After watching Division Series in an age of reinventing pitching order, one thing is clear: The four teams remaining in the postseason have plenty of starters. Is it any surprise that Boston, Houston, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee are playing for league championships? So maybe there will be more talk about starters going seven innings instead of how a manager will use seven pitchers to get through nine innings. The defending World Series champion Astros have Justin Verlander (2.52 ERA...

The number of manager vacancies is piling up, including the Orioles, who decided not to bring back in Buck Showalter in 2019 after the team went 47-115.So who is the replacement for Showalter? There's the older generation of successful managers that includes Brad Ausmus, who last managed in Detroit; Joe Girardi, who won with the Marlins and Yankees; and John Farrell, who had success in Boston before he was let go by the Red Sox in 2017 after losing the American League Division Series to...

A year ago, there would have been no inkling that lefty Wade Miley could be a consequential pitcher in the 2018 postseason, not when you consider his league-leading 93 walks and 5.61 ERA last season for the Orioles. But as the postseason begins, Miley, 31, is one of a list of former Orioles and Nationals players with a chance to make the World Series, most of whom were on the rosters of the local nines at the start of 2018. Manny Machado bleeds Dodger blue and Zach Britton wears Yankees...

The Braves winning the National League East is bad news for the Nationals, good news with hope for the Orioles. The Braves arrived a year or two early and won the NL East, a division race where the Nationals were the heavy favorite to win and make it to the World Series. The Orioles are losing in triple digits, but they can take heart that two seasons ago, the Braves were on the bottom of rebuilding, struggling as the Orioles did this season. Former Orioles outfielder Nick Markakis signed with...

The Nationals' series with the Mets, which begins Thursday in D.C., doesn't have any meaning for the division race, but the two National League Cy Young candidates are pitching and there's an interesting question in that debate: Does New York's Jacob deGrom need at least 10 wins to take the award from the favorite, Washington's Max Scherzer? Scherzer, eyeing his third consecutive Cy Young, pitches Thursday night with deGrom going Friday night. The Phillies' Aaron Nola is also a candidate,...

September has arrived, but the drama hasn't - at least not with either of the local nines. The Orioles could wind up with the worst record in the majors and the No. 1 pick in next June's draft. The Nationals would need an unprecedented turn of events to make the postseason. The Nationals need an explosive September and a double collapse by Atlanta and Philadelphia to make the postseason and duplicate what the Phillies did to the Mets in 2007. That year, the Mets lost the National League East...

As a new member of the Atlanta Braves, one of pitcher Brad Brach's first meetings was with the analytics staff. They showed him a string of statistics. "They showed me a lot stuff, things like my swing-and-miss rate, how I was falling behind left-handed batters,'' Brach said Tuesday before their series with the Nationals began in D.C. "It's helpful information, but you still have to execute pitches.'' When the Orioles traded Brach, a reliever, and starter Kevin Gausman to the contending...

The Braves, a surprise contender in the National League East, figured to have a conservative approach before Tuesday's non-waiver trade deadline. But now, they're going to take aim at the NL East title with three former Orioles pitchers and an outfielder with 30-home run power. The Braves acquired Orioles starter Kevin Gausman and two relievers, Darren O'Day and Brad Brach in two separate deals since Sunday. Gausman joins a rotation that has Anibal Sanchez, Sean Newcomb, Mike Foltynewicz....

As the major league season resumes, the question looms: Can the inconsistent Nationals overtake the Phillies and Braves to win another National League East championship? The Nationals, who have lost in the NL Division Series in four different seasons, will have all they can do to get back to the postseason. They start tonight at home against the Braves. The Nationals, who have been bounced from the postseason in the first round in four different seasons by four different teams, are season...

The Dodgers, Manny Machado's new team, have a chance to get into the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season. After the first six weeks, the Dodgers appeared to be going nowhere. Thanks to a season-ending elbow injury, shortstop Corey Seager, who will return next season, played his final game for the Dodgers on April 29. On May 16, the Dodgers lost 6-5 in Miami to fall 10 games below .500 and 8 1/2 game back of the Diamondbacks in the National League West. So why would there be a need for a...

The two best hitters in the American League beat the National League's two best pitchers in Tuesday night's All-Star Game at Nationals Park. The AL's Aaron Judge hit a home run against the NL's Max Scherzer in the first inning. In the third inning, the AL's Mike Trout connected against Jacob deGrom. The Nationals' Scherzer and the Mets' deGrom will be NL Cy Young candidates this season. Trout and Judge finished one-two in the AL MVP voting last year and could be near the top in the...

Freddie Freeman joked Tuesday that the Nationals Park crowd would be on his side when he went against Nationals hero Bryce Harper in the Home Run Derby. But when Freeman stepped into the batter's box for the first-round match, reality set in: The boo birds came out at Nationals Park. That was normal, more like it. Freeman was happy with that. "That means I've done well here," Freeman said after losing 13-12. Done well against the Nationals is an understatement. In 125 career games against...

The first All-Star Game was played in Chicago's Comiskey Park in 1933. Washington hosted its first All-Star Game in 1937. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was dealing with the controversy surrounding his plan to pack the Supreme Court with extra justices, attended the afternoon game in D.C. and threw out the first pitch from his presidential box. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover - as well as many members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and military leaders - was at Griffith...

The Nationals struck early and acquired Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera. Seattle traded for Rays reliever Alex Colome, adding to an already-strong bullpen. Those acquisitions are likely just the beginning for contenders strengthening their bullpens, a necessary task for teams planning to be around in October. In the last few years, big-name players who have been traded - Andrew Miller, Aroldys Chapman and Justin Verlander - have altered the postseason landscape. This year, the Orioles' Zach...

Think the Manny Machado trade talk is hot now? It's only going to get worse until the Orioles make the trade or the July 31 non-waiver deadline arrives. Speculation runs wild. The latest, from The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, says the Yankees are interested. Apparently, the Yankees are going to cut into their rebuilding and offer a package that includes third baseman Miguel Andujar. Where will Machado, the shortstop that can also play third base, end up? Every insider has a different idea about...

The All-Star ballots are out. The last-place Orioles have one All-Star, shortstop Manny Machado, but speculation is heating up about the Orioles possibly trading him. So what happens to the Orioles' All-Star representative if Machado is traded before the July 17 game in D.C.? Would the Orioles go without an All-Star, even though All-Star teams are required to have at least one player from each team? Would another Oriole be chosen? A spokesman for Major League Baseball said Monday that the...

If the Orioles are going to get top-market value in a potential trade for shortstop Manny Machado, they'll need the Phillies to stay close in the National League East. Then they'll need the Cubs and Cardinals lineups to continue to sputter, and hope that the first-place Brewers, after their best 50-game start in team history, attempt to block a trade to either of their rivals in the NL Central. It wouldn't hurt if the Yankees lost confidence in prospects Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar,...

Frank Quilici, a little-known second baseman, manager and broadcaster for the Twins, died Monday at 79. He hit .214 with five home runs in five seasons with the Twins, but he had a unique place in baseball history for two reasons. One, playing for the Twins in the 1965 World Series, an injury forced him into the starting lineup for all seven games against the Dodgers. In Game 1 in Minnesota's Metropolitan Stadium, he had two hits in one inning against the Dodgers' Don Drysdale, a future Hall...

Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager is done for the season because of an elbow injury that requires Tommy John surgery. Does that mean that the Dodgers will be calling the Orioles about shortstop Manny Machado, who is eligible for free agency after the season? Like the Orioles, the Dodgers are off to a slow start. The Dodgers' problems are many. They have a thin bullpen and closer Kenley Jansen hasn't dominating. Their starting pitching is thin. Pitcher Rich Hill, third baseman Justin Turner and...

The Orioles are having a miserable April, and while they are going to spend the next five months digging out, there's a chance - a slim one - that they could make the postseason or at least be a wild card contender. It's been done before. Check out Dan Duquette's 1996 Boston Red Sox, who started by losing 15 of 18 to bring newspaper headlines that compared them to the 1932 Red Sox, losers of 111 games. It might have been the earliest in a season Red Sox fans worried about the Curse of the...