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Game #3 The Terps have a regional rivalry game!
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The Maryland Terrapins (2-0) needed to show up big last week on the road to face the UConn Huskies, and the Terps took care of business with a decisive 38-14 victory. Now the Terps return to SECU Stadium at the University of Maryland with Coach Michael Locksley needing a win against Virginia Tech to extend the longest active non-conference winning streak in college football to 21 games. This regional rivalry takes center stage this weekend as Maryland hosts the Virginia Tech Hokies (2-0) for a highly anticipated primetime showdown at SECU Stadium. The former ACC counterparts meet for the first time since Maryland’s dominant 54-10 victory in the 2021 Pinstripe Bowl, but the stakes and the sidelines look completely different this time around. This game will be played under the lights in College Park and not only will Maryland fans be showing up — the Virginia…
The Walk-A-Thon x 13
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Great. The good news in last night’s game is that the Washington Nationals bullpen pitched 8⅔ innings of 1-run, 4-hit baseball with seven strikeouts against the Phillies. The bad news is the bullpen had a 9:7 BB/K ratio, and the starter, Jared Simpson, well, he walked four batters and only got one out in his start. In total, there were 13 walks to tie a dubious Nats record. Last night’s loss sealed the deal that the Nationals would in fact have their 7th consecutive losing season. That should not come as a shock. Some in the Nats media were predicting 100+ losses like Spencer Nusbaum and Andrew Golden. With two more wins, the team will avoid 90 losses and far exceed some of the rosiest win total predictions. Me personally, I expected a losing season with vast improvement from last year. That’s why I bet the ‘over’ of 66.5 wins and cashed in as my prediction was 74 wins. There is still that feeling of how you get to these wins and losses needs proper efficiency. You know, the process. You just cannot walk 13 batters in a Major League game. Somehow the Phillies only scored three runs. “Well, I think you guys know the story to tonight’s game – 13 walks. Honestly, we’re fortunate that it was only a 3-0 game when you walk 13 guys. That’s what it comes down to.” “If you are going to walk…
Why Anthony Gill’s Return Means More Than Just Another Roster Spot
When the Washington Wizards announced the return of Anthony Gill on September 15, 2026, it would be fair for some fans to wonder what exactly the veteran forward brings to a roster already filled with a lot of young talent. Gill isn’t the type of player to be expected to suddenly become a major part of Washington’s rotation, so why bring him back for another season? So with all that being said, what does the return of Anthony Gill actually mean for the Wizards? Well, for starters, let’s take a look at what Gill has done during his time in Washington. Gill has spent all six of his NBA seasons with the Washington Wizards, appearing in about 285 games with 23 starts while averaging 3.8 points and 1.9 rebounds per game. Last season was his most productive season with him being in Washington, as he averaged a career-high 5.8 points…
Game #153 Nats go for sweep of Phillies!
The Washington Nationals come into this game on a 4-game winning streak, and all four games were come-from-behind wins. Tonight, the Nats have a chance to sweep the Phillies in this a 2-game series. Of course, in order for the Nats to win they have to get past Zack Wheeler. After this game, there are just 9 games remaining in this season with just three series left. The Nationals have a day-off tomorrow, and will fly to St. Louis for a weekend series. The Nats will start LHP Jared Simpson in a bullpen game tonight. The Nats will give two extra days of rest to Cade Cavalli who will pitch on Friday in St. Louis. Since the World Series season of 2019, the Nationals have not won more than 71 games in a season. Can these Nats surpass that number? That would take one more win to reach that mark. There are 10 games remaining in this 2026 season. To avoid a 90 loss season, the Nats need to get 2-games in the win column to get to 73 wins. Of course the hope is the Nats can play better than.500 baseball in these final 10 games. The remaining schedule includes tonight’s game against the Phillies, then the Nats travel to St. Louis for three games for this weekend. Next week, the Nats travel to Detroit for three games before traveling back home for the final three games against the Mets in a weekend series for what could be a…
Win #71 is big, the next wins are more significant!
Last night, the Washington Nationals notched their 71 st win of this 2026 season with 10 games to go. Those 71 wins are tied for the most by a Nationals team since the 2019 World Series season. Of course the hope is the Nats can keep winning and finish with many more wins. The next win would mark the best season since 2019. Every win going forward in the final 10 games will be significant. The 2025 Washington Nationals only had 66 wins in total. A 10 percent improvement over last year would be 73 wins. If the Nats could somehow win five more games to get to 76 wins, that would be a 15.2 percent improvement over last year. 2026 Washington Nationals are FOURTH in the NL East. Their improvement is irrelevant. — – AB – (@ABinVienna) September 16, 2026 If you think the improvement is irrelevant, you haven’t been paying attention. All progress is significant, especially when you know what you can enhance going into the next season. Take this year’s win improvement and extrapolate that to next year with the same percentages, and if this team could reach 76 wins by the end of this season, then maybe you could get to nearly 88 wins next year with that same 15.2 percent improvement. That’s Wild Card territory. “We’re setting our sights to create a sustained winner here, and I think that that starts with what we’re doing right now. … I know that we’re eliminated [from this…
A Rorschach Test Loss
Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA has been none to generous to the Burgundy and Gold. It hasn’t been a complete house of horrors either. As it stands right now the WFT record at “The Link” is 11-15 since it opened in 2003. The last 5-games there the record is 1*-4. The asterisk for the 1-win is because it was the last game of the season in 2025. PHI was resting starters. Washington had a legitimate chance to steal a win away on Sunday. It didn’t happen. What to make of it is the water cooler topic of the week. Football is more like a box of chocolates than life itself. You really never know what you’ll get when the box is opened on Game Day. On Sunday Washington and Philadelphia made a strong case for not approaching Pre-Season the way that is currently fashionable. The two teams looked like it was their first time playing at game speed together. Oh, wait, that’s because they had not. Sean McVay started this trend when he declared the pre-season to be useless. You may take note that his team got boat-raced in their Opener. It will be blamed, of course on all the travel to Australia. That may be just a cheap coat of paint, however. A few teams were ready to go this last weekend. Most were not including these two. But, and it’s a big one, contrary to breathless media handwringing last week the team did not get smoked by Philly. It turned into a competitive game late. The two-point conversion failed. Sports Talk Radio in Washington will have a lot of fun this week spitting out venom. Was it really all that bad? Out of Synch The beginnings of David Blough ‘s Offensive Coordinator career had an ominous feel during…
Postgamer: The Nats have a 4-game winning streak!
The Washington Nationals notched another come-from-behind win to make this a 4-game winning streak! An Andres Chaparro homer plus a Daylen Lile ‘s 3-run pinch-hit home run sealed the deal for the offense. And Erik Tolman closed the door with a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his 3rd save since his call-up. The Nats put 5-earnies on All-Star Cristopher Sanchez of the Phillies. Nats’ starter Jackson Kent kept the game close as he gave up three runs, and the Nats bullpen threw 4.0 scoreless against Philadelphia for one of their best performances as they only allowed one base runner. Another tidbit is this win notched the 71st win of this 2026 season with 10 games to go. Those 71 wins are tied for the most by a Nationals team since 2019. Of course the hope is the Nats can keep winning and finish with many more wins. The umpiring was poor tonight, and a key missed balk turned into a pick-off of Nasim Nunez that was one of a few questionable non-calls. Dylan Crews was called out at first base and was one of those 50-50 calls that manager Blake Butera decided not to challenge. Also, the homeplate ump, Malachi Moore was challenged on balls and strikes on the ABS system four times. He could have been challenged several more times. This game was managed so well by Blake Butera to not only bring in Lile to pinch-hit in the 7th inning, but also the way he went to Tolman to…
Game #152 A quick 2-game series with the Phillies
The Washington Nationals come into this game on a 3-game winning streak, and all three games were come-from-behind wins. Tonight, the Nats start a 2-game series with the Phillies. After this game, there are just 10 games remaining in this season as the Nats have been officially eliminated from the postseason. This game will feature lefty Cristopher Sanchez for Philadelphia, and the Nats will go with young lefty Jackson Kent. On the Vegas lines, this game has the Nats as big underdogs. On the pitching rehab front, LHP Connelly Early has a scheduled rehab start tonight in Buffalo for Triple-A Rochester. And LHP DJ Herz is in Nationals Park today throwing a side session. With Cade Cavalli starting tomorrow, and a day-off on Thursday, will we see Herz pitch for the Nats on Friday? Lastly, RHP Josiah Gray will continue his rehab assignment with Triple-A Rochester and pitch out of the bullpen. Since the World Series season of 2019, the Nationals have not won more than 71 games in a season. Can these Nats surpass that number? That would take 3-wins to reach that mark. There are 11 games remaining in this 2026 season. To avoid a 90 loss season, the Nats need to get 3-games in the win column to get to 73 wins. It won’t be easy, but can the Nats go 3-8 to finish this season? The remaining schedule includes these two games against the Phillies, then the Nats travel to St. Louis for three games for…
Building the 2027 roster with key free agent spending
The Washington Nationals payroll gets a major reset after this season. All of those non-performing and bad contracts are off the books per the MLB calculation. The Stephen Strasburg deal valued at $35 million is off those books even though the Nats might still be paying him under his retirement agreement. Where do we believe the Nats payroll will be at? After giving sizeable ‘arb’ raises to CJ Abrams, Jake Irvin, and Jacob Young along with Cade Cavalli ‘s $4 million deal, the Nats CBT payroll should be around $79 million. That would increase significantly if minimum payrolls are reset per a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). This could be a moving number. But based on last year and going with and increase to $1,000,000 as the minimum player salary, we feel confident in that $79 million number. The Nats are still paying Keibert Ruiz under his long-term contract, and finally that deal looks good for the team. We kept Josiah Gray in the numbers, and of course you can question whether or not Paul Toboni will keep Irvin who will be due a number around $5 million. If Toboni non-tenders Irvin and Gray, that $79 million number will be closer to $75 million. Ownership knows these numbers. And as mentioned, on cash flow, they are still paying Strasburg, and the Nats will continue to pay Max Scherzer a deferred amount of $15 million, which he will continue to receive annually from the team through 2028. For the next two…
If only we could splice together time…
Hollywood magic is amazing when you think about how they would splice together actual film celluloid before the digital age. Throw on some pixie dust, and you could splice together time to be seamless and believable. The Los Angeles Angels’ home stadium is minutes from the original Disneyland in Orange County. When the Washington Nationals swept the Angels this weekend, my mind wandered back to 45 days earlier to July 29ᵗʰ. What if? You know, what if the Nats had played this Angels series on that date and went to +5-games over.500? We have a Nats’ fan in our midst who is one of Hollywood’s most-gifted film editors in Kevin Nibley, and he could recreate this as a digital mirage. Wink wink. But what if that was real? Instead of getting swept by the Braves at the end of July to the beginning of August, the Nats swept the Angels. If only we could swap out segments of time then the Nats would have been buyers at the trade deadline and got a shutdown closer — and Tom Cosgrove would not have that blown-save-loss on August 3ʳᵈ, right? While we are all about movie magic, maybe the Nats blown-saves would have stopped at No. 27 before that Cosgrove meltdown. Some say everything happens for a reason in a divine line of destiny. And we snap back to the reality that the Nats started that meltdown from 2-games over.500 to their current 11-games under.500. A 13 game swing in the wrong…
Postgamer: Nats Sweep Angels in Another Late Comeback Win!
After an horrific road trip out west, the Washington Nationals returned home and swept the Los Angeles Angels with three late inning comeback wins. The Nats tacked three blown saves on the Angels in each of the games this weekend. As bad as the Nats’ bullpen has been, the Angels were worse in this series. Credit to the Nats for not mailing it in, and pushing hard late in each game to win these tight games. When the Nats made mistakes, teammates would pick those players up. This was good to see during this series. The Nationals had their share of mistakes in the game, but came up clutch when the game mattered most. The Nats two best players made mistakes, and Ryan Zimmerman was on the microphone and called out James Wood for not hustling during a bases loaded slow grounder to shortstop. Zim said, ❝… You’re supposed to be running hard all the time.❞ The Nats wouldn’t score that inning. Clearer audio and that shot of Wood in the dugout with Butera in front of him at the end. (This video via @js9inningsmedia) pic.twitter.com/6ZO4Rcg2F2 — Nats.Talk (@TalkNats) September 14, 2026 Later, it was CJ Abrams booting what looked like a routine ground ball double play that eventually led to two runs scoring and a 4-2 deficit in the 8ᵗʰ inning. But the Nats showed that they weren’t laying down and scored four runs in the bottom of the inning to take a 6-4 lead. The Nats 8ᵗʰ inning…
Game #151 Nats go for the sweep!
The Washington Nationals have put together two of their best comeback wins this weekend. Those wins will allow the Nats to go for a series sweep today against the Angels. In today’s afternoon game, the Nats have switched things up and will now pitch Riley Cornelio in this one. Jake Irvin was originally slated as today’s starter, and manager Blake Butera will have Irvin as his bulk starter as he pieces together his pitching staff for this one. With a day-off tomorrow, he can push a little harder on his pitching staff. Also, the team has another scheduled day-off on Thursday. The Nationals made some more roster moves today as they sent Eddy Yean back to Triple-A to give the team 13-pitchers. The team welcomed back Nasim Nunez who returned from his leave on the bereavement list. With Nunez, the Nats have 15 position players. Expect a move after the game to open up a spot for possibly Josiah Gray and/or DJ Herz. A note on yesterday’s starter, Andrew Alvarez, who was close to a no-hitter yesterday, and finished 7.0 scoreless with a 1-hitter. He pushed his ERA down to a very respectable 3.35 in 102.0 innings of work and his FanGraphs WAR improved to +2.3. To those who were upset (like me) about the trade of Jake Bennett to the Red Sox, Bennett’s ERA is 3.69 with a WAR of +2.1 in 105.0 innings of work. Since the World Series season of 2019, the Nationals have not won more…