Game #5 Nats need a W

The Washington Nationals have their first injury concern of the 2025 regular season as newly acquired starter, Michael Soroka, said that his bicep in his pitching arm cramped up on him. We hope this is just due to dehydration and nothing serious — but manager Dave Martinez had no update in the pre-game.

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Game #4 with a Canadian road trip!

The Washington Nationals flew last night to Canada for a three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays. A win tonight for the Nats would get them back to .500 for the early season. You take that after the way the first two games finished in the opening series.

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Opening Series Analysis of the Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals held scoring leads in every game in the opening series against the Phillies. A key hit on Opening Day in the eighth inning, or fewer mistakes by the bullpen in the second game were key differences from being 3-0 or the actual 1-2 record which has the Nats tied for third place with the Mets in the NL East. There are 159 more games to be played this season.

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Game #3 Quality over Quantity is Job 1

A year ago, I wrote a piece called “Quality Should Be Job 1” but quality also comes via employees you hire. The high risk / high reward model usually fails if you do that as a standard. That is a gambler’s mentality. Risk management needs to be measured and controlled. Signing Matt Barnes, Joey Gallo, Eddie Rosario, Nick Senzel combined for about $15.5 million of wasted total payroll last year. Do you know that Gallo and Senzel actually got paid incentive bonuses on top of their salaries? While you could say the signing of Jesse Winker worked out, that isn’t a good ratio.

This year, general manager Mike Rizzo had even more money to spend — and besides the Nathaniel Lowe acquisition and re-acquiring Trevor Williams and low risk moves for Paul DeJong and Jorge Lopez, it was the same type of high risk / high reward moves for the rest of the $50 million spent. There was enough budget to go “Quality is Job 1” and not risk a lot of money on bounceback players like Michael Soroka as a starter for $9 million, Josh Bell for DH at $6 million, Lucas Sims for $3 million, and Amed Rosario for $2 million. Even the nearly $6 million for Kyle Finnegan after his late season struggles made him a bounceback candidate. That’s $26 million of high risk signings. Sure, you could throw in Shinnosuke Ogasawara and Colin Poche too for another $3.3 million combined. Will you find a Winker or two in there? Wasn’t Sims just a more expensive version of Tanner Rainey? Rosario had a great game yesterday so maybe that works. Soroka might pitch like a star. Bell might figure out how to hit like he did in his prime. Might, maybe, if.

Maybe I can close my eyes, click my heels together three times, and repeat the sentence, “There’s no place like home” to get to the magic formula of winning. Or go the quality route and just build a better roster. Shortcuts and throwing #### against the wall rarely works. Again, let’s not panic two games in. There are a lot of positives that we have seen so far.

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Game #2 Nats go to Jake Irvin on the first weekend of the season

As we enter the first weekend of the MLB baseball season, the Washington Nationals will don their new City Connect jerseys dubbed ‘The Blueprint’ for this afternoon’s game against the Phillies. This will be a warm one with temperatures getting into the low 80’s. That should add several feet to the carry of baseballs today.

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MacKenzie Gore was the Ace of Aces yesterday

Now you see it — now you don’t. Yesterday on Opening Day, MacKenzie Gore was performing illusions on the mound like David Copperfield. Imagine inducing 50 swings and 40 percent of those resulted in no contact. In all, 13 strikeouts with just five balls in play while facing the minimum 18 batters over 6.0 innings. One measly hit to spoil six innings of perfection. In baseball history, only José Berríos had a better GameScore in a 6.0 inning performance, besting Gore by 1 point over his 83 mark which was also the best in Nationals’ history on an Opening Day.

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Game #1 Opening Day 2025; New faces and a new mindset!

As we begin the 20th season of Nationals baseball, the team will celebrate the top moments is finally here after a very long offseason and Spring Training that spanned 179 long days filled with lots of daily chatter. Now we are here. What began with the humble beginnings at RFK Stadium in 2005 to this 17th year at Nationals Park, a stadium that could have a new name mid-season, it seems like we have lived through a lot in those 20 years of history. Today is Opening Day, and with it comes the pomp and circumstance of a big day.

The final roster has basically been set. There had been plenty of leaks with surprises to the Nationals’ Opening Day roster. There was also the news we broke yesterday on DJ Herz‘s injured elbow as well as news that Jackson Rutledge was not going to make the Opening Day roster. Others broke news that told us that Brad Lord will make his first MLB roster, and we saw news that Juan Yepez was not going to make the roster. All of this was confirmed in a Press Release by the Nationals in the late afternoon with Herz going on the 60-day IL which freed up a roster spot for Lord.

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Getting down to the final Nats’ 26-player roster

The Washington Nationals must submit their Opening Day 26-player roster by noon ET on Thursday, March 27, 2025. This deadline applies to the active roster, which teams are required to reduce to from their Spring Training rosters. There is a lot up in the air right now with the Washington Nationals including a new IL move.

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The Battle of the Beltways has a new feel now!

When news broke directly from Major League Baseball that the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles were ending their MASN agreement after this season, the long and deep fractures between the two teams could become more of a unified front. So much so that beginning with today’s exhibition game, the two teams agreed to move forward starting next year with home/away exhibition games to run through at least 2029.

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Spring Training Game #29 and #30; Final day in Florida with a split-squad doubleheader!

A busy day for the Washington Nationals that started with the new City Connect jersey unveiling back at Nationals Park with Ryan Zimmerman and Mayor Muriel Bowser will then turn to a split-squad doubleheader that features what should be the Opening Day lineup at the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches against Houston at 12:05 pm ET followed by the travel game in Jupiter at 1:05 pm ET. Both games are radio only.

The team will fly back to Washington, D.C. in the early evening, and tomorrow is an exhibition game at Nationals Park against the Orioles at 1:05 pm ET.

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