Today's exhibition game was NOT at Nats Park (see previous message) it was at Max Bishop stadium on the campus of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Game ended 4-4 after the Nats botched what would have been the game-ending double play which allowed the tying run to score. They are off Sunday, and will open the season on Monday afternoon vs. the Miami Marlins, while the Red Sox head to Boston and open the season with a 3 game interleague series vs. the Pirates.
Edison Volquez (10-11, 5.37 last season) will take the ball for the Marlins after coming over from the Royals in the off season. Nats will hand the ball to Stephen Strasburg (15-4, 3.60) who started last season 13-0 before losing 4 of his last 7 games, and never appeared in a game after leaving his September 7 start with an injury.
New players for this season: Adam Lind, most recently with the Mariners was signed to a 1 year deal. He'll serve as the back up first basemen, and will likely be the first pinch hitter off the bench. He'll likely replace Clint Robinson who was optioned to AAA Syracuse, but he did clear waivers, so he'll likely be the first call up when Ryan Zimmerman ultimately gets hurt (and unfortunately, I know it is likely coming at this point
).
Trea Turner will be the every day short stop with Danny Espinosa getting traded to the Angels, and the Angels are starting to look like the Nationals West with all these ex-Nats playing at the Big A next year: Yunel Escobar, Danny Espinosa, Ben Revere is there now too.
The big free agent for the team this year was Matt Weiters who travels down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from Camden Yards in Baltimore to Nationals Park in DC, but likely can keep the same house! He'll be the every day catcher with Wilson Ramos signing with the Tampa Bay Rays, but unfortunately with the knee injury the Buffalo suffered in the last week of the regular season, he may not play for Tampa this season.
The major acquisition of the winter was the Nationals trading 2 highly-touted pitching prospects: Lucas Giolito & Reynaldo Lopez for CF & leadoff hitter Adam Eaton. You could make a case with the price they paid they should have had the White Sox include David Robertson in the trade, but that will be debatable for the rest of the season. Robertson certainly isn't great, but he's certainly not terrible either, and would easily be better than the "closer by committee" approach Baker is using. Having a closer by committee is basically like having 2 QB's....if you have 2 QB's you really have 0 QBs. With a franchise that has a penchant for blowing late leads in big games, not making a move for one of the closers on the market was extremely head-scratching.
Joe Blanton was also signed in the off season, and I know you are thinking "Joe Blanton, why the hell would this team need a starter, and Blanton was terrible" the Joe Blanton they got revived his career in LA last year as a set up pitcher, and had a great year out of the Dodgers bullpen. It's possible the Nats could go to him in the closers role later on this year.
Tanner Roark, Gio Gonzalez, and Max Scherzer, who was battling a finger injury towards the end of spring training will follow Strasburg in the rotation. Joe Ross will likely be the 5th starter, but with all the off days in April, they won't need a 5th starter until about April 22 or 23 which is the Mets series, so Dusty & GM Mike Rizzo can kick that can down the road for a couple weeks until it becomes a problem if they so desire.
My prediction for the 2017 Nationals:
99-63 overall record, first place in the NL East 5 games clear of the 2nd place Mets, and another 5 game series loss to the Dodgers in the NLDS
. Let the games begin!
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2017: 0-0
. Strasburg (1-0) allowed 2 runs on 6 hits with 0 walks but only 3 strikeouts in 7 innings. Sammy Solis (1st hold) pitched a hitless 1-2-3 8th and Blake Treinen (1st save) also recorded a 1-2-3 9th to record his 1st save in as many chances. Edison Volquez allowed 0 runs on 4 hits with 1 walk and 6 strikeouts while David Phelps (0-1 1st blown save) allowed 3 runs on 3 hits (2 homers) with 0 walks and 2 strike outs in 2 innings.