Daniel Murphy and Max Scherzer's dominant seasons have made each a candidate for baseball's top annual awards: MVP and Cy Young. Those won't be announced until mid-November, but today each player was recognized as the best the Nationals had to offer in 2016.
Murphy was named winner of the club's first-ever Player of the Year Award, while Scherzer earned the first-ever Pitcher of the Year Award. Ryan Zimmerman was also honored as the first recipient of the "Good Guy" Award, given "to a...
It's yet another gray, dreary, rainy day here in the nation's capital. If I didn't know any better, I would swear I've been in a coma the last 12 years and MLB actually relocated the Expos to Portland instead of Washington.
As has been the case all week, the Nationals will do everything they can to try to get today's game in. The Dodgers, if you weren't up real late last night, lost 9-3 to the Giants. So the Nats still hold a two-game lead with two to play, and thus their magic number to...
This is a tricky weekend for the Nationals. Yes, they would like to secure home field advantage for the National League Division Series against the Dodgers. They'd also like to do everything to make sure they're as healthy as possible for that five-game series with so much at stake.
How, then, to strike a balance between taking care of their bodies while also keeping a foot on the gas pedal?
"This is the time of the season, that's tough," left fielder Jayson Werth said after tonight's 7-4...
The Nationals may yet secure home field advantage over the Dodgers in next week's National League Division Series. But they aren't quite there yet, and they're going to bring this race right down to the final weekend of the regular season.
With a 7-4 loss to the Marlins tonight, the Nationals missed an opportunity to potentially ensure Games 1, 2 and 5 of the NLDS would be played in the District. They needed a Dodgers loss in San Francisco as well, but now the best they can do is reduce...
It's no secret that Ryan Zimmerman has been the Nationals' most disappointing player this season, and Dusty Baker has given his veteran first baseman no shortage of opportunities to try to hit his way out of a months-long funk.
With the postseason now nearly upon the Nats, there has perhaps been some reason to wonder whether Zimmerman will actually be part of the Nationals starting lineup, or whether Baker might consider some kind of platoon situation involving Clint Robinson or Stephen...
Bryce Harper wanted to return to the Nationals lineup Wednesday night. Dusty Baker made his young slugger wait two more days, just to be safe.
Harper, who jammed his right thumb on an awkward slide into third base Sunday in Pittsburgh after the Pirates' Jung Ho Kang pretended to tag him even as the ball sailed wide, was dealing with swelling and some pain in the thumb for a few days. An X-ray, revealed no fractures, however, and doctors were confident the injury occurred in a different...
The final weekend of the regular season has arrived, and so it is now, as Dusty Baker described it the other day: "Hero Time." That means it's time to play through nagging ailments and push yourself to do more than you might have during the vast majority of the season.
In that vein, Bryce Harper is back in the lineup tonight. Harper had missed the last four games with a swollen right thumb suffered on that slide in Pittsburgh when Jung Ho Kang faked the tag. He said he was ready to play...
It was only five days ago when the Nationals were spraying champagne and beer all over each other in the clubhouse at PNC Park, celebrating their third division title in five years and looking ahead to what they hoped would be a deep October run.
That feels like more than five days ago because a lot has happened since then, and most of it has not been good. Bryce Harper jammed his thumb Sunday in Pittsburgh and hasn't played since. Daniel Murphy still hasn't returned from his strained...
There is no way to truly know what emotions swirled through Gio Gonzalez's mind this evening when he took the mound at Nationals Park, only three days removed from learning his friend and fellow big league pitcher Jose Fernandez had been killed in a boating accident in Miami.
Gonzalez, who will be leaving the club Thursday to attend Fernandez's funeral, has declined so far to speak about the accident. But those who have been around him these last few days, and anyone who saw him shed tears...
Given the discouraging forecast - not only for tonight but for Thursday, as well - the Nationals had to feel fortunate to get five full innings in against the Diamondbacks this evening.
If only the score at the end of those five innings didn't favor Arizona.
The Nationals were left to suffer a 3-0 loss after the game was called in the top of the sixth with heavy rain falling at the ballpark.
The rain-shortened loss leaves the Nationals with a 92-66 record, 1 1/2 games ahead of the Dodgers, who...
The Nationals may well need to complete this week's series against the Diamondbacks in order to determine home field advantage for the National League Division Series against the Dodgers. And it may well require a return trip to D.C. from the Diamondbacks on Monday to get those games in.
With rain already falling in the area and expected to continue well into Friday, the Nationals have delayed the start of tonight's game. Whether there's enough of a window to get any or all of it played...
The Dodgers wasted no time revealing their planned rotation for the National League Division Series, announcing Tuesday afternoon that ace Clayton Kershaw will start Game 1 against the Nationals, with fellow left-hander Rich Hill in Game 2, right-hander Kenta Maeda in Game 3 and possibly rookie left-hander Julio Urias in Game 4.
The Nationals, who clinched their berth in the NLDS a day before the club they'll be facing next week, won't be making such an announcement yet.
"No, just cause they...
So, here are the answers to the two questions on everyone's mind right now: 1) It's going to rain this evening. Hard. And it's not supposed to stop until Friday morning. 2) According to a Major League Baseball official, any postponed games that could impact home field advantage for the National League Division Series must be played before the postseason begins.
What that means: The Nationals, who currently lead the Dodgers by two games with five to play (but would lose a tiebreaker based on...
Sammy Solis hadn't faced a big league hitter in 43 days, so the left-hander was perhaps a bit jittery when he took the mound in the seventh inning at Nationals Park last night and promptly threw a first-pitch fastball to the Diamondbacks' Socrates Brito that sailed more than a foot over the top of the strike zone.
"I would say a few butterflies in there," Solis admitted afterward. "But once I got past the first pitch, it was all good. Right back to the comfort zone of being on the...
Max Scherzer was cruising. After a shaky start to his night that included a leadoff homer in the first and a pair of doubles off the center field wall in the third, the Nationals ace had retired 11 of the last 13 Diamondbacks batters he'd faced, eight of them via strikeout.
But with the Nats trailing by two runs in the bottom of the sixth and the pitcher's spot due up, Dusty Baker did what he had to do: He pulled Scherzer back and sent Wilmer Difo to the plate as a pinch-hitter, despite some...
Major League Baseball has suspended A.J. Cole five games for intentionally throwing at Jung Ho Kang's head during the Nationals game Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Cole, who also was fined an undisclosed amount, has appealed the suspension, so he remains on the Nationals active roster until a hearing can be held and ruled upon. He's tentatively lined up to start Friday night against the Marlins, his final outing of the regular season.
The five-game suspension is a fairly standard punishment for...
The reaction among everyone in the Nationals dugout Monday night when Wilson Ramos crumpled to the ground and motioned for a trainer suggested an immediate recognition of the severity of what had just happened.
Confirmation, though, came this afternoon when an MRI of Ramos' right knee indeed revealed a torn ACL, a crushing blow for the All-Star catcher, who suddenly will enter free agency coming off the second reconstructive surgery of his career, and for the Nationals, who suddenly have to...
We just got word just yet on Wilson Ramos' MRI, and it's not good: He has torn the ACL in his right knee and will have surgery sometime in the next week, ending his season (and potentially his Nationals career, since he's going to be a free agent). Plenty more coming on that, but in the meantime the club has called up Spencer Kieboom from Double-A Harrisburg, giving them three healthy catchers (along with Jose Lobaton and Pedro Severino) and incredibly a full 40-man active roster. (Kieboom...
Dusty Baker faces a tricky challenge over the next week.
His Nationals have already clinched the National League East title, and some key regulars are dealing with nagging injuries and could use some rest. (And that was true even before Wilson Ramos suffered a potentially serious knee injury last night.)
Yet his team needs a strong week to hold off the Dodgers and secure home field advantage for itsupcoming National League Division Series.
How does a manager find the right balance?
"One...
The Nationals don't yet have test results on Bryce Harper's left thumb, but the sense around the club remains that the right fielder's injury isn't serious.
Harper is out of the lineup for tonight's series opener against the Diamondbacks, and the Nationals may take the precautionary route and give him more time to heal before putting him back on the field, given the fact they've already clinched the National League East title.
The 23-year-old admitted Sunday he initially was worried he...