‘Morgan for the out’
courtesy of ‘afagen’
The Lead Item: What a perfect week for this story. In Jayson Werth’s first game as a National against his old club from Philadelphia, he had his best night of the young season, going 2 for 3 at the plate with a home run and a steal. Not too shabby, and a great sign of maybe more to come from the outfielder. And when Werth and Co. get done with the NL rivals from the north, they’ll get a chance to square off with another familiar face comes to town in the series to follow: Nyjer Morgan’s Brewers.
What’s that you say NBC Washington? There may be an interesting back story between the two title characters of the last paragraph?
“After he was taken out of a game against the Tigers at Space Coast Stadium in mid-March, outfielder Nyjer Morgan — since traded to the Brewers — performed three of the six sprints on the outfield warning track and called it a day. Werth told Morgan to do the rest of the sprints. Morgan declined, figuring he arrived at the ballpark at 5:30 a.m. ET and didn’t need to do any more work. They went into the locker room a few minutes later, Werth and Morgan got into a verbal argument, with Werth telling Morgan that he needed to continue to do his work. Jerry Hairston Jr. got involved and was able to calm Morgan down. According to a baseball source, Morgan believes the incident is the No. 1 reason he is no longer a member of the Nationals.”
Pause for dramatic rhythm: It. Just. Got. Interesting. I’m hopeful for some fireworks over a nice weekend at Nationals Park. Now, the Ticker.
The Ticker: There’s nothing I could say about the Caps and the playoff run that begin tonight that WLDC’s Dan Rowinski couldn’t say a million times better. Case and point – his two part preview on what the Caps need to do to get to the Cup and how they can get by their first round opponent, the New York Rangers…the Wizards season comes to a “merciful” close tonight (too mean?) in Cleveland, where they can notch their fourth road win of the campaign. Have to give it to the team, these last few weeks haven’t been too bad, and there is hope that another high draft pick this June will help the team make another few moves forward next season…the Redskins still maybe just might could have a season, or at least the NFL thinks so, which is why they released the preseason schedule yesterday…Charlie Davies tried to break into the VW after scoring an injury time PK to help United earn a draw with Galaxy at RFK over the weekend…John Wall had a good season, especially toward the end, but with Blake Griffin around, prognosticators are convinced that Rookie of the Year award isn’t being shipped to the Verizon Center.
The Closing Number: 24, 155, average home attendance in the first four games at home for the Nationals, a shade over half capacity for the stadium. I know it’s been cold and rainy for almost all of them, but I’m planning on overanalyzing attendance numbers because it’s entertaining. Hey, small sample size, it’ll change.
