Welcome back to Nationals Today! I was going to change the name of this column to "Washington Bullets," but that name is already pretty played out.
- Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer struck out 20 Tigers on Wednesday. David Schoenfield takes a look at Scherzer's outing.
- Only because Schoenfield already did, I'll call attention to the piece he wrote on Saturday asking if we would ever see someone strike out 20 batters again.
- Schoenfield also compares Scherzer's outing to the other 20K games. Kerry's still number 1.
- Neil Paine explains why Scherzer's game was perhaps the weirdest high-strikeout game.
- Ken Rosenthal notes that one start after the Cubs hit four home runs off of him, Scherzer found his groove against the Tigers and made history.
- Grant Brisbee ponders the possibility that we'll ever see a 21 strikeout game.
- Speaking of Nationals pitchers who did surprising things, James Wagner and Adam Kilgore have the complete story of how the Nationals and Stephen Strasburg agreed on that contract extension. You should read this. It's interesting reading but I'm sure what Cubs fans will take out of it is Strasburg's agent Scott Boras flatly stating that it's not true that he refuses to let his clients sign extensions.
- Tom Verducci thinks the Nationals are taking a pretty big risk locking up Strasburg, noting that other pitchers such as Matt Cain, Justin Verlander and others have declined pretty rapidly after the age of 30.
- Will Leitch notes how awful this year's upcoming crop of free agents is going to get without Strasburg.
- Final Nats notes: Bryce Harper has been suspended one game. He is appealing. Make up your own joke about how handsome he is.
- Mike Bauman thinks that walking Harper, like the Cubs did, was the right move.
- Yahoo! Sports reminds us of 10 incidents that Harper-haters love to point to as a reason to hate Harper.
- No more Nats for a while. Neil Paine and Jay Boice over at fivethirtyeight continue with their Elo rankings of baseball things with the greatest pitchers of all-time. Next up, the complete Elo rankings of the entire Electric Light Orchestra discography. Top song? I can't wait to find out.
- Here's more for you DH fans to chew on: Noah Syndergaard hit two home runs off Kenta Maeda on Wednesday. Jay Jaffe looks at Syndergaard's night and other current pitchers who can hit.
- Syndergaard credits his night at the plate as a "direct result of Bartolo [Colon] inspiring me to be a better man"
- Jeff Sullivan demonstrates how the Dodgers were actually scared to pitch to Syndergaard later in the game.
- One other note on Thor is that the Mets secretly sent Syndergaard for an MRI on May 2 after a bad start against the Giants. The good news is that it came up negative.
- But bad news for the Mets in that Stephen Matz is expected to miss his next start with elbow pain. He does say he's feeling better, but the Mets are taking no chances.
- The Royals put two starting pitcher, Chris Young and Kris Medlen, on the disabled list.
- The defending champ Royals are having trouble so far this season and Mike Axisa says the blame lies firmly on the starting pitching.
- Liz Roscher actually has four reasons the Royals are struggling, and starting pitching is only one.
- The Angels, dealing with all the injuries to their rotation, have acquired Jhoulys Chacin from the Braves in exchange for a minor league pitcher.
- R.J. Anderson writes that the Angels are just trying to patch holes the best they can at this point, but it's not enough.
- Chad Jennings ranks all the Yankees injuries this season by how badly they've hurt the team.
- Gabe Lacques thinks the Angels and the Yankees, should be selling not buying this year.
- Probably not Mike Trout though. Christopher Crawford tried to put together some minor league packages for Trout and ran the ideas past some people in the industry. Bottom line is that likely no team has enough minor league talent to land Mike Trout.
- Two other small trades. The Brewers picked up Jhan Mariñez from the Rays.
- The White Sox got Anthony Ranaudo from the Rangers.
- Rangers shortstop Jurickson Profar, who once was the top prospect in baseball but hasn't played a major league game since 2013 because of injuries, acknowledges that he may have to get traded to get another shot at the majors. He's currently at Triple-A Round Rock.
- The final three teams in on Tim Lincecum are reportedly the Angels, the White Sox and the Giants.
- MLB is investigating the Red Sox international signing for the possibility that the team has tried to circumvent the bonus restrictions currently placed on the team.
- Keith Law says that this is a fairly routine investigation into international signings (Insider Only) and how the team might be trying to circumvent the rules.
- Dodgers first baseman Adrian González has put an accent mark on the name on the back of his jersey, adding him to the increasing number of players who want their names spelled properly. Which means I have to look up the code for typing that. Glad to do it, A-Gon.
- Tim Healy profiles what went into the comeback of Rich Hill.
- Nick Swisher is down in Triple-A with the Yankees, but he's not ready to hang it up yet. He also says he's glad now that the Braves released him in Spring Training. He doesn't think he could put up with all that losing.
- Ray Gilder talks with the stadium workers at Turner Field about their memories, many of whom will see a lifetime of working Braves baseball games end after this year. One guy's childhood house was torn down to build Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and his fate has been linked with the Braves since--until next year.
- Will Leitch ranks different baseball feats by how cool they are. This ties back to the 20K game.
- An umpire in a Texas high school game was apparently caught cheating by kicking dirt ON the plate.
- A 19th century baseball pioneer is finally going to get the gravestone that he wanted when he died.
- Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop celebrated a win by fighting with each other. Just for show. Like pro wrestling.
- And finally, back to pitchers hitting home runs. Bartolo Colon's home run has been mashed up with The Natural to give Colon's clout the grandeur it deserves.
And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.