Cubs 4, Nats 0
This one really hurt. The Nats finally saw the Jason Marquis they signed to a two-year, $15 million free-agent contract in the offseason. After spending over three months on the disabled list thanks to elbow surgery and enduring six mostly poor outings when he was able to pitch at all, the 32-year-old was in excellent form on Wednesday with 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball.
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But it all fell apart in the eighth inning as reliever Tyler Clippard gave up a run-scoring double and a two-run homer. Just like that a fine performance went by the wayside. Check out the details here as the losses continue to mount and wear on Nats players and coaches.
A busy – and sometimes bizarre – day all around, though. We found out Stephen Strasburg will have his arthrogram and a second MRI on Thursday to see exactly what’s wrong in his right forearm. We’ll know the results by Friday at the latest. MASN analyst Rob Dibble took three days off after a string of controversial comments and was replaced in the television booth by Ray Knight. Left fielder Josh Willingham underwent surgery to repair the medial meniscus in his left knee at Washington Hospital Center and is officially out for the season. Reliever Collin Balester was returned to Triple-A Syracuse after the loss to make room for tomorrow’s starter, Jordan Zimmermann.
And then….to top it off we have an honest-to-goodness situation with center fielder Nyjer Morgan. Just minutes before the game Major League Baseball announced it had suspended Morgan seven games for “inappropriate actions” during Saturday’s win at Philadelphia. Morgan apparently got into a confrontation with a fan and allegedly hit someone in the stands with a ball. Bob Watson, MLB’s Vice-President of On-Field Operations, made the decision and Morgan has appealed.
“I’m not sure what happened. Today is the first day I heard about it – actually right before game time it was brought to my attention that there was an issue there,” Nats manager Jim Riggleman said. “And so I think I have an e-mail that I haven’t checked yet that is informing me. That is what I was told. I haven’t looked at the e-mail yet. But something took place there. Nyjer had an issue with a fan or something and MLB’s going to take care of it with Nyjer.”
Riggleman said Morgan will appeal, but didn’t know how long the process would take to get an answer from MLB. For his part, Morgan was limited in what he could say. Reporters briefly caught him on his way out of the Nats’ locker room. When asked directly if he hit a fan with a ball in Philadelphia, Morgan said:
“As far as I know I just can’t really say too much from there.”
As you can see that doesn’t remotely answer the question. But that was about as far as we got. Was he surprised?
“No. Like I said, I just have to wait for my appeal process,” Morgan said. “This is brand-new news for me and we just have to take it from there.”
Two more questions received the same reply – “That’s all I can say” – and the Nats’ public-relations staff ended the interview. Will try to shed some more light on the incident tomorrow.
Nats Notes
» No Nats batter had an extra-base hit against the Cubs. No player managed more than one hit, either, and the batting order drew just one walk. It was the 10th time this season Washington has been shut out.
» Attendance at Nationals Park was 18,344.
» The Nats have been outscored 24-5 in their last four games and have lost 13 of 17 overall. It was the seventh time this season Washington was swept in a series, the third time at Nationals Park.
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