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Tag Archives: Anthony Rendon

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A strange Start to Nationals Baseball

2018 Articles Leave a Comment

In retrospect, riding camels might not have been a good substitute for working on the fundamentals. This a common refrain surrounding the Washington Nationals’ 4-5 start, including streaks of four wins to open the season followed by a five-game losing run. Still, not all is lost (Nats Reddit disagrees, of course), as there have been some positives, most namely that it is still so early that Mother Nature has yet to realize the season has started. Let’s go over a few of the important points thus far.

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NL MVP Finalists: Nobody’s Happy

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

Last year, you could’ve narrowed down MVP to a few candidates. This year, it’s open season. There were a number of players in the National League who had career years in many different ways. There were about 10 or 15 different players worthy of an MVP nod or win, and the nominees could’ve been picked out of a hat from that crop of players and it would have worked. With the number of players out there worthy of a nomination, somebody’s going to end up unhappy. Frankly, a lot of people are probably going to end up unhappy. Up until the announcement of the nominees, I had no idea who was going to make the final three; it all depended on what the voters were looking for. And once they were announced, I’m not afraid to admit that I was a little surprised with who ended up on the top of the heap.

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​​Nats vs. Cubs: Who’s Got the Advantage?

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

With about two more months to go until the regular season ends, and with the postseason picture becoming more clear, it’s become obvious that unless something changes drastically, the Nats are going to play the winner of the NL Central in the playoffs. And right now, it’s looking like that team is going to be the Cubs (unless the Brewers can fulfill my chaos-fueled wishes and unseat the Cubs).

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Bryce Harper Broke Statcast and the Other Longest Nationals Homers of 2017

2017 Articles Leave a Comment
On Saturday in Arizona, Bryce Harper hit a home run that broke Statcast. A day after Aaron Judge almost hit a ball out of Safeco Field and was unable to get a Statcast read, Harper countered with his own immeasurable shot. Harper clobbered a solo shot off Anthony Banda in the first inning of his Major League debut that landed over the pool in right center. My, oh my.

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The Nationals and The Angels Repair a Broken Relationship

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

Thursday was an off-day for the Nationals, so there was too much time to ruminate about the relationship status of a professional baseball team. Yes, that means this author’s last two posts on The Nats Blog dot com are about assigning (b)romance-related characteristics to baseball relationships, but the Nationals and the Angels truly left me no choice. The two teams packed the most flirting into a two-game series since Alex Rodriguez asked a woman for her phone number during a game in 2012.

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The Biggest Over- and Under-Performers of the First Half

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

The Nationals kick off the second half of the 2017 season tonight on the road against the Reds sitting 9.5 games up in the NL East. While the squad has sat in first place for practically the entire season, it hasn’t been an easy road getting there. Some players have outplayed their expectations while others have been disappointing so far this season.

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Tony Two Bags is Better Than You

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

Once again, Anthony Rendon does not get the recognition he deserves. He is arguably the best third baseman in the league. He does everything well — hitting, fielding, throwing, baserunning. Part of the problem is there is no player less likely to self-promote than Two Bags. In the epic 23-5 drubbing of the Mets, he went 6-for-6 with three homers and 10 RBI, but in the post-game interview, he praised the pitching, flat out denying Dan Kolko any self-praise whatsoever. Joe Ross failed to complete 5 innings that day, giving up 5 ER on 7 hits and two home runs. His interviews have become him dodging any questions from MASN Dan that have anything to do with patting himself on the back. Getting snubbed from the All-Star Game probably matters less to Rendon than any other player. He simply is not the baseball rat that Bryce Harper, Max Scherzer, Daniel Murphy, Stephen Strasburg, or Ryan Zimmerman is. Since Anthony in unwilling to do it, this space at The Nats Blog will do it for him.

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Stars and Scrubs

2017 Articles Leave a Comment

With 5 All-Stars so far (#VoteRendon), this year’s version of the Nats is Dolly-Parton-like top heavy. The top 6 Nats all have 2 WAR or higher. There are 2 Nats in the top 10 in baseball in both hitting (Anthony Rendon and Bryce Harper) and pitching (Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg). Injuries and the craptastic bullpen have sucked a lot of joy out of this season. Yet the calamities that have befallen the team have allowed a few of scrubs to show their worth.

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Who Should You Expect to Represent the Nationals in the All Star Game (Plus One Guy You Should Want To Be There)

2017 Articles 2 Comments

Ah, the 2017 All-Star weekend: when you’ll watch the likes of Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge try to destroy the Marlins’ hideous statue in left center with homers before baseball fans everywhere can finally enjoy watching the game’s best players without the exhibition deciding home field advantage.

But you, wise and curious Nationals fan, want to know exactly who will be suiting up to play in front of the league’s most consistent fan base. Herein lies this week’s looming question: Which curly-w-clad gentlemen will head to Miami for the Midsummer Classic? The starters will be revealed on the evening of 2 June, with the following all but guaranteed, and thus, not altogether interesting to discuss.

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Who Would the Nationals Protect in an Expansion Draft?

2017 Articles, Features Leave a Comment

Today is the NHL’s expansion draft. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick primer of the NHL expansion rules: each team is allowed to select a certain number of its players to protect. Any others are eligible to be selected by the expansion team, which must select exactly one player from each team.

So, in the spirit of keeping things topical, I decided to take a crack at seeing who the Nationals would protect in an expansion draft. MLB had its own expansion draft 20 years ago when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays joined, and therefore has its own set of rules.

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