Roger Dean Stadium by Photo by Kevin Nibley for TalkNats
The Nationals travel less than 14 miles north once again to Roger Dean Stadium for a game against the NL East Miami Marlins in Jupiter, Florida. Roger Dean Stadium is also the home for the St. Louis Cardinals which makes this destination a journey the Nationals will make 9 times during the Grapefruit League schedule, and only 17 minutes away. This was the original plan to make travel easy for the Nats.
Today’s 1:05pm game projects the starting pitchers as Stephen Strasburg for the Washington Nationals and left-handed pitcher Adam Conley for the Marlins.
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Well after midnight the Team USA and Team Dominican Republic elimination game in the World Baseball Classic ended with a victorious Team USA winning 6-3 in a come-from-behind dramatic win that featured a Giancarlo Stanton 2-run laser home run with a 117mph exit velo, and home run robbery by Adam Jones who stole a home run from Manny Machado while Tyler Clippard was on the mound. In fact, Tyler Clippard was as close as Nats fans came to viewing a Nationals player. There was no sign of Daniel Murphy in the game, and Tanner Roark also did not appear. For Team Dominican Republic, Enny Romero did not appear. Romero will now be returning to Nationals’ camp where he will compete for a spot in the Nationals bullpen.
Team USA’s next opponent is Japan on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium and a win there moves the winner to the finals on Wednesday night. The four teams remaining in the WBC are Team USA, Team Japan, Team Netherlands, and Team Puerto Rico.
#Rays’ Archer not returning to WBC, as @TBTimes_Rays said. Roark has been told he will start Tue. Stroman lined up for Wed, if necessary.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) March 19, 2017
According to Ken Rosenthal, Tanner Roark is scheduled to start on Tuesday. The last time Roark pitched in a game was 8 days ago. That is not optimal when Roark should have been throwing about 70 pitches in Spring Training now. As for Daniel Murphy, he is 0-for-6 in the tournament. The only Team USA players with less at-bats than Daniel Murphy is Alex Bregman who is a baseball rookie.
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Yesterday, there was a discussion in the comments section about a negative tweet from Tom Boswell of the Washington Post in which he wrote that his wife thought The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches stadium complex was “Brutalist” and explained that it lacked color. That Tweet was later deleted.
https://twitter.com/ThomasBoswellWP/status/843120455884197888
@TalkNats2 https://t.co/V9XPgatbUs
— @Nats4Ever (@philcoach) March 19, 2017
That original Tweet by Boswell was met with many comments reminding him that the complex is only 98% complete, and one comment is that if you want more colors go to the Marlins stadium in Miami. We reached out to Mo Stein who is the lead architect of The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.
“There will be color with shade fabrics,” Mo Stein of the architectural firm of HKS said. “The big impact will be the landscape when it kicks in. It will be a big show by next year. We left room for some art panels along the concourse, perhaps similar to the bridge panels. When you look at South Florida and Palm Beach County, the buildings new and old do not use large color.”
If you can’t appreciate the natural vast color palette of the blue skies, bright orange sun, the green grass, and the beauty of the landscaping with majestic palm trees then you are looking for reasons to complain. The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches is the most beautiful spring training facility in baseball, and it is not fully complete.
Photo by Kevin Nibley for TalkNats
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Today’s game against the Marlins will be on Nationals radio, but is not televised.
Today’s line-up for the Washington Nationals is:
- Wilmer Difo SS
- Ryan Zimmerman DH
- Brian Goodwin RF
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Chris Heisey LF
- Clint Robinson 1B
- Matt Wieters C
- Rafael Bautista CF
- Emmanuel Burriss 2B
Stephen Strasburg RHP
You will notice that the Nationals are using the DH today, and tomorrow the Nats want to start batting their pitchers in the 9 hole.
Photo by SoMdNatsFan for TalkNats
