Wire Taps: Cubs get Craig Kimbrel; Trea Turner walks off White Sox; What would a comeback look like?

The Nationals, stressed from trying to make it back up to .500 and crawl back into the NL East race, have decided to take a team retreat to San Diego.

They will also be playing baseball, so watch out for the bullpen not to get invited to beach day.

Here’s the scoop from SoCal:

Nats draft pick Todd Peterson, a reliever who claims to ‘hit bombs,’ is a plus-plus liar (WaPo)
Todd Peterson—a Nats draft pick—lied to his manager about being able to hit bombs in high school when he had to stand at the plate in an important situation. Then he hit a RBI double.

It’s far from ideal that the Nationals didn’t sign Craig Kimbrel. But they also got lucky. (WaPo)
Today: the Nationals' bullpen gave up a lead, and Craig Kimbrel signed somewhere else. But hey, at least he signed in the NL Central for a salary that the Nationals should have matched.

These Nats can still make this a magical summer. And wouldn’t that be nice? (WaPo)
The Nationals—along with every other team in DC baseball history—have never completed a season-long, roaring comeback from a double-digit deficit. There's a slim hope for it this year, on the tail of improved starting pitching and a suddenly-roaring offense, alongside a divisional mess in the making, Thomas Boswell says — though it would take an eight-inning man.

Nationals walk off White Sox, with late heroics overcoming another bullpen collapse (WaPo)
Alex Colome couldn't control his slider, and Trea Turner, after a rough afternoon for the bullpen, made him pay.

Notes on Dozier, Robles, Rosenthal, bullpen (MASN)
Brian Dozier's arm is okay, Victor Robles started in center, and Trevor Rosenthal will get back going in low-leverage situations if and when he returns.

Trea Turner hits walk off home run against White Sox (MLB.com)
“We've played good baseball all year, we've just been on the losing side because of something stupid each game,” Turner said. “Stupid mistakes are starting to go away and we're starting to play consistent and pitch when we need it, hit when we need it. We bailed our pitchers out today, but last week, they bailed us out. That's what good teams do. When you need to score one more run than the other team, no matter when it is, I think we've been able to do that lately. That's how you win.”

Nationals celebrate 15th annual Pride Night (MLB.com)
Barney Frank got to see a Nats game he couldn't have possibly imagined a few decades ago, the Gay Men's Chorus sang the anthem, a successful proposal occurred, and Sean Doolittle got to break out his pride cleats.

Nationals conclude MLB draft with college pitchers, former Ohio Valley Conference hero (WaPo)
The Nats didn't get any DC natives this year, but they did get another Doolittle (unrelated to Sean) and a boatload of other college-level players.

Turner's walk-off blast caps imperfect 6-4 win, Nats' first home sweep (MASN)
Ideally, we would have remembered Aníbal Sánchez's incredible start, Juan Soto's homer-robbing grab, and everything else interesting from the Wednesday game. The bullpen, of course, had other plans.

Nats recap first two days of draft, including Rutledge and Cronin (MASN)
“When I woke up yesterday I didn’t think we could get Rutledge, but we did,” Kline said. “The whole group is absolutely thrilled to get this guy: 6-foot-8, 250 pounds, big arm, above-average secondary stuff, whole package. He was supposed to go in the top 10, and ended up getting down to where we pick. Everybody in that room was thrilled to death.”