District Daily: Nationals rebuilding a Dominican presence
By Pablo Roa
Apr 21, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo on the field before the game against the Los Angeles Angels at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit:
Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
Good morning DoD readers, start off your day with some great Washington Nationals articles from around the web in today’s District Daily:
In Dominican Republic, Nationals want prospects to be comfortable, but not too comfortable
(James Wagner, Washington Post)
BOCA CHICA, Dominican Republic — By the first week of December, the baseball season was long over, but the Washington Nationals’ academy here was full of life. The Dominican instructional league was entering its seventh and final week, and the entire complex was a bustle of bodies. Coaches smacked ground balls to young Nationals minor leaguers, most recent signees from the Dominican Republic, and each infielder shouted “I got it!” in English as he raced toward the ball.
A batting cage sat behind home plate, ready for on-field hitting later before the instructional league game on the adjacent field, another neatly manicured baseball diamond. Inside the main building, two cooks put two large hunks of pork into the oven in the industrial kitchen, lunch for the 54 hungry players and 10 coaches to be served in the cafeteria. Read full article here.
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Fedde progressing in rehab from Tommy John surgery
WASHINGTON — Right-hander Erick Fedde, the Nationals’ first-round pick in the 2014 First-Year Player Draft, is happy to report that his elbow is recovering nicely from Tommy John surgery. In fact, the Nevada native was in Viera, Fla., recently to start a throwing program.
Fedde started off slowly by throwing 30 feet and then 60 feet. As of Tuesday, he had reached 90 feet and was throwing the ball 50 times per session. Fedde has good and bad days. When he has his good days, it means that he is thinking about nothing else other than throwing the baseball. He forgets that he had elbow reconstruction. The bad days mean the elbow is feeling a little tight and he feel soreness in muscles that he hasn’t used in a while. Read full article here.