Anthony Rendon in the spotlight (Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats)
It was in the Nationals last game when Anthony Rendon stepped up to the plate with two outs and bases loaded with a chance to do something he has never accomplished in his entire MLB career — a walk-off home run. It was not meant to be this time as Rendon popped the ball up and about 200 feet short of reaching paydirt. With 108 home runs in his career, Rendon hits most of his home runs in the fourth and first innings of ballgames. In fact he only has one 9th inning home run since June of 2014. Rendon’s first home run of his career was in the 9th inning, but he only has 5 home runs in his entire career after the 8th inning and is a career .255 hitter in Hi Lev spots. Maybe that is part of his personality. He is a great player, but not the guy you would say is “clutch” in a late game spot to win the game. To tie the game, sure, to win the game, we are still waiting for that.
Right now, Rendon is still the offensive star of this Washington Nationals team, but sometimes stars have to close-out games. Yesterday proved that the small things do matter. In the first inning, Francisco Cervelli of the Pirates grounded a tailor-made doubleplay ball to Rendon who bobbled it and could only get one out and the inning continued for Max Scherzer who then surrendered two consecutive hits resulting in two runs — the eventual difference in the game.
With this new trend of teams extending their own players, most fans of the Washington Nationals have four names at the top of their lists in the following order: Anthony Rendon, Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Victor Robles
At the top of the list is Anthony Rendon because chronologically speaking his employment contract with the Nationals is set to expire in a little over six months. “Tony Two Bags” is the priority — it would seem — but things are never what they seem. This process just adds to the mystery of Anthony Michael Rendon who is an enigma. He does not crave the limelight so little is known about him except the snippets we get from time to time like the fact that he is married and has a young daughter. His favorite sport is basketball, and the Texan just enjoys living life on the down-low with his wife Amanda Rodriguez and their daughter Emma. For Anthony Rendon, he is so low-key and low maintenance that he is almost the anti-Harper. The similarities though as they share super agent Scott Boras is making Nats fans nervous as he could go the way of Harper to another team. Continue reading →
