The Washington Nationals are on a roll….finally. Yesterday’s momentum meets today’s starting pitcher for the Phillies in Cy Young candidate Aaron Nola. If the Nats find a way to win this game like they did the last time they faced Nola, the Washington Nationals would move to within a ½ game of the Phillies for 2nd Place in the NL East. For the Nats tonight, they send Stephen Strasburg to the mound.
There was some interesting news from general manager Mike Rizzo about the ongoing contract extension talks with Bryce Harper‘s agent, Scott Boras, this morning on 106.7 radio regarding Harper’s future. Link here. Here are some snippets:
“I think it’s up in the air,” he said. “It’s a negotiation and it’s a discussion at this point. I certainly don’t know what the end result is going to be.”
“We like Bryce. We like him here. We want him here,” he added. “I think he likes it here. I think he would like to be here. But it’s got to work for both parties. So Bryce has to be comfortable here, and we have to be comfortable that it fits in with our model of what we’re trying to do long term and the ability to put players around him. A lot of things go into it.
“Like I said before, it’s a complicated negotiation and discussion and planning stages and that type of thing. We love Harp. I love him personally and professionally and of course we’d love to see him here long term.”
Possibly the most interesting part of Mike Rizzo’s comments was this:
“…So after we do this [signing of Harper], the hypothetical is we’ll be in really good position to do a lot of things. Having too many good outfielders that have options and different things is a good thing, so we’ll figure that part of it out.”
“That’s going to happen between the Boras camp and our camp. We won’t discuss it until there’s something to announce.” — Mike Rizzo
All of this comes two days after we reported Bryce Harper’s comments about the Washington Nationals ‘Dream Team Outfield’ of Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, and Victor Robles to which Harper responded:
“…It’s going to be an exciting future for the Nationals, and we’ll see if I’m in those plans” — Bryce Harper
Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Stadium: Citizen’s Bank Ballpark, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN; MLB App out-of-market
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan and via the MLB app
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
- Adam Eaton RF
- Trea Turner SS
- Bryce Harper CF
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Juan Soto LF
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Matt Wieters C
- Wilmer Difo 2B
- Stephen Strasburg RHP
