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Jonathan Papelbon‘s tumultuous tenure with the Washington Nationals has come to an end. The Nationals announced he was officially released on Saturday.

ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick previously reported Papelbon requested his release from the Nationals. 

The 35-year-old’s role with the Nationals significantly diminished in recent weeks after the team acquired Mark Melancon before the trade deadline. 

Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post noted the move makes sense for both the Nationals and Papelbon because the team wanted to open up a roster spot—it brought up minor league pitcher Reynaldo Lopez—and Papelbon wanted to pitch in high-leverage situations. 

ESPN’s Sarah Langs provided another practical reason for why the Nationals would want to get rid of Papelbon:

According to Rob Bradford of WEEI, Papelbon would be open to a return to the Boston Red Sox and is “prioritzing [the] best spot to succeed” to finish the season.

If Papelbon wants to pitch in late-game situations again, it likely won’t come with a playoff contender. He has been awful in Washington this season with a 4.37 ERA, 37 hits allowed, 14 walks and 31 strikeouts in 35 innings. 

Since July 24, he’s allowed nine hits and eight earned runs in five appearances covering 3.1 innings. 

The Nationals acquired Papelbon from the Philadelphia Phillies in July 2015. His tenure with the team will be remembered best for a physical altercation he had with Bryce Harper in the dugout during the final week of the season.

Papelbon was in a contract year. Washington will pay the remainder of his $11 million salary for 2016. 

The Nationals hold a comfortable lead in the National League East and are preparing to make a playoff run. Moving on now from a player who didn’t want to be there is only going to help them finish the season strong. 

Given his age and performance decline this season, Papelbon should consider himself lucky if he’s able to find a team that gives him a shot to pitch again in 2016.

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In Saturday’s 7-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants, Washington Nationals right fielder Bryce Harper struck out three times and exited after the sixth inning with a stiff neck, per Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post.

If that isn’t a metaphor for Harper’s 2016 season, nothing is.

The first-place Nats have plenty to smile about. Second baseman Daniel Murphy is on pace to win a batting title, and breakout catcher Wilson Ramos is hot on his heels. Speedy rookie Trea Turner is lighting up the basepaths. The starting rotation sports the second-best ERA (3.31) in baseball.

But Harper, the reigning National League MVP, has been largely absent from the party.

At the end of April, Harper had nine home runs and a 1.121 OPS. In the three-plus months since, he’s managed 11 homers and watched his OPS tumble to .812.

He’s been especially anemic since the All-Star break, posting a .134/.259/.209 slash line with three extra-base hits and 20 strikeouts in 19 games.

That’s wince-inducing. And it raises an uncomfortable yet unavoidable question: Was Harper’s MVP campaign an anomaly?

Early this season, the story was all about teams not pitching to Harper. By the end of May, he’d drawn 13 intentional walks, two shy of his career high. On May 8, the Chicago Cubs walked him six times in a single game, tying the all-time mark.

But as Harper’s production cratered, the free passes came less frequently. He’s received only three intentional walks since June 1, and his 18.3 walk percentage for the season is actually down slightly from last year’s mark of 19 percent.

Maybe the starkest disparity between Harper’s 2015 and 2016 stat sheets is his batting average on balls in play, which has plummeted from .369 to .237.

Before you chalk that up to bad luck, consider that Harper’s hard-contact rate has fallen from 40.9 percent in 2015 to 32.2 percent, while his soft-contact rate has climbed from 11.9 percent to 22.0 percent.

Lately, pitchers have been exploiting him with fastballs, as Sporting News’ Jesse Spector outlined:

According to data from Brooks Baseball, pitchers are particularly focusing on that fastball weakness lately, with Harper seeing “hard” stuff 63.76 percent of the time in July—the highest rate thrown to him in a full month since April 2014. Harper’s average exit velocities on those pitches dropped to an average of 89.1 mph in July, only the second time in 10 months of tracking that he’s been below 90.

On July 10, Harper insisted his approach isn’t broken.

“This is going to sound bad and people are going to look at it and say it sounds bad, but I’m really good at the plate,” he said, per Janes. “Of course guys have holes in their swings, but I don’t feel like I do. When I go up to the plate, I don’t want to think I have a hole or anything like that. I think I can hit any pitch.”

Confidence has been Harper’s calling card since he burst into the big leagues in 2012 as a brash 19-year-old wunderkind and claimed NL Rookie of the Year honors. So Nats fans should be heartened to hear he’s not throwing in the towel.

It’s easy to forget Harper is just 23 years old, an age when plenty of talented players are working out the kinks in the minor leagues. For perspective, Harper is only eight months older than Turner, who’s logged a scant 48 games in The Show.

In other words, don’t bet against Harper getting hot again. He’s simply too gifted for this current feckless stretch to continue unabated.

On the other hand, if you thought 2015 was the new normal, you may want to adjust your expectations. The reality is likely somewhere in between this protracted soft-contact slump and the guy who blew away his career bests in virtually every offensive category and posted the highest single-season OPS+ (195) of any active player.

Here, let’s stack Harper’s historic 2015 next to his numbers so far this season and his career averages:

A return to those career averages would make Harper an exceedingly valuable player and would boost the Nats’ chances considerably. It’s also probably closest to the real Harper.

The bottom line is this: There will be ups; there will be downs. There will be growing pains, even after everything he’s accomplished.

In fact, for all his bravado, Harper may be wrestling with the weight of expectations, pressing to meet the impossibly high standard he set.

“He tries to live up to all this,” Nationals hitting coach Rick Schu said, per Janes. “I think you just have to get back down to being a hitter.”

Harper may never again do what he did last season. But he can—and almost surely will—get back to being a dangerous, productive hitter.

So far, though, 2016 has been a serious, unquestionable pain in the neck.

All statistics current as of Aug. 7 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, MLB.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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Miami Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki cemented his place in baseball lore Sunday, as he became the 30th player in MLB history to record 3,000 career hits with a triple in the top of the seventh inning against the Colorado Rockies:  

MLB.com shared video of the historic moment:

The 42-year-old veteran racked up 1,278 hits during his career in Japan, giving him a total of 4,278 hits in major professional baseball. 

Pete Rose is Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader with 4,256 hits, and while some consider Ichiro the Hit King due to his exploits in Japan, Rose disagrees, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today:

It sounds like in Japan they’re trying to make me the Hit Queen. I’m not trying to take anything away from Ichiro, he’s had a Hall of Fame career, but the next thing you know, they’ll be counting his high-school hits.

I don’t think you’re going to find anybody with credibility say that Japanese baseball is equivalent to major-league baseball. There are too many guys that fail here, and then become household names there, like Tuffy Rhodes. How can he not do anything here, and hit (a record-tying) 55 home runs (in 2001) over there?

It has something to do with the caliber of personnel.

Regardless of Rose’s position, Ichiro’s 3,000th MLB hit put an exclamation point on a career that likely has him ticketed for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, one day.

Ichiro is in the midst of his 16th MLB season, and while he is no longer the same player who made 10 straight All-Star teams and won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves, a Rookie of the Year award and an American League MVP award with the Seattle Mariners from 2001 through 2010, he continues to be a useful asset.

As the fourth outfielder for a Marlins team that is in the thick of the National League playoff race, he entered Sunday hitting .318 for the season. Players often back in to their 3,000th hit by virtue of hanging around for too long, but Ichiro has proven this season that he is still a capable performer at baseball’s highest level.

While Ichiro could decide to retire at the end of the 2016 campaign, the Marlins have a club option to retain him for 2017 should he opt to continue playing. Based on how well he has fared this year, the organization has every reason to keep him around if he’s willing to do so.

If Ichiro does play in 2017, he has a great chance to crack the top 20 in career MLB hits, which would bolster his Hall of Fame resume even further. Earlier this year, Ichiro told Marly Rivera of ESPN that he would like to play until he is 50.

Due to his unique hitting style and consistent production, Ichiro is a one-of-a-kind player. After reaching 3,000 hits, there is no denying his status as one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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For much of the season, the leadoff spot has been a barren wasteland for the Washington Nationals. 

Consider rookie Trea Turner an oasis in the nation’s capital.

We’re in small-sample territory, but after going 2-for-4 with a home run in Friday’s 5-1 win over the San Francisco Giants, Turner is hitting .321 with an .896 OPS in 20 games for the Nats.

He has also swiped eight bases without being caught and generally provided a lineup-topping spark for the National League East leaders.

That is quite a change of pace. The Nationals offense, which ranks among the top 10 in runs scored and OPS, has been strong on balance.

Other than Turner, however, Washington’s leadoff hitters have landed somewhere between anemic and abysmal.

In 256 plate appearances out of the leadoff spot, outfielder Ben Revere sports a .220/.271/.309 slash line. That’s unquestionably awful, but center fielder Michael Taylor has been just as bad with a .206/.248/.382 leadoff line.

Really, since center fielder Denard Span departed for the Giants as a free agent this winter, the Nats have been without an adequate leadoff option.

Now, Turner is providing the combination of speed, on-base capabilities and “sneaky pop”—to quote Nationals color analyst F.P. Santangelo, via the team’s Twitter feed—that make for an ideal table-setter:

Speaking of the Nats’ Twitter feed, here’s a clip they pushed out of Turner stealing home, which is the coolest thing you can do in a baseball game this side of a walk-off homer:

“I love speed,” manager Dusty Baker said of his vroom-vroom new toy, per MASN Sports’ Patrick Reddington. “You heard me say that in spring training. Speed kills. And it does a lot of things and it creates a lot of mistakes.”

A San Diego Padres first-round pick in 2014, Turner played the bulk of his minor league innings at shortstop. Since arriving in D.C., however, he’s logged time at second base and center field and looked more than passable. So add versatility to the “special skills” section on his resume.

Second baseman Daniel Murphy is on pace to win the NL batting title. Catcher Wilson Ramos is having a career year with a .332 average and 17 home runs. Veteran left fielder Jayson Werth has reached base in 36 consecutive games. 

Turner, though, could end up being the most important Nationals hitter during the stretch run, as Washington seeks to push into October and atone for last season’s acrimonious flameout.

That’s especially true if reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper keeps up the disappearing act that has him toting a .235 average into play Saturday.

Then again, imagine if Harper gets hot. With Turner above him slapping the ball around the field and wreaking havoc on the basepaths, this Nationals attack would go from solid to downright scary.

“I think it’s just about knowing the game,” Turner said about his baserunning in May, per MiLB.com’s Michael Peng. “Knowing what the pitcher is going to do, knowing who’s hitting behind you and the counts. Just trying to relax out there. When you try to get jumps, you may end up doing stupid things and make a mistake. If you stay relaxed, I think you can take advantage of a lot of opportunities out there.”

There will be growing pains for Turner, as there always are for young players. The league will adjust. Then again, you know the cliche about speed not slumping. Even if his average ticks down, the 23-year-old has his legs to fall back on.

Here’s how ESPN.com’s Eddie Matz put it, calling to mind another legendary baseball speedster:

Cool Papa Bell was one of the speediest players in baseball history. Legend has it, he was so fast he once laced a line drive up the middle and the ball hit him in the butt sliding into second. So fast he could get out of bed, turn the lights out across the room, and be back in bed before it got dark. Trea Turner might not be quite that fast, but he’s close.

For much of the season, the Nationals have played without a true leadoff hitter. Now, they have one.

Catch him if you can.

All statistics current as of Aug. 5 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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New York Mets first baseman Lucas Duda remains on the disabled list with a back injury.

Continue for updates.

Duda Out for at Least 30 More Days

Wednesday, August 3

Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reported that Duda suffered a setback in his recovery from a back injury:

Duda led the Mets in home runs for the second year in a row in 2015. His .486 slugging percentage was the highest of his career, as he hit 27 homers, 33 extra-base hits and drove in 73 runs. The 30-year-old also played in just 135 games, making his production more impressive.

Duda hasn’t slugged at the same rate in 2016, though injuries have hampered his season. He has seven home runs and 19 RBI in 145 plate appearances.

Despite his slight drop-off offensively, the lack of an ideal replacement presents a major problem for the Mets in the event the left-handed slugger misses the rest of the season. James Loney has played decently in place of Duda at first base, hitting .284 with six home runs and 21 RBI.

And the recent addition of Jay Bruce will bolster the middle of the lineup, especially considering the Mets are now without their two starters at the infield corners to open the season, Duda and David Wright. Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera and Juan Lagares are also on the disabled list, leaving the Mets fairly thin in their everyday lineup at the moment.

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The New York Yankees (53-53) and New York Mets (55-51) split the first two games of the Subway Series at Citi Field and will play the next two at Yankee Stadium starting Wednesday.

The Mets bounced back from a 6-5 loss on Monday with a 7-1 victory against the Yankees on Tuesday, and they are listed as -125 road favorites (wager $125 to win $100) at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark with Steven Matz on the mound Wednesday.

The 25-year-old Matz (8-7, 3.35 ERA) is a veteran compared to his 25-year-old counterpart Chad Green (1-2, 4.56), who gets the call for the Yankees after making seven appearances during his rookie year, including four in relief and three starts.

The Mets have lost four of the past five games Matz has started, as he surrendered a season-high 10 hits and two runs in six innings of a 6-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies last time out at home on Friday with one walk and five strikeouts. Matz does have a winning record on the road, though, going 5-3 with a 3.35 ERA in nine starts.

Meanwhile, Green has not made a start since July 8 against the Cleveland Indians away from home. He gave up a career-worst seven runs and five hits, including four home runs, to the Indians in 4.1 innings with two walks and six strikeouts.

In his past three appearances, he has scattered just six hits over 8.1 scoreless innings of relief with three walks and seven strikeouts, dropping his ERA from 7.04 in the process.

The Yankees have won seven of the last 10 meetings overall after dropping six in a row to the Mets, according to the Odds Shark MLB Database. The over has cashed in three straight following an under run of 4-2-1 in the previous seven.

Yoenis Cespedes of the Mets is expected to be in the starting lineup as the designated hitter after getting a single in his lone pinch-hit at-bat Tuesday that also scored a run. Cespedes has been dealing with a quad injury that has limited him at times over the past month.

The newest member of the Mets, Jay Bruce, went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his debut Tuesday following his arrival in a trade from the Cincinnati Reds.

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Atlanta Braves outfielder Matt Kemp, who was acquired from the San Diego Padres on Saturday in exchange for Hector Olivera, complimented his new city while simultaneously taking a shot at Los Angeles and San Diego on Tuesday.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Julio Teheran’s lat problems won’t go away, as the Atlanta Braves ace will miss an extended period of time with a recurrence of the injury.

Continue for updates. 

Teheran to DL

Tuesday, August 2

The Braves announced Tuesday on Twitter that Teheran was placed on the 15-day disabled list due to a right lat strain. 

Teheran left his start on July 22 against the Colorado Rockies following an at-bat in the fifth inning due to tightness in his right lat. He sat out the next seven days before making his return Saturday against the Philadelphia Phillies. 

The 25-year-old Teheran did not look bad against the Phillies. He gave up three runs on five hits with four strikeouts and one walk in five innings. 

After the game, Teheran said he didn’t notice anything physically wrong with his body during the start, per Pat James and Todd Zolecki of MLB.com: “I didn’t feel anything like I felt last game, and that’s something good to know. But just the one mistake I made [on the pitch to Jeremy Hellickson]—I think I was doing well until that point.”

If the Braves were competing for a playoff spot right now, they might be able to push Teheran through this injury. They enter play Tuesday with a 37-68 record, the worst in Major League Baseball. There is no need to overextend the right-hander in a lost season. 

Teheran is having the best year of his career with a 2.81 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP and 119 strikeouts in 134.2 innings. His absence does leave a massive void in Atlanta’s rotation; MLB.com‘s depth chart currently lists a total of three pitchers, including Teheran. 

Finding even a competent rotation to get through the final two months of the season is a big concern for the Braves, but at least they are aware this a rebuilding year and can throw players on the field as needed. 

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NEW YORK — If you try something once and it works, you’re going to try again.

Jay Bruce isn’t Yoenis Cespedes. The 2016 New York Mets are not the 2015 Mets, and the National League East isn’t the same as it was last year, either.

But on another deadline day, the Mets could dream. Mets fans could dream. Mets players could dream.

“There’s been a lot of talk in our clubhouse the last few days: ‘Are we going to get someone?'” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “Well, we did.”

Well, they did. They got Bruce from the Cincinnati Reds, a year to the deadline day after getting Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers.

Now they have too many corner outfielders and no real center fielder. They have too many injuries and not enough certainty.

They know that. They admit that.

But even with Matt Harvey out for the season, the Mets have a starting rotation they can win with. They may not have a great chance at catching the Washington Nationals in the NL East (Baseball Prospectus put it at 5 percent as of Monday afternoon), but even if this is just about the wild card, they owed it to themselves to give it a shot.

It’s about more than that, of course.

The Mets weren’t going to give up on this year, and they certainly weren’t going to give up on next year. Finding offense was going to be an issue this winter, too, which is why Mets general manager Sandy Alderson kept emphasizing they have Bruce under control in 2017 (with an affordable $13 million club option).

“We would not have done this deal without an extra year of control,” Alderson said.

The extra year means this isn’t as much of an all-in move as the Cespedes trade was last year. So does the cost, because even though the Mets liked second baseman Dilson Herrera (“He’s a little like Devon Travis,” a National League scout said Monday), he’s not as exciting as Michael Fulmer, the pitcher they gave up for what could have been two months of Cespedes.

This one was Herrera and 19-year-old left-hander Max Wotell for a year-and-a-half of Bruce. Alderson acknowledged the deal changed at one point Monday (Marc Carig of Newsday reported Brandon Nimmo was taken out of the trade because of medical concerns), but the price wasn’t prohibitive for a player who leads the National League with 80 RBI.

“He’s been a run producer,” Alderson said. “His presence in the middle of the lineup changes things. It wasn’t clear to me how long Cespedes was going to get pitches to hit with the rest of the lineup around him.”

Some people question the concept of protection in a batting order, but Alderson obviously doesn’t. Neither does Collins, who was quick to say Bruce will hit right behind Cespedes.

“I’m telling you, I think he’s going to make a huge impact here,” Collins said.

Bruce can be an impact guy, as he has shown in eight-plus years with the Reds. He’s been an impact guy this season. He’s always been streaky, but when he’s going good, he’s one of the most dangerous hitters in the game.

He also has months like August 2015, when he hit .150 with 29 strikeouts in 113 at-bats.

Bruce is hot right now, with six home runs and 14 RBI in his last seven games. Compare that to the Mets, who as a team have 17 RBI in their last seven games.

“Had we been able to score some runs this week, we’d be in better shape right now,” Collins said.

A year ago, the Mets were 28th in baseball in runs scored before the All-Star break. They were third in baseball in runs scored after the break. It wasn’t all Cespedes, but there’s no question adding him changed their lineup and changed their season.

Can Bruce do the same thing?

For the Mets, it was worth finding out. It was worth trying to fit him into their lineup, even though he’s a corner outfielder and the other guys they want to play (Cespedes, Curtis Granderson and Michael Conforto) are also corner outfielders.

Collins will have to figure it out. Maybe Conforto can handle center field. Maybe Cespedes’ sore right quadriceps (which kept him out of the lineup again Monday) will heal enough that he can return to center field.

Maybe it works out. Remember, Cespedes wasn’t a center fielder when the Mets acquired him a year ago, but he ended up starting there 39 times and 10 more times in the postseason.

It’s worth the chance again. Outfield defense could sink the Mets in these final two months, but a lack of offense was the bigger problem they had to solve. Once the Milwaukee Brewers weren’t interested in what they had to offer for Jonathan Lucroy, Bruce was by far the best option they could get.

“All we can do is acquire as many good players as we can to maybe have that magic again,” Alderson said.

It’s not a perfect fit. It’s not a perfect deal.

But for a team still good enough to dream, it was a trade worth making.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The New York Mets traded for Cincinnati Reds traded outfielder Jay Bruce on Monday in exchange for Dilson Herrera and Max Wotell, the team announced.

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball first reported the deal.

“The only thing to do now is go play baseball,” Bruce told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. “I’m a baseball player, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Bruce enjoyed a slight uptick in production last year after a lackluster 2014 season that saw him post a career-low .281 on-base percentage in 137 games. In 2015, he lowered his strikeout rate, increased his walk rate and hit 26 home runs, right in line with his career average.

The veteran outfielder previously found himself on the trade block leading up to the deadline last July. He didn’t end up getting moved at the time and said afterward that a trade would have felt weird, as John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer noted.

“It’s nice that other teams are interested in you,” Bruce said. “But on the other hand, you grow up in this organization. This is all I know. This is like family to me.”

This move is a bit atypical from Cincinnati’s perspective. Rarely do you see a 29-year-old player in the middle of his prime with a trio of 30-homer seasons on his resume get traded. That’s especially true when he’s under team control for another season, as is the case here, per Spotrac.

Those circumstances suggest the Reds are trying to maximize the return with Bruce enjoying a much improved 2016 campaign.

The trade is a reasonable investment considering his power-hitting history, age and contract situation. It’s not like the Mets are acquiring a high-risk, high-reward player on a rental basis and giving up an elite prospect to do it. This is a stable move, and Bruce will give the Mets another power hitter in the middle of the lineup.

With the move for Bruce, it’s clear the Mets are going all-in to make a deep postseason run.

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