. Despite allowing five batters to reach base in his first two innings, the left-hander posted zeros on the...
SAN DIEGO - Bryce Harper joked a few times recently about wanting to be an "Iron Man" and play in all 162 of the Nationals' games this season. Deep down, the star slugger knew that wasn't going to happen. It was only a matter of time before he got a day off.
And that day is today.
With a left-hander on the mound for the Padres and Harper mired in an 0-for-19 slump, manager Davey Martinez decided to sit him down for tonight's series finale at Petco Park. That decision came only after a pair...
SAN DIEGO - It was going to happen eventually. And given the circumstances, tonight made a lot of sense for Bryce Harper to get his first day of the season off.
Manager Davey Martinez made the decision to rest Harper, who is on an 0-for-19 slump and now batting only .230 (albeit with a .410 on-base percentage and .951 OPS). With left-hander Joey Lucchesi on the mound for the Padres, this series already captured and a four-game series on tap this weekend against the very good Diamondbacks, this...
SAN DIEGO - Some more thoughts, observations and reactions after Tuesday night's 4-0 win over the Padres ...
* On a night in which all of the Nationals' runs were driven in by guys batting sixth (Matt Adams), seventh (Pedro Severino) or eighth (Jeremy Hellickson, Andrew Stevenson), Bryce Harper again took an oh-fer out of the leadoff spot.
With an 0-for-4, two-strikeout game, Harper extended his recent slump to 0-for-19, a stretch during which he has drawn only one walk. He did legitimately...
SAN DIEGO - It's easy to gloss over Jeremy Hellickson in a star-studded Nationals rotation. He doesn't have the stuff to match Max Scherzer or Stephen Strasburg. He doesn't have the wipeout curveball of Gio Gonzalez. He doesn't have the bulldog reputation of Tanner Roark.
Here's what Hellickson does have: motivation. After sitting around all winter and the majority of the spring looking for work on the heels of a frustrating 2017 campaign in Philadelphia and Baltimore, the 31-year-old...
SAN DIEGO - If Jeremy Hellickson wanted to make sure he gets to face a lineup for the third time, he's sure doing everything he can tonight to keep Davey Martinez in the dugout and the Nationals bullpen quiet.
Hellickson has retired the first 15 Padres batters he's faced, cruising through five perfect innings on only 69 pitches.
The veteran right-hander, who has pre-emptively been pulled from his last two starts before being allowed to face the opposing lineup a third time through, is making...
SAN DIEGO - Managers will always say a pitcher is more responsible for the opposition's success stealing bases than the catcher who actually makes the throws. If a pitcher can't vary his timing and can't deliver the ball to the plate in short order with a runner on base, the catcher can't do much to make up for lost time, no matter how strong his arm.
So a good amount of the credit for the Nationals' success at stopping the running so far this season - they've thrown out 48 percent of all...
SAN DIEGO - The Nationals have a chance tonight to win their third consecutive series, and Jeremy Hellickson has a chance tonight to actually receive his first decision of the season and maybe even face an opposing lineup a third time.
Hellickson has pitched quite well for the Nats, posting a 3.00 ERA and 1.05 WHIP in four starts. But he has yet to complete six innings, mostly because Davey Martinez has deployed a really quick hook on the right-hander, not wanting to let him face a lineup the...
SAN DIEGO - Trea Turner had hit at Petco Park once before, in September 2014, when the Padres brought their first-round draft pick to town at the end of his abbreviated first minor league season to get a look at him and give him a chance to take batting practice in the ballpark everyone assumed he'd be calling home in short order.
Nearly four years later, Turner finally returned to this gem of a ballpark outside San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. And in his first official at-bat here, he homered....
SAN DIEGO - Matt Adams signed with the Nationals over the winter, understanding what would be expected of him from his new team. There wasn't a guaranteed starting job for the big slugger, only the promise that he'd get some starts at first base and in left field and a whole lot of pinch-hit appearances late in games against right-handed relievers.
There was, however, a reason general manager Mike Rizzo chose to give $4 million to Adams rather than picking up Adam Lind's $5 million option....
SAN DIEGO - Padres fans always expected to watch Trea Turner do something special in his first game at Petco Park. They just wish it didn't happen wearing a visiting team's jersey.
Turner, the former San Diego first-round pick dealt along with Joe Ross to the Nationals in the controversial 2014 trade, connected for a first-inning homer tonight to give Washington an early 1-0 lead and remind everyone around here what they gave up 3 1/2 years ago.
Turner connected off Tyson Ross, Joe's older...
SAN DIEGO - The Nationals have Shawn Kelley back in their bullpen tonight. And they expect to have Ryan Zimmerman back in their lineup Tuesday night.
Kelley was activated off the 10-day disabled list this afternoon, one day after completing a six-pitch rehab assignment for Single-A Potomac and only 14 days after he walked off the mound in San Francisco suffering from what some feared was a significant elbow injury.
Kelley, who twice has had Tommy John surgery in his career, was relieved to...
SAN DIEGO - It's about 70 degrees, without a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze coming off the bay ... yes, this is a tough assignment for the next three night, but someone had to do it. The Nationals open their second West Coast trip in three weeks tonight, beginning here in San Diego and continuing this weekend in Arizona. Having already visited Los Angeles and San Francisco in late April, they'll have played all of their games in the Pacific Time Zone for 2018 by mid-May, an odd scheduling...
Some news and notes to tide you over before the Nationals return to the field this afternoon against the Phillies, seeking to extend their winning streak to seven games ...
* Though nothing was formally announced Friday night, Anthony Rendon is all but certain to be activated off the disabled list today.
The Nationals third baseman completed his second rehab game with Single-A Potomac, going 3-for-4 with a double and playing in the field for the first time since fouling a ball off his left big...
For six years, the Phillies - once the titans of the National League East - have been forced to watch the Nationals seize control of this division and undergo their own long and painful rebuild.
That dynamic could change at some point, though, and the folks from Southeast Pennsylvania are hoping this is the year it happens, with a young and talented roster beginning to take shape and getting off to a strong start.
There are still nearly five months for this all to play out, but in their first...
Bryce Harper is never going to want to give up the leadoff spot in the Nationals' lineup. And Matt Adams is never going to want to give up the No. 3 spot.
The two left-handed sluggers are doing it again tonight, combining for three home runs through the first two innings of what is already shaping up to be another Nats rout.
Harper led off the bottom of the first with an opposite-field homer, part of a three-run splurge by the Nationals against Phillies starter Nick Pivetta. Then he took...
Anthony Rendon is playing third base for the Potomac Nationals tonight. If all goes well, he'll be playing third base for the Washington Nationals tomorrow.
After taking five plate appearances as the designated hitter Thursday night in Woodbridge, Rendon is again in the P-Nats' lineup tonight, batting third and this time playing third base. Manager Davey Martinez said he will get three or four at-bats, and assuming there are no problems with his bruised left big toe, Rendon will "probably"...
The Nationals already have had a chance to take on two of their potential challengers in the National League East division this season in the Mets and Braves. Tonight they'll get their first look at the Phillies, who after a long and at times painful rebuild appear to have turned the corner and look ready to contend.
Gabe Kapler's first week on the job was a disaster, but since a 1-4 debut his team has gone 16-9 (though they do come to D.C. having lost 6-of-9). This team has some intriguing...
As he entered from the bullpen and took the mound with one out in the top of the eighth Thursday afternoon, Sean Doolittle knew two things to be true: 1. He was going to need to record five outs to earn the save and seal a Nationals victory over the Pirates. 2. Before he could even think about the final three outs, he was going to need to pitch his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth.
Which made for an interesting mind game for Doolittle in his first multiple-inning save opportunity in...
Time was when 61 pitches through 5 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball wouldn't prompt anyone seated in a bullpen to so much as stretch his legs.
These, however, are different times. Teams across the sport are pulling their starters - especially fourth and fifth starters - before they have a chance to face an opposing lineup the third time through, no matter how effective and how efficient they've been to that point.
And the Nationals are now one of those teams. Especially when Jeremy...