Danny Espinosa

Zimmerman, Espinosa are out of lineup Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman was out of Friday night's lineup against the Mets with tightness in his hamstring and second baseman Danny Espinosa remained on the bench for a fourth straight game with swelling in his right hand and wrist. Zimmerman suffered a cramp in his left hamstring last weekend against the Braves. He played with a heating pad affixed to his leg for several games, but he mildly aggravated the injury Wednesday night in Miami while he cut across the...

LOS ANGELES — The Washington Nationals ' losses have grown familiar in style, a chain of zeroes and ones, of wasted pitching performances and weak offense. Wednesday night, though, brought cruel and potentially damaging variety. It is one thing to lose a series. It is another to lose a left-handed starting pitcher and a star-crossed catcher. By the fourth inning of the Nationals' 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers , Ross Detwiler and Wilson Ramos had each left with injuries...

ST. LOUIS — Danny Espinosa insists his performance in his first-ever postseason experience in Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Sunday, in which he went 0 for 4 and struck out three times, wasn't because he was rattled by the magnitude of the situation or a left shoulder that troubled him a month ago. The 25-year-old second baseman just didn't adjust well to the shadows that split the mound and the batter's box at Busch Stadium....

LOS ANGELES — Faced with an already depleted lineup and opposed by the best left-handed starting pitcher in baseball, Davey Johnson played a hunch. He figured, why not? With Jayson Werth on the disabled list, Bryce Harper in the Washington Nationals trainer's room and Clayton Kershaw on the mound, Johnson removed his leadoff hitter, too. He put Denard Span, fully healthy, on the bench and gave Eury Perez the first start of his career. Johnson put his faith in long odds. Johnson's gamble yielded predictable...

VIERA, Fla. — Every day through the past winter, Danny Espinosa began the task of retraining himself the same way. He placed a ball on a tee, thigh-high. He stood in the left-handed batter's box, the spot that had plagued him for much of two seasons. He grabbed the bat with his right hand only, a necessity as a torn rotator cuff healed inside his left shoulder . Gripping the handle with only his bottom hand, Espinosa took 30 or 40 hacks. He aimed to hit groundballs "the right way," he said,...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Part of the fabric of a baseball player is the ability to trudge through an arduous season, the longest of all professional sports. This year, the Washington Nationals ' spring training schedule is 34 games, the regular season a marathon of 162 games (if there is not a tie for a playoff spot) and, should they reach the playoffs, they could play a maximum of 20 more games through the end of the World Series. That's 216 games over the span of nine months.

VIERA, Fla. — Danny Espinosa can still count the swings. He would arrive at the ballpark just after lunch, maybe sooner, as he thought a rookie should. Five rounds of early batting practice — that's 25 swings. Regular batting practice, 30 more. He warmed up in the cage before games, so add another 25 hacks. In college and the minors, Espinosa could not have worked so much. In the majors, there was always a coach to feed him soft toss, a bullpen catcher...

The calendar has flipped past the midpoint of June, and the Washington Nationals will wake up Friday morning somewhere other than last place . For most franchises, that would mean nothing, really. That last happened for the Nationals on the final day of the 2007 season. They might also wake up sore, from the thrashing pigpile they created around Danny Espinosa at home plate, in the 10th inning, to cap Thursday night's 7-4, walk-off victory over the St....

As Danny Espinosa trotted around the bases for the second time Tuesday night, Cliff Lee glanced at him as if to wonder, "Who is this guy?" He was looking at the player who, perhaps as much as any hitter, has carried the Washington Nationals this season. Maybe, Lee was watching the next National League rookie of the year. Espinosa's two home runs led the Nationals' six-run barrage against Lee in a 10-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies before 21,107 at...

PITTSBURGH — Davey Johnson will wear a loss. Washington Nationals players adore their manager because he understands the challenge of hitting a round ball with a round bat in front of thousands of people, when your teammates need you the most, when your nerves are shot and your knuckles turn white. But after he watched the Nationals' 4-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday night, Johnson stood in the visiting manager's office at PNC Park, hands on his hips,...

LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw wanted to give the Dodgers' tired bullpen a rest. He did just that. Kershaw scattered five hits, struck out 11 and pitched 8 2-3 innings in the Dodgers' 2-0 victory over the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night. The victory was Kershaw's first since April 28, when he beat the Milwaukee Brewers by a 2-0 margin, and it was his most impressive since his shutout of the San Francisco Giants on opening day. "Clayton was pretty special from the beginning,"...

For the first four innings of Saturday's 8-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs , Stephen Strasburg spun near perfection on the mound. His command looked impeccable, his fastball blazing and his offspeed pitches knee-buckling. He gave up only one hit. Then, in one disastrous inning, the game went from a pitcher's duel between Strasburg and Edwin Jackson to a deflating, shoulder-slumping end for the Washington Nationals . Ryan Zimmerman 's sixth error of the season with two...

WASHINGTON — There would be more problems to come for the Chicago Cubs and starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija — more extra-base hits, more runs — and yet manager Dale Sveum chose to focus on what transpired in the second inning. The Cubs already led by a run Friday night, thanks in part to new leadoff hitter Starlin Castro. In the second, though, one Washington Nationals batter reached on an infield single. The next got aboard when Samardzija failed in two...

The Washington Nationals ' frustration and angst of April have given way to a carefree May, the pitching and defense settling into a groove, buoyed by an emerging offense. Against the lowly Chicago Cubs on Friday night at Nationals Park, the team turned in another crisp performance for its fifth straight victory, a 7-3 win . The streak has followed a rare team meeting by Manager Davey Johnson in Pittsburgh on May 4, during a series one Nationals player signaled as a turning point in the young...

WASHINGTON — The potent Detroit Tigers offense had a difficult time against Washington's Jordan Zimmermann on Wednesday night. Bryce Harper hit a solo homer and drove in another run with a sacrifice fly, Zimmermann won his NL-leading sixth game and the Nationals beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1. Zimmermann (6-1), whose scoreless streak was snapped at 20 innings in the third, allowing a run and seven hits over seven innings. He struck out seven and lowered his ERA to 1.59...

Washington — Washington pitcher Jordan Zimmermann allowed a run. Still, the result was the same in the end. After pitching 17 shutout innings in his prior two starts, the right-hander allowed one run in seven innings in a 3-1 win over the Detroit Tigers Wednesday night. "Zim was spectacular, pitched a great ballgame," Nationals manager Davey Johnson said. Bryce Harper hit a solo homer and drove in another run with a sacrifice fly to back Zimmermann's NL-leading sixth...

Danny Espinosa walked to the plate Thursday night with the game in the balance for the Washington Nationals , a moment the Tampa Bay Rays and Manager Joe Maddon had engineered. They intentionally walked the batter before Espinosa so he would bat left-handed, against convicted pine-tar junkie Joel Peralta , with the score tied in the sixth inning. Espinosa dug in. He is the kind of person who wants to do whatever someone else tells him he cannot. "I definitely take it...

PHILADELPHIA — Adeiny Hechavarria hit a grand slam and a bases-loaded triple off an ailing Roy Halladay, driving in seven runs for the Miami Marlins in a 14-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday. After the game, Halladay said he had a sore right shoulder. He said he will undergo tests this week in Los Angeles and be examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum. Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said Halladay (2-4) will likely be put on the disabled list. The two-time Cy Young winner and eight-time All-Star had his worst start since his rookie season.

PITTSBURGH — Bryce Harper sat in the Washington Nationals ' clubhouse, ejected before they had even taken the field . Three Pittsburgh Pirates occupied the bases, aided by another throwing error from Ryan Zimmerman. Gio Gonzalez stood on the mound, already trailing after the first pitch he threw soared over the fence and yet to record an out. Faced with bleakness early Sunday afternoon, Gonzalez responded with calm. The Nationals used myriad...