Apr 24
One big difference between the Nationals and New York Mets that allowed the Nats to sweep the weekend series with their National League East rivals was overall team health. Several key members of the Mets’ lineup were out with injuries all weekend, while the Nats’ starting lineup was intact by Sunday. One member of the …
Apr 17
Somewhere last night, an exited kid of 10 or 11 proudly hung a Bryce Harper poster in their bedroom, and fell asleep to dream of the day when they, too, would hit a walk-off homer for the Nationals, sending the crowd into delirium. It’s not hard to find heroes on the Nats these days. The …
Apr 03
Washington sports fans are a demanding lot. We’re not satisfied with merely winning. We are disappointed if our teams don’t improve. We’re not entitled like New Yorkers, who expect to contend for a championship every year. But neither do we feel cursed, like Cubs fans before their team broke its 107-year record of futility last …
Aug 29
Nationals fans are having fun watching their team move closer to its third division title in the past five seasons, but an even more exciting race is is in full swing between the Nats’ Daniel Murphy and Colorado’s DJ LeMaiheu for the National League batting title. The two second basemen came into last weekend’s series …
Jul 18
With all the sabrmetrics and advanced stats that we baseball geeks toss around these days, there is still one aspect of the game we can’t accurately quantify: Clutch. The official statisticians tried to do it for a few years back in the 1980s with the Game-Winning RBI, but that stat was abandoned after too many …
Jul 04
Friday’s post-game fireworks were canceled due to extra innings, and rain might well wash out many of the Washington area’s July 4 pyrotechnics this year, but Danny Espinosa has been making the Nationals’ offense explode for the past few weeks. It’s hard to say whether the Nats’ shortstop is the most productive No. 8 hitter …
Jun 20
Time is running out to cast All-Star ballots, and for the first time in several years, more than one member of the Nationals deserves consideration for a starting spot. The National League team has included two Nats in each of the last three seasons, as well as in 2005, the Nats’ first season in Washington. …
Jun 06
So the Nationals just lost two out of three to the second-worst team in the National League, allowing 22 runs 31 hits and seven home runs to the 21-36 Reds. Let’s dwell on the positive, though, shall we? Despite the pitching staff getting spanked by one of the league’s top hitting teams, the struggling offense …
May 02
When the Nationals visit the Kansas City Royals tonight, manager Dusty Baker will pencil a designated hitter into his lineup for the first time this season. But even playing in an American League park, Baker might actually think twice before he does so. Most Nationals fans could sense that Joe Ross was done for the …
