Nationals News, 13-1 Edition!

  Last night's game was a lot of fun to watch. Even after the rain delays, the Nationals put together quite a spectacle, and played great defense to boot! Tyler Clippard (cool glasses!) is now my favorite player after throwing four scoreless innings and striking out seven. His ERA is an incredible 1.15 in July, and he's pitched against some good teams in that month (the Braves, Colorado, Houston, St. Louis and the Cubs).

  In other news, the Nationals have now had 2,022 minutes spent in rain delays this season. I'm not sure how this compares to other teams, but it's got to be pretty far up there.

  The coverage is really starting to build on Stephen Strasburg. I'm sure this is not what the Nationals want to see, but it was bound to happen.

  Adam Dunn realizes that he's not a great fielder. I think I read somewhere that he's been spending extra time on his fielding, and I certainly hope that's the case.

  The Brewers signed Jesus Colome, whom the Nationals DFA'd earlier in July.

  Over at FJB, Steven makes the case that J.D. Martin is better than his stats suggest, given the defense the Riggler has fielded behind him. In both starts, it looked like it took him some time to get into the game, but once he was there, he was great... until he was pulled by Riggleman.

  The Washington Times is running a story on the downfall of Anderson Hernandez, looking at why he isn't getting much playing time these days.

  ESPN interviewed Ozzie Smith and Hank Aaron on their feelings about steroids, and both suggested that they let players in to the Hall of Fame but put an asterisk next to their name to denote that they played in the steroids era.