Rendon, Sandy Leon and Nate Karns head to Double-A Harrisburg and Eury Perez to Triple-A Syracuse. The Nats also re-assigned Matt Skole, Will Rhymes and Pat McCoy to minor league camp.
Lannan holds no grudges against the Nationals and insists baseball decisions can't be taken personally. Time has made those words easier.
Monday morning, while the rest of his Washington teammates enjoy their first off-day of the spring, Detwiler will board a plane for Phoenix and begin his transition from Nationals camp to Team USA.
It was just after 11 a.m. Friday on the West Coast when Kurt Suzuki got the news. His time with the Oakland A's, the only professional organization he'd ever known, was over. The Washington Nationals were calling and they had a starting catching job waiting for him.
As the ball cracked off Michael Martinez's bat and bounced through the right side of the infield, Ross Detwiler never took his eyes off it. He watched Bryce Harper gather it. Watched him unfurl his body and send the ball rocketing toward home plate.
The pitcher who stood on the mound Wednesday afternoon at Citi Field was dominant. He was precise. He was efficient and breathtakingly effective. As New York Mets manager Terry Collins aptly put it after the Washington Nationals beat his team 5-2, "He was tremendous, my gosh almighty."
Bryce Harper homered his first time up in New York, then hit a tiebreaking single to key a six-run burst in the 10th inning Monday night that sent the Washington Nationals over the Mets 8-2.
As the Washington Nationals keep reminding us, it takes a village to earn a playoff berth.
Donovan Solano pulled up outside Miami International Airport on Monday night and waited. The Miami Marlins infielder had just finished the eighth full day of his major league career and here he was to pick up his brother, Jhonatan, whom the Washington Nationals had summoned for his first shot in the majors.
