This Weekend!

March 24, 2008

Wow, lots of Nationals stuff going on over the last couple days as we start a fast jog toward the exhibition and opener this weekend. First the release of SP John Patterson (who signed with the Texas Rangers - minor leagues this morning), followed quickly by the reassignment of backup catcher Wil Nieves to the minor leagues and the return of Rule 5 1st baseman Matt Whitney to the Cleveland Indians. The other rule 5 pick, outfielder Garrett Guzman, cleared waivers and the team worked out a deal with his original club, the Minnesota Twins, in order to keep him. Jesus Flores will now start the season as the backup catcher until Johnny Estrada is fully recovered, which apparently isn’t very far off. The team is apparently trying to trade Felipe Lopez but other teams are more interested in Ronnie Belliard. Please don’t trade Belliard! That’s all I have to say about that! Shawn Hill is still plugging along, so hopefully everything will work out with him.

Hey, wow! The Times has Manny Acta’s morning press conference online! Ha! Acta even mentions that after he apparently nodded in response to a question, causing dead air. Did you get that, internetland?

I’ll be attending both games this weekend and can’t wait! Our season ticket group manager graciously reserved one of our four seats (out of I think about 12 people in our ST group!) for me for the Orioles game Saturday. I bought a spare ticket in the upper deck off a friend for the opener (since that’s not one of our games assigned for the season from the group), so I’ll be able to tell you if every seat truly is excellent. Transportation-wise, we’ll probably be using a season ticket parking spot Saturday and I’ll Go Metro! on Sunday just to give it a shot. Normally, I’ll probably be doing the RFK shuttle thing, which by the way, will be running starting at 3 PM on Saturday and continue running until 1.5 hours after the last out of the game. Batting practice begins at 3:30 PM.

Check out these five Q&A Cafe with Stan Kasten videos (most recent five) on YouTube.

Posted in MLB, Washington Nationals