Ian Desmond

Ian Desmond 's path to his current position traces the same arc as the Washington Nationals . The Montreal Expos drafted him months before they relocated. He roared into professional existence — his general manager compared him to Derek Jeter after his first spring training game. Then he meandered through the wilderness for years, in the minor leagues and through two treacherous major league seasons, lost for good, some thought. This year showed the wandering was not idle time, but preparation for the moment...

LOS ANGELES — The Washington Nationals had a chance to get to Clayton Kershaw early. They just couldn't convert and the Dodgers' ace was nearly unhittable the rest of the way. Ryan Zimmerman was the only Washington hitter to have any success against Kershaw, getting three of the team's five hits in a 2-0 loss to Los Angeles on Tuesday night. "He's obviously one of the best pitchers in the game," he said. "I guess you just have to kind of keep it simple. I wish I knew what I was doing...

VIERA, Fla. — Ian Desmond had wanted to ask for years, and this felt like the right time. He told the Washington Nationals he wanted to wear No. 20, a tribute to his first manager, Frank Robinson, and an assertion of the manner in which he viewed his own standing. He is a major leaguer now, and major leaguers choose their uniform number. "Anytime you're new to the big leagues, there's always the opportunity you could get sent back to the minor leagues," Desmond said. "But I think the minor...

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...

After Stephen Strasburg dominated for seven innings, Ian Desmond singled in the go-ahead run in the ninth Thursday to give the Washington Nationals a season-opening 2-1 win over the Chicago Cubs. Strasburg, starting his first opener, allowed one run and five hits, struck out five and walked one. He reached 98 mph when he struck out Starlin Castro in the sixth. Tyler Clippard (1-0) worked a scoreless eighth to win in relief, and Brad Lidge got the save. ...

Stephen Strasburg watched from the dugout Saturday afternoon as Ian Desmond walked into the batter's box in the 10th inning. His victory had vanished after Brad Lidge made a hash of the ninth inning, but Strasburg never worried. "There's no sense of panic when we get to that situation," he said later. "We know that if the guy up to bat doesn't get it done, the next guy will. " Less than a month into the season, the Washington Nationals have conditioned...

Tuesday night, Ian Desmond cradled his newborn son in his left arm and held his smart phone in right hand. He focused most of his attention on hours-old Grayson Wesley Desmond, the first child whose birth he would later call "indescribable. " He also peeked at that phone, which displayed the Washington Nationals ' game. Desmond tended to his wife and newborn son during his two days on paternity leave, but he also watched the Nationals lose twice and wished he...

CINCINNATI — Ian Desmond became a professional baseball player at 18, and over the years, slowly and painfully, the game taught him to forget mistakes. He once allowed errors to stick in his head for days, one bad play leading to more. "Now it's like, I make an error, you got to deal with it," Desmond said. "Bounce back, keep on moving forward. " Saturday afternoon, Desmond stepped to the plate at Great American Ball Park in the 11th inning. He had made...

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.

The rest of the country missed its chance this summer to meet Ian Desmond . An oblique injury sidelined him from the All-Star Game, and so he never stepped onto the national stage. The baseball world never got to watch him corral grounders other shortstops would watch roll into the outfield, to see him spray line drives across the diamond, to witness Desmond's years of toil give way to rare athletic gifts that make him, after eight professional seasons, maybe the crucial player on...

WASHINGTON — One strange throw by Kurt Suzuki undid an entire afternoon of solid pitching by the Washington Nationals. Alfonso Soriano scored the tiebreaking run in the ninth inning on a unique error by Suzuki, giving the Chicago Cubs a 2-1 victory Sunday in the deciding matchup of a three-game series. Washington starter Gio Gonzalez threw five perfect innings and finished with seven innings of two-hit ball. He left with a 1-0 lead, but his performance became an afterthought following a wacky ninth inning.

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 — Dominant early, Stephen Strasburg fell apart after one of Ryan Zimmerman's two errors and wound up dropping his fifth consecutive decision, an 8-2 loss Saturday to the Chicago Cubs, whose starting pitcher, Edwin Jackson, worked into the sixth inning and hit a two-run double for good measure. Jackson (1-5) retired 12 of Washington's first 13 batters and allowed two runs and four hits in 5 1-3 innings. He earned his first win under a $52 million, four-year...

A baseball team's season seldom changes radically on one thrilling play or melodramatic game, except in fiction. But big league teams really can transform the trajectory of their year over short chunks of time. You don't go from lousy to good in a day, but you can in a week. And the Nats, with their sixth win in seven games, may have just done it. Eight days ago, the Nationals looked helpless against the Braves. Then Jordan Zimmermann and Dan Haren beat Atlanta back-to-back to stop what had been a...

WASHINGTON — The Detroit Tigers hit the ball hard for two days against the Washington Nationals with not much to show for it. Thursday's final out was no different as Prince Fielder flied to the warning track in center with the tying run on base to end the Tigers' 5-4 loss to the Nationals. Ryan Mattheus, Drew Storen and Rafael Soriano combined for shutout relief after Dan Haren nearly squandered a four-run lead to complete a two-game sweep of the AL champions. ...

PORT ST. LUCIE, FLA. — Day after day this spring training, Davey Johnson wrote Ian Desmond' s and Danny Espinosa 's names at the top of the Washington Nationals' lineup card. In case that had not been a strong enough message, Johnson sat them down last week. "This isn't an audition," the manager assured them. "You guys are my 1 and 2. " Johnson had handed his two young middle infielders what might be the Nationals' most crucial problem to solve. They have assembled a deep...

PHILADELPHIA — A languishing team plays at Citizens Bank Park these days, but on Friday night the place evoked the same horrors the Washington Nationals endured here for years. The Nationals sauntered into the lifeless stadium Friday night with the best record in basebal l, 19 1 / 2 games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies , a tormentor turned doormat. And then just about nothing went right. In their 4-2 loss to the Phillies , the...

Out in the Washington Nationals' bullpen, Rafael Soriano throws his warmup pitches softly, except the last one, which he fires as hard as he can. He spins on one foot, walks to the gate and jogs from the outfield to the middle of the diamond. He speaks into his hat and writes in the dirt with his finger. He does not share those words; not even his mother knows, he said. Soriano, finally, climbs to the rubber and faces the hitter, his face placid, his temperament ice cold. "The Grim Reaper," outfielder Jayson...