District Daily: Roark may land in ‘pen with Nationals’ full rotation

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Oct 4, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals relief pitcher

Tanner Roark

(57) pitches in the 17th inning against the San Francisco Giants in game two of the 2014 NLDS playoff baseball game 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:

Roark may land in ‘pen with Nats’ full rotation

(Andrew Simon, MLB.com)

WASHINGTON — Tanner Roark could not have done much more to entrench himself in the Nationals’ starting rotation last year. In his first full big league season, the right-hander went 15-10 with a 2.85 ERA over 31 starts.

Yet, Roark could find himself on the outside looking in, after Washington reeled in free agent Max Scherzer to join an accomplished staff that also figures to include Jordan ZimmermannStephen StrasburgDoug Fister and Gio Gonzalez. That could relegate Roark to the bullpen, unless the Nats trade one of their other starters, something general manager Mike Rizzo has said they are not looking to do.

Certainly, nothing is set it stone. After Scherzer’s news conference on Wednesday, manager Matt Williams said all of the club’s potential starters, including Roark, will go into Spring Training getting ready to fill that role, just in case. Read full article here.

More from District on Deck

New York Mets’ rotation not far behind Washington Nationals’

(Tim Boyle, Call to the Pen)

The Washington Nationals signed pitcher Max Scherzer to a monster contract which has made them a heavy favorite to win the World Series. He joins a rotation that was already one of the better in baseball, and is now in the minds of many the best.

For months, baseball fans were anticipating where Scherzer would decide to call home in 2015 and beyond. It was such exciting news that when he finally did sign with the Nationals, I went out of my comfort zone to casually talk with a coworker about what he thought about the signing. To my surprise, he wasn’t too impressed.

The token New York Mets fan on the payroll, my coworker dismissed the signing and without blinking informed me that his favorite team still had a better rotation. Read full article here.