Nats 3, Mets 2
In the end Major League Baseball’s trade deadline came and went without any more moves from the Nationals. It wasn’t that general manager Mike Rizzo and his staff didn’t try. They were in discussions with “three or four” teams over the weekend and that boiled down to talks with one club in particular – believed to be the Minnesota Twins. Those talks overshadowed a 3-2 bottom-of-the-ninth win over the New York Mets, which you can read about here.
Rizzo wasn’t talking specifics after the game. But it was pretty clear Minnesota was in the market for a relief pitcher and interested in Washington closer Drew Storen. So were a lot of teams, according to Rizzo. Storen’s name is often one of the first brought up by opposing general managers. Maybe the Nats were willing to entertain offers for their 23-year-old reliever. But they had a specific price in mind. So after a busy and sometimes emotional weekend – especially for the players whose names were bandied about in dozens of internet reports – the only deals made by Washington were Saturday’s trades of veteran utility man Jerry Hairston and veteran right-handed pitcher Jason Marquis – both for minor-league position players.
“I wouldn’t describe it as disappointed,” said Rizzo, whose team clearly remains in the market for a center fielder. “We did a lot of work on it and worked extremely hard to do the right thing and get the right player for the right return. It just didn’t match up. It’s frustrating at times, but you can’t make a deal just to make a deal. The players that we’d have to give up in return in our minds didn’t fulfill what we’re trying to do for the long term.”
On Saturday, Rizzo called Storen “a core piece” of his club and said it would take a special deal to pry him from the Nats’ bullpen. Sometimes that’s just a bluff. Apparently here Washington’s front office was serious.
“We got to a very specific stage towards the deadline today,” Rizzo said. “But again it was to the point where we would have to have given in to their demand of certain players and we just didn’t feel good about doing that.”
So Storen stays. And so does Tyler Clippard and Todd Coffey and Ian Desmond and most every other player whose name came up for discussions. It’s likely there were others we’ll never hear about. For his part, Storen was well aware of the time as he sat waiting in the bullpen. He checked the clock over and over and held his breath until it became clear he wasn’t going anywhere. When did he know for sure? When the Nats had him warming up in the eighth inning of a one-run game, like usual. It didn’t finish to his liking as Scott Hairston – whose own brother was traded by the team the day before – hit his second homer in three innings and handed Storen a blown save. But Storen, who made clear in recent days his desire to stay in Washington, can rest easy knowing there’ll be other chances in the District.
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