On Tuesday, Major League Baseball will announce the All-Star rosters for this year’s game. A handful of Washington Nationals figure to be locks for selection, while a few others are in the running as well. Here is a quick look at those who will likely represent the Nationals in San Diego on July 12.
Continue Reading Predicting Which Nationals Will Be All-Stars
Through the “down” of the tail end of a seven game losing streak and through the “up” of a sweep of the New York Mets, the Washington Nationals off-field exploits, as always, remained a constant. Here they are:
The Washington Nationals may be soon faced with quite a difficult choice. No, not Trea Turner versus Danny Espinosa — I think Espinosa’s seven-RBI performance against the Reds put that to bed for a little bit. The Nats have too many options and too few roster spots. With Stephen Strasburg’s imminent return to the roster and the solid debut from the number one prospect in all of baseball in the form of Lucas Giolito, the Nats now have six potential options for their starting rotation and only five roster spots. Compounding the problem for the Nationals, after a hot start, Gio Gonzalez has not performed well and his struggles and stuff are in stark contrast with Giolito, which makes him and easy target for demotion discussions. Decision time for the front office: Do they keep Giolito up at the major-league level and adjust the rotation or send Giolito back down to Triple-A Syracuse for more seasoning?
This week was highlighted by the promotion of Lucas Giolito to the majors, but that was not the lone transaction that reshaped the Washington Nationals organization. On Monday, the team announced several high-profile promotions within its minor league ranks, including Reynaldo Lopez and Chris Bostick to Triple-A Syracuse, Drew Ward and Andrew Stevenson to Double-A Harrisburg, and Victor Robles and Max Schrock to High-A Potomac.
Continue Reading Federal Reserve: Promotions Shake Up Farm System
The Nationals have a thing about calling up stud pitching prospects on Tuesdays in June. The OG of Nats pitching prospects, Stephen Strasburg, set the bar pretty high for MLB debuts. He went seven innings, had 14 sensational strikeouts against the Pittsburgh Pirates and allowed only two runs, both coming on a two-run home run. Despite a one-hour rain delay to start of the game, Lucas Giolito, the next Nats hyped pitching prospect, lived up to Strasburg’s lofty precedent before his night was cut short by yet another rain delay.
The wait is over, as Lucas Giolito is officially a Washington National. The prized right-hander will be promoted to start on Tuesday against the New York Mets, taking the place of Stephen Strasburg, who has been placed on the 15-day DL with an upper back strain.
The Washington Nationals announced Sunday that Stephen Strasburg would be placed on the 15-day disabled list after being scratched from his start in Milwaukee the day before. After the team’s 3-2 win, manager Dusty Baker announced that Joe Ross would start Monday, and a minor-league call-up would start Tuesday. But Dusty left out one key piece of information: Who is that going to be?
Continue Reading Voth v. Giolito: Who Should the Nationals Call Up?
In Saturday’s loss against the Brewers, Ryan Zimmerman hit a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded, which means he didn’t get a hit in yet another high leverage situation this season. Despite flashes here and there, Zimmerman has struggled offensively this season. Those struggles have been exposed in high leverage situations thanks to the new found strategy of intentionally walking whoever hits in front of Zimmerman. Joe Maddon may have some creative get-away outfit ideas, but as a Nats fan I’ll take a hard pass on his trend setting idea of walking Bryce Harper to get to Zimmerman. That means he has had his fair share of bases loaded chances and has failed to really deliver on those opportunities. How bad has it been? Let’s take a look.
Continue Reading Mythbusting Zimmerman’s Bases-Loaded Struggles
The Nationals’ relatively promising road trip has spiraled into a stretch barely short of a disaster. Losing in the situations the Nats have found themselves in can be less than fun, and so, in order to combat such gloom, all of the player’s amusing off-field exploits are recapped here:
Koda Glover’s ascent up the Washington Nationals minor league ranks is continuing, as the right-hander made his debut at Triple-A Syracuse on Tuesday.
With the scoreless inning from that outing, Glover’s season totals across three minor league levels include a 2.18 ERA and 12 K/9 rate over 33 innings pitched. While the Nationals knew that they may have found a potential prospect upon selecting Glover in the eighth round of last year’s draft, his performance this year has exceeded the highest of expectations.
Continue Reading Federal Reserve: Koda Glover Continues Rapid Ascent