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FBB On MASN - Jayson Werth: Nationals' MVP If Not The NL's

Washington Nationals' slugger Jayson Werth keeps on hitting. Davey Johnson saw good signs from the start of spring training and the 34-year-old outfielder hasn't disappointed. In the last couple of weeks, the rest of the Nats' offense is following Werth's lead...

By Patrick Reddington
Greg Fiume

[ed. note - "Every Friday morning throughout this season, hopefully, if they'll continue to have me, I'll be writing a post over at MASNSports.com's Nationals Buzz, "... as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest," writers to their site. All opinions expressed are my own... A sample follows... You can read the entire post HERE or through the link included below."]:

"His wrist is feeling good and he's being more aggressive and I like that," Davey Johnson explained, "He'll get his walks, I'm not worried about that. And he's got good hand-eye coordination, he puts the bat on the ball -- I don't care what you throw him -- breaking ball or whatever. He's going to put it in play." While the Nationals' skipper has worked with several of Jayson Werth's teammates to help refine their approaches at the plate, he admitted that Werth was doing this on his own. "He's on his own path," the 70-year-old skipper laughed.

Whatever adjustments Werth made after his first two seasons in D.C., the results have been impressive. A DL stint for a hamstring injury cost him over a month in May, but upon returning, he remained locked in at the plate. He's not the only one going now. The Nationals' offense, which Davey Johnson's waited for all season, is finally starting to come around. Johnson saw it coming a few weeks back and said it was Werth leading the charge.

"I sense that we're, overall as a team, we're a little more aggressive trom top-to-bottom and that's always been the key I think here," he said after a win over Werth's former employer earlier this month. And the guy that's most aggressive, any time in the count now, and prides himself on taking a lot of pitches, is Jayson Werth. I mean, he's hit first pitches and smoked them, but he's been kind of a shining example of how we need to hit."

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 Photo © Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports

As for what's changed in Werth's approach since his first two seasons in the nation's capital, which saw him post a combined .256/.349/.407 line, Johnson explained that it's a combination of finally being healthy and breaking what the manager saw as some bad habits...

• Read the entire post over at MASNSports.com's Nationals Buzz HERE.

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