William World News William F. Yurasko's blog v.14 – Nats, Penn State, Redskins, greater DC , travel, more

Arbitration run-down: everybody eligible except John Lannan and Michael Morse (Nationals Journal, The Post) have agreed to contracts. Payroll is up above $70 million. Neither of those guys needs to be locked-up long-term in my mind.
Tyler Clippard returns with a one year deal. (Nats Insider)
Newly acquired Gio Gonzalez will get $42 million through 2016 with [...]

Yesterday, I was thinking about how pathetic Ryan Zimmerman’s Walk-Off total was in 2011. Foolishly, I didn’t tweet it, Facebook it, etc.
The Washington Nationals scored two runs in ninth and loaded the bases. Zimmerman had a 3-2 count with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with , game tied with Ryan [...]

Nationals vs. Orioles: Baltimore halts Washington’s winning streak at eight games – The Post
Gorzelannny rocky in return; Nats’ 8-game win streak ends – The Wash. Times
Nats’ win streak ends as O’s win, 7-4 – The Wash. Examiner
The 8-game winning streak the Washington Nationals were on came to an ugly end yesterday. They played the afternoon [...]

A 9th inning rally to tie the game? An 11th inning explosion to win it? Yes, I’ll take it. The Washington Nationals are now 18-18 after taking two series in a row with a chance to sweep the Atlanta Braves tonight. If they can win in Hotlanta tonight, they would finish their road trip against [...]

The Washington Nationals just had another interesting weekend, beating the reigning World Champion San Francisco Giants 3 out of 4 times in a wraparound series. DC got strong pitching every game of the series with Jason Marquis getting a complete game shutout on Friday night, John Lannan taking a hard-luck loss on Saturday because the [...]

I have a problem with the Washington Nationals. Every time I watch them, they lose. I watched them Saturday night and they blew it, on Friday and Sunday, I just listened to them on the radio and MLB audio and they won. Obviously, the outcome of the game is dependent upon whether lay eyes on [...]

I have gone back and forth on the Washington Nationals this offseason. They improved 10 games in 2010, despite a disappointing starting rotation. This season, the best part of 2010’s rotation, Stephen Strasburg, is recovering from Tommy John surgery. However, I expect the rotation to improve even without Strasburg. I expect a bounce-back season from [...]

THOMAS BOSWELL: As spring arrives, reality dawns for Nationals – The Post
The headline for this column ought to be “Reality dawns for Tom Boswell.” Remember his earlier columns from the spring when he was superhappyfoamfingeredfanboy? Well, that is gone, because Boswell is seeing the Washington Nationals for what they are — a team with a [...]