Dana Brown, the long suffering scouting director of the Expos/Nationals says “there’s joy with ownership” when it comes to draft preparation. The whole braintrust gets profiled in today’s Post.

Ray King says that Randy St. Claire “watches more video of us than my kid watches cartoons.” St. Claire needs to watch all that video because in the first 1/3 of the season he has seen nine different pitchers start (The Wash. Times) for the Nats. When he isn’t watching video, St. Claire is supervising throwing sessions, playing centerfield in batting practice and throwing bunting practice. He doesn’t have any aspirations of becoming a manager because he would miss working with pitchers one on one.

Ryan Zimmerman and Austin Kearns are looking forward to the new ballpark next year with the hope that many of their deep drives will start hitting seats instead of leather. They have not changed their approach (The Post) to hitting though.

Am I the only one that thinks the Nationals should file a grievance with the Reds over Ryan Wagner? The reliever is having arthroscopic surgery (AP/WTOP) performed by James Andrews today in Birmingham. After the surgery, a full diagnosis will be made.

There is another “Jesus Colome learned how to pitch” article (AP/USA Today) today.

PRWeb notes that a signing company has been selected for the new ballpark.

Tonight begins a three game series with the Pirates. Game on Sam!