New owners for Baysox and Keys, left field construction pics and more

New owners for Baysox and Keys, left field construction pics and more
In a transaction that took effect on Jan. 1, 2022, the Orioles' Double-A Bowie affiliate has a new owner. So does a former O's affiliate, the Frederick Keys. Attain Sports and Entertainment - Maryland Baseball, LLC announced that it has purchased the Bowie Baysox and Frederick Keys of the MLB Draft League. Led by owners Greg Baroni, CEO and principal general partner, and Richard Roberts, president and general partner, Attain Sports and Entertainment's mission is to present baseball as...

Most significant stories of 2021: More COVID-19 outbreaks

Most significant stories of 2021: More COVID-19 outbreaks
As we reach the final week of the year, we're taking a look back at the Nationals' most significant stories of 2021. Some of them are uplifting. Some of them are depressing. All of them were significant in telling the story of the 2021 season. We continue today with one of the most frustrating developments of the year: The loss of a host of prominent players at various times due to COVID-19. ... After everything they went through to get through a compressed 2020 season, the first such season...

Looking at a few free agent options for back end of rotation

Looking at a few free agent options for back end of rotation
Time to take a look at a few more free agent starting pitchers. No, we are not looking at the very best, not even close, but diving into the much more shallow end of the pool. It's an attempt to be realistic here and not get too far ahead of ourselves. Will there be a day when the Orioles look to sign or trade for a top starting pitcher? We sure hope so, but we're not there yet. In recent posts here and here, we looked at six pitchers that MLBTradeRumors.com listed in the category of older...

Most players Nats traded didn't perform as hoped for new teams

Most players Nats traded didn't perform as hoped for new teams
The eight players the Nationals traded away during the final days of July all had value to their acquiring clubs, each of them believing those players would help lift them into the postseason and in some cases deep into October. The Nats didn't just deal away anybody. They purposely traded veterans in the final year of their contracts (aside from one notable example who had two years to go until free agency) who would be appealing to contenders and could potentially make a real difference over...

Eight veterans in total dealt before deadline (updated)

Eight veterans in total dealt before deadline (updated)
When the clock reached 4 p.m. and it was all said and done, the Nationals had traded away eight veterans off their 2021 roster, four of them key contributors to the club's World Series title only 21 months ago. In their place will come 12 prospects of varying pedigrees from six other organizations, all of them now trying to win this season while the Nats begin a rebuild they hope is neither too long nor too painful. In the final moments before this afternoon's deadline, general manager Mike...

Orioles blasts upend Lester in 5-3 loss (updated)

Orioles blasts upend Lester in 5-3 loss (updated)
Though Davey Martinez may rely on a "Go 1-0 every day" mantra, the unspoken subtext of the Nationals manager's repetitive refrain is that his team must take care of business by asserting itself against weaker competition. Seeking to prove to general manager Mike Rizzo that they are contenders instead of pretenders, the Nats came to Camden Yards hoping to have their way with an inferior Orioles club in a weekend interleague series. Suffice it to say that it hasn't quite worked out as the...

Triceps discomfort scratches Scherzer from start vs. Orioles

Triceps discomfort scratches Scherzer from start vs. Orioles
Neither Nationals manager Davey Martinez nor Max Scherzer believe the mild right triceps discomfort that caused the right-hander to be scratched from Saturday's starting assignment against the Orioles is anything serious. But out of an abundance of caution - which might as well be baseball's unofficial motto for 2021 - the Nats opted to let Scherzer rest and chose lefty Jon Lester to start the middle game of the three-game interleague series at Camden Yards. Martinez said Scherzer first felt...

Nats hammer Marlins behind Lester's arm and bat (updated)

Nats hammer Marlins behind Lester's arm and bat (updated)
They knew the schedule was about to ease up. They just needed to get through a daunting 14-game stretch against the National League West's three contenders, sandwiched around the All-Star break, and then hope the tide would begin to turn once they had a chance to start facing lesser competition. And if tonight's 18-1 thrashing of the last-place Marlins is a sign of things to come, the Nationals might just have another run in them. And Jon Lester might not have to worry about his immediate job...

Game 93 lineups: Nats vs. Marlins

Game 93 lineups: Nats vs. Marlins
At last, the Nationals have completed the toughest portion of their schedule, a 17-game gauntlet against the Mets, Rays, Dodgers, Padres, Giants and Padres (again) that proved every bit as difficult as you'd have thought, even moreso given their depleted roster. They finished that stretch 6-11, though against the National League West contenders, they were 3-11. Not very good. Fortunately, the schedule finally eases up beginning tonight with the opener of a three-game series against the...

Rehab for Strasburg, Ross slowed by discomfort

Rehab for Strasburg, Ross slowed by discomfort
Stephen Strasburg's return from a neck injury has been slowed after the right-hander felt discomfort after facing live hitters last week prior to the Nationals' game in San Francisco. Strasburg made it through his July 9 simulated game against teammates at Oracle Park without any significant issues, manager Davey Martinez said, but the problem in his neck cropped up after the fact. "After talking to him, the conversation was it just didn't feel right," Martinez said today during his...

Defense, bounces don't go Lester's way in 10-4 loss (updated)

Defense, bounces don't go Lester's way in 10-4 loss (updated)
In an alternate universe, Jon Lester would have deserved a better fate. The ground balls he induced would have found gloves rather than grass, his fielders wouldn't have betrayed him with clunky defense and he'd have been much more pitch-efficient. Instead, Lester endured a death by a thousand cuts Saturday afternoon, when the Giants both hammered and doinked him with regularity, his defense contributed to five unearned runs on two errors and the southpaw departed after just 2 2/3 innings...

Game 88 lineups: Nats at Giants

Game 88 lineups: Nats at Giants
Jon Lester may still be finding his footing in his first season with the Nationals, but history suggests there's ample reason for the left-hander to turn in a steller start when he faces the Giants this afternoon. Sure, Lester (2-3, 5.34 ERA) has gone six innings only twice in 13 starts this season, and his last outing saw the veteran log just 3 1/3 innings against the Padres in San Diego. But Lester has won two of his last three decisions and his career numbers against the Giants are pretty...

Ross lands on IL but expected to return after break

Ross lands on IL but expected to return after break
The Nationals have been talking for months about the need to monitor Joe Ross' workload after the he opted out of the 2020 season. They weren't necessarily planning to give the right-hander time off right now in advance of the All-Star break, but when he reported tightness in his forearm following his between-starts bullpen session Wednesday, it was an easy decision for the club to take him off the active roster. Ross was placed on the 10-day injured list with right elbow inflammation before...

Rotation decision looms as Fedde returns, Strasburg gets closer

Rotation decision looms as Fedde returns, Strasburg gets closer
The Nationals get Erick Fedde and Kyle Finnegan back from the injured list tonight, surprisingly quicker than most expected in Fedde's case. And at some point in the not-too-distant future, they believe they'll get Stephen Strasburg back as well, the final and most significant return to a rotation that has needed some patching together through the season's first half. The Nats have been going without Strasburg and Fedde since June 24, when Fedde woke up with a strained oblique one day after...

Surging Bell powers Nats to late-night win in San Diego (updated)

Surging Bell powers Nats to late-night win in San Diego (updated)
Ask anyone who has watched him - shoot, ask Josh Bell himself - to evaluate his performance through the season's first half, and the answer almost certainly will be negative. And a quick glance at Bell's season totals - .247 batting average, 12 homers, 39 RBIs, .775 OPS - would give reason to believe that. Let's not forget, though, just how big a hole Bell dug for himself six weeks in. On the morning of May 13, the Nationals first baseman owned a horrific .133/.198/.289 slash line that...

Game 83 lineups: Nats at Padres

Game 83 lineups: Nats at Padres
Who's ready for some late-night baseball? Yes, after their earliest start of the season Sunday morning, the Nationals now take the field tonight in San Diego for their latest start of the season. The caffeine intake has already begun here at the home office. A four-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers made for a tough weekend, and the task doesn't get particularly easier over the next four nights against the talented Padres, who at the moment own a .581 winning percentage that would have...

Lester labors, but Nats take solace in his five-inning start

Lester labors, but Nats take solace in his five-inning start
Only once in his career had Jon Lester made a major league start on a hotter day, and that was 11 years prior when his Red Sox were in Texas on a 102-degree afternoon. So there was a built-in excuse for the veteran left-hander to use Wednesday after he slogged his way through five innings on a muggy 95-degree late afternoon at Nationals Park, if he chose to use it. Which he did not. Though the conditions were miserable, Lester would not give them any credence in affecting his performance during...

Turner's third career cycle carries Nats to another win (updated)

Turner's third career cycle carries Nats to another win (updated)
The thermometer was loaded with mercury, the heat index was in triple digits, the ball was flying at Nationals Park, and as everyone else was dragging from exhaustion, there was Trea Turner racing around the bases in the bottom of the sixth, chasing history. Having already singled in the first, doubled in the third and homered in the fourth, here was Turner - on his 28th birthday - lining a ball over Manuel Margot's head in right field and immediately deciding it was time to turn on the...

Game 78 lineups: Nats vs. Rays

Game 78 lineups: Nats vs. Rays
It is scorching hot today. It's going to be 95 degrees with a heat index well above 100 when the Nationals take the field at 4:05 p.m. for the finale of their two-game series with the Rays. If you've got tickets, make sure you dress appropriately and prepare to drink a lot of water. And, of course, make sure you're in your seats in time for the first pitch of the bottom of the first, when Kyle Schwarber digs in to face Rays opener Drew Rasmussen and tries to do it again. The current tally,...

Lester's dud sends Nationals to rare loss (updated)

Lester's dud sends Nationals to rare loss (updated)
When he stepped off the mound at the end of the sixth inning Saturday night at Nationals Park, Jon Lester felt as good as he has about himself in a long time. Ten starts into his first season in D.C., the veteran left-hander owned a 3.60 ERA. Anyone who reasonably expected anything more than that from the 37-year-old was being unreasonable. By the time he walked off the mound in the third inning tonight at loanDepot Park in Miami, Lester could not have felt anything like he did six days prior....