Click to Read an Important Member Update Regarding Our Comment System
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.
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Today was supposed to be that day you leave work or school early to attend Opening Day in the annual ritual. Due to COVID-19, our collective yearning for Opening Day will be delayed for a month(s) or more. We all know that absence makes the heart grow fonder. As we wait for baseball’s real schedule to begin, we will spend our time on staying safe and healthy. The priorities of making it to the start of baseball in good health is what should count. Continue reading →
An empty stadium this week. Homeplate gate at Nationals Park; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
The MLB baseball schedule halted at 4 pm EDT on March 12th in what could only be described as an unnatural disaster with the Coronavirus becoming a global pandemic. There has been no baseball since, and the future of the 2020 season is a complete unknown at this point. These are the unthinkable catastrophes much like 9-11-2001 was when baseball was halted. The best laid plans are no match for a terrorist attack or a killer virus. Today was supposed to be a Washington Nationals home exhibition game scheduled for 4:05 p.m. against the “Nationals Futures.” In two days was the scheduled Opening Day festivities and game on March 26 in New York City against the Mets at Citi Field. Next week was described as “Championship Week” with the home opener in Nationals Park and the World Series banner unfurled. The players were going to be receiving their World Series rings in a ceremony and there were other championship events scheduled. Continue reading →
While Steve Mears’ advanced copy was read pool side, Erika C. provides the review!
In case you haven’t heard, the Washington Nationals won the 2019 World Series, and they managed to do so against almost every odds in the books. After an abysmal start, the ball club was staring at a 19-31 record on May 23, with just a 1.5% chance of winning the World Series, and there were calls for second year manager Dave Martinez to be fired — immediately! The team faced a choice — they could either fold and go home, or stay in the fight and chase a championship. Over the next four months, the team rallied together and found a way to defy the odds on their way to a World Series title. Continue reading →
Every 2018 and 2019 MLB game is now unlocked on the MLB.TV channel and their MLB app! Free to all for a limited time of course. You can watch all 105 wins from the Nats magical 2019 World Series run from Trea Turner‘s walk-off to Howie Kendrick‘s World Series clanker off of the Minute Maid Stadium foul pole. On YouTube, they have gone back a little further to 2014 through 2017 for some of the most memorable individual performances in Nats history including the three no-hitters and Max Scherzer‘s 20 K game. Interestingly, Wilson Ramos caught all four of those historic games. Continue reading →
Different directions for these players; Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
One of life’s lessons is learning from your past. Baseball calls that the learning curve part of the process. Last year, were you paying attention on August 17th to what happened? You might be thinking of the Sean Doolittle blown save where he could not protect a 3-run lead and exited with a deficit of one run at 12-11 in an eventual 15-14 extra innings loss against the Milwaukee Brewers. Juan Soto might have changed the divine line of destiny for his entire team in the dramatic Wild Card game against those Brewers, but if Anthony Rendon did not learn from a previous decision to chase high fastballs against Josh Hader, Soto probably never gets his chance. There was more to it than that; a Michael A. Taylor HBP that survived a nail-biting challenge, and a lob wedge broken bat single by the veteran, Ryan Zimmerman, that landed in the only place it could — to not be caught as three Brewers fielders chased it. Zim was inserted strategically as a pinch-hitter and that shattered bat should be bronzed. Every bizarre play that clicked into place seemed so unlikely at the time and then it added up to the improbable. Continue reading →
The Washington Nationals general manager, Mike Rizzo, held a 20-minute phone call with reporters that was to provide up-to-date information on the team and the coronavirus outbreak. The good news is that there was not much news to report as everyone is hunkered down and healthy. Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez are still in Palm Beach County, Florida as are many of the players expected to be on the Opening Day roster. Continue reading →
Tanner Rainey (Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats)
The news has moved so fast that it’s strange to think that, barely more than a week ago, the Washington Nationals were still playing Grapefruit League games. It’s strange, too, to think that if not for the coronavirus pandemic that has paralyzed North America and much of the rest of the world, the Nats would still be playing spring training games. Opening Day isn’t until next Thursday, or at least, it would have been if it weren’t postponed due to the pandemic. Continue reading →
Near the height of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic the Red Sox and Cubs played the World Series to packed houses.
Spring will silently arrive tonight just before midnight. It always comes. Some seasons get a pass every now and then. There was “The year without a summer” in 1816, caused by volcanic eruptions. There have been years without a winter. We just lived through one. The dominant High Pressure system in the western Atlantic set up shop in the south over the Sargasso Sea. There it provided an exit lane for the cold air that came and left just as quickly. It happened time after time. Such setups occur every now and then. But, forsythias never fail to bloom. Western civilization has attached tremendous affection to this season of rebirth and renewal. It’s a fresh start from the tiresome and seemingly endless grays of late winter. We celebrate its arrival in all manner of festivals, ceremonies, and events. Of the four seasons only spring has its own set of “Rites” ascribed to it by seemingly every sport and recreational pursuit. Whether it’s the Cherry Blossom Ten-Mile Run, the Maple Festival in a tiny town nestled in the mountains of western Virginia, or baseball’s Opening Day the overarching theme is one of celebration. Tomorrow the sun will rise at due East on the compass, the forsythias will be in full bloom, and all of nature will be on notice to begin the march to summer. But, everything we do as a society to celebrate such a wondrous time will be cancelled or postponed due to an invisible and menacing microbe. Our “Rites of Spring” have simply vanished into a dense and impenetrable mist. For the first time in our lifetimes we have arrived at a year with a spring season stripped of its attendant and our cherished commemorations. There is no shortage of madness afoot during this March. There just isn’t any basketball to accompany it.
Catcher Alejandro Flores #47 chats with Seth Romero #40 before his first Hagerstown Suns appearance. (TalkNats photo)
We all know the kids in camp who we used to call back in the day “bonus babies” because they just signed for big bucks. Most minor leaguers live on wages below the poverty line, and no, this is not a new problem. It has always been the “haves” and the “have-nots” in baseball and in life. On June 18, 1953, a promising teenage high school kid from Maryland, Al Kaline, was signed a day after he had graduated and Detroit gave him $15,000 as a bonus and a guaranteed $20,000 in salary over three years. Back then, that was a ton of money. Today, you have players in the Washington Nationals minor league system like Yasel Antuna, who signed for $3.9 million, Seth Romero (pictured above) signed for $2.8 million in the first round three years ago; and last year’s first round pick Jackson Rutledge got $3.45 million. Those are not the starving players in the minor league system who must rely on host families for a bed and handouts to get by. But most of their minor league teammates have no money coming in, and they are kind of forgotten in this COVID-19 crisis unless teams come up with a plan. That is our wish for today. Continue reading →
All quiet at the FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
“The show must go on,” will not even hold true on Broadway which has gone dark. More baseball players are shutting it down as reality spreads that this is going to be a very protracted shutdown and a second offseason. The two week delay initially announced for the start of the baseball season looks to be months away at a minimum due to the Covid-19 virus. Now several NBA players have tested positive for the Coronavirus prompting some to believe that contact while sweating and open pores makes it easier to transmit the virus. Athletes in minimal contact sports like basketball, hockey, soccer and lacrosse are probably at a higher risk of passing the virus even though their athletes would be in the category of highest survival rates if infected because of their age and previous health history. Baseball has minimal player-to-player contact on the field of play, but the dugout and bullpen is in close quarters and goes against the new “social distancing” suggested mandates. Continue reading →
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.