Nationals trying to spark offense with changes
Manager Jim Riggleman shook up the lineup today in an effort to spark the Nationals' slumbering offense, which has scored in three of their past 36 innings and a total of five runs in four games.
"We haven't been really scoring a lot of runs lately," Riggleman said. "I just felt like we needed to change it up a little bit."
The Nationals also altered their pregame routine. Rather than team-wide batting practice in the afternoon, the Nationals took optional batting in the cage underneath the stands. That may have been because the Nationals didn't have any baseballs left after Bryce Harper's laser show at BP earlier.
Hitting coach Rick Eckstein said the Nationals may be pressing. Instead of taking their usual approach, he said, Nationals batters have tried too hard to be the batter who breaks the slump. Eckstein has been stressing to his hitters that the Nationals need to start scoring runs as a team, not with just one breakout individual.
By
Adam Kilgore
|
August 26, 2010; 5:11 PM ET
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So, Harper's batting cleanup, right? Just kidding...
Posted by: natsfan1a1 | August 26, 2010 5:14 PM | Report abuse
That would be a treat....in 2 years
Posted by: cokedispatch | August 26, 2010 6:13 PM | Report abuse
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