HOUSTON - Sean Doolittle was holding court with a large group of reporters long after Game 6 had ended Tuesday night. There were some familiar faces in attendance, but most of those interviewing the veteran reliever don't regularly cover the Nationals and perhaps are just now starting to get a real sense of what this 2019 campaign has been like. Was Doolittle surprised, someone asked, that the World Series was now going to a decisive Game 7? He was not. "For the people that followed the team...

HOUSTON - Chaos was consuming every corner of Minute Maid Park, Game 6 of the World Series having turned into one of the wildest, most entertaining, most infuriating contests the Fall Classic has ever experienced. Alex Bregman and Juan Soto were trying to out-homer and out-celebrate each other. Adam Eaton and Anthony Rendon were getting in on the act as well, at least the home run part. Trea Turner was trying not to blow his stack after the latest (and probably most egregious) call to go...

HOUSTON - Though he's not in the lineup tonight for the third consecutive game, Kurt Suzuki is expected to return to the Nationals lineup and catch Max Scherzer if the World Series is extended to Game 7. Suzuki, who suffered a right hip flexor injury during Game 3 on Friday, said Monday he was getting better and hoped he'd be ready to start Game 6 tonight. But manager Davey Martinez elected to go with Yan Gomes, who will catch Stephen Strasburg and try to extend the season one more...

Reunions can be nice. In sports we see them often. Would the Orioles be interested in one with a player that once made the All-Star team and finished 12th in the American League MVP voting? The player is second baseman Jonathan Schoop, originally signed by the team out of Curacao in August 2008. He played in 635 games over six seasons as an Oriole and played in the postseason with the Birds in both 2014 and 2016. In 2017, Schoop had a breakout year and at the end of it was voted the Most...

HOUSTON - If there's a Game 7 to the 2019 World Series, Max Scherzer will start it for the Nationals. Manager Davey Martinez made that proclamation late this afternoon after Scherzer completed a 10-minute throwing session in left field at Minute Maid Park and reported himself good to go just two days after he was scratched from his scheduled Game 5 start and received a cortisone injection in his neck. "He threw, he felt good," Martinez said. "We'll see what transpires between now and...

Batting average no longer isn't valued in the same manner as baseball moves into the analytics-driven era, as anyone under 30 will tell you. So what do we make of Hanser Alberto hitting .305 this season? Average doesn't matter, but I certainly read plenty about his positioning in the race for the American League batting title. So it isn't important until it is. Or vice-versa. Anyway, it was the 44th time in Orioles history that a player finished the season with a .300 average or better among...

HOUSTON - They've played 177 games, won 103 of them, three of those when staring elimination in the face. They'll play Game 178 tonight, and the only way they can ensure there will be a Game 179 is to win. Is this the biggest game in Nationals history? Well, yeah. The Nats themselves, of course, will insist they can't think of it that way. They've specialized all year long in focusing on the daily task at hand and ignoring the larger significance. It's worked up until now. Might as well...

The Nationals look to pull off the big upset again tonight as they return to Minute Maid Park for Game 6 of the 2019 World Series against the Astros. They have one of their top starters heading to the mound in Stephen Strasburg, who has put together a 4-0 record with a 1.93 ERA in five games this postseason. His career record in postseason play is astounding: 5-2 with a 1.34 ERA in eight games (seven starts) with 64 strikeouts in 47 innings. First baseman Ryan Zimmerman on his confidence level...

HOUSTON - They've won three elimination games in the last month, twice when trailing by multiple runs in the eighth inning. And that's to say nothing of the uphill climb they faced after opening this remarkable season 19-31 before reaching the World Series. So while there are plenty of reasons to doubt the Nationals' ability to come back from three straight home losses to the Astros over the weekend and now flip the 115th Fall Classic back in their favor the next two nights at Minute Maid...

As the Orioles look to build what executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias has called an "elite talent pipeline," the minor leagues and player development obviously will be critical. On Sept. 16, the Orioles and Elias hired Matt Blood, 34, as their new director of player development. Last November, the Texas Rangers hired him as the club's director of player development. He moved to the role of director of baseball innovation in August. For three years before joining Texas, he...