The Morning Briefing: July 22

Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, July 22.

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Welcome to the Morning Briefing!

Leading this Morning's Briefing: Wood Homer Completes Sweep

The Cincinnati Reds came to town for the second half of their home-and-home with Washington this year (after the Nats opened the season in the Queen City) having won five of their last seven and being just a couple games out of the final wild card spot. After a three-game sweep featuring an impressive Patrick Corbin outing, a monumental effort by the bullpen in the second game after MacKenzie Gore lasted just two innings, and James Wood launching an eighth-inning, three-run oppo taco following seven strong innings from Jake Irvin, the Nats and Reds are now tied at 47-53, both four games behind the Padres/Mets/Diamondbacks (all two games over .500 but all with different records) in that wild card race. It was an exciting weekend at Nationals Park aside from Gore's self-combusting, with all three wins punctuated by a Kyle Finnegan save.

Last Game Out

Davey Martinez, Jim Hickey, and Sean Doolittle might have been sweating a little bit entering yesterday afternoon's series finale, given that Irvin had gotten knocked around for twelve earned runs in his final two starts before the break, and the Nats needed nothing more than innings after five relievers covered the final seven frames on Saturday. Fortunately, Irvin bounced back from his pre-break fade with a pretty good Max Scherzer imitation; two solo shots (to Noelvi Marte and Stuart Fairchild), three other scattered hits, zero walks, and seven strikeouts in seven innings. In the eighth, Wood, after absolutely tattooing two outs in his previous two trips to the plate (109 mph and 99 mph), finally got one high enough that no one could catch it, going 106 mph the other way for a three-run bomb that left a perfunctory five-pitch save situation for Finnegan (who owes Jacob Young not just a steak dinner but an Omaha Steaks subscription for all of the legwork this year - the first out of the inning was a line drive with an expected batting average of .510).

Nationals Headline of the Day: Wood Bomb

MLB's Jessica Camerato quoted Davey as saying that "[Wood]'s got no heartbeat, he just goes out there and competes."

Down on the Farm

Dylan Crews and Brady House both homered this weekend in Rochester, with House leaving Innovative Field entirely on Saturday. Andry Lara, who will be added to the 40-man roster this winter and looks on track to debut in the majors sometime next year, threw seven shutout innings on 84 pitches Sunday afternoon (can we call that a Minor League Maddux?), his eighth quality start at the AA level and tenth of the season. Also pitching on Sunday, Jarlin Susana punched out seven Aberdeen IronBirds in five innings for his second solid start in as many outings at A+ Wilmington. And down in the Dominican, outfielder Dashyll Tejeda and shortstop Angel Feliz were both named to their league's All-Star team.

Featured Baseball Story of the Day: Four New Hall of Famers Inducted

Adrian Beltré, Todd Helton, Joe Mauer, and Jim Leyland gave their acceptance speeches in Cooperstown, New York on Sunday, which you can read about here at Yahoo! I love the Hall of Fame (I've made four trips in my life, though never on an induction weekend - perhaps when Max Scherzer is on stage in, say, 2033?), and I'm a "big Hall" guy, but even "small Hall" people don't have a lot to gripe about with this class. Beltré is one of the two or three greatest offensive and defensive third basemen in baseball history, Mauer was an elite two-way catcher until concussion issues forced him to first base (and, let's not forget, a hometown hero and number one overall draft pick who spent his entire career in said hometown - he arguably saved the Twins from contraction more than any other single individual), and Helton was another one-team fixture who was an offensive force for a long time (and would have been much better known nationally if he didn't have the misfortune to be on possibly the most dysfunctionally run franchise in North American sports, now that Dan Snyder is gone from the scene). Leyland took three different franchises to the playoffs and made three trips to the World Series with two of them, winning with the Marlins in 1997. These are all pretty unassailable selections.

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