ST. LOUIS — The move made sense in the moment: Nationals Manager Dave Martinez lifted Jesse Winker for a pinch hitter in the top of sixth with the bases loaded in a two-run game. St. Louis had brought in a left-hander and Winker is a lefty.
Washington, D.C
On a night the Nats deal Jesse Winker, they also blow out the Cardinals
Martinez said he didn’t know about the pending trade when he made the move. He simply liked the matchup.
“I’m excited, right?” Winker said after the game. “I’m going to be a part of a great team that’s been winning a lot. It’s a wonderful opportunity. And then, obviously, I’m extremely thankful for everybody here. The opportunity to come and play every day. I’m so thankful for Mike Rizz0 and Davey. They really took a chance on me and I feel like I owe them a lot for that.”
The move is the second the Nationals have made this month leading up to Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline. They dealt reliever Hunter Harvey to the Royals on July 14 for third baseman Cayden Wallace and a draft pick that turned into catcher Caleb Lomativa.
There’s a good chance they are not done dealing. Reliever Dylan Floro, on an expiring contract, could be an attractive option for a contender. Likewise, closer Kyle Finnegan and outfielder Lane Thomas, both under team control through 2025, could be on the move before Tuesday as well.
As for the game, which started after a rain delay of 124 minutes, the decision to pinch-hit for Winker paid dividends. Harold Ramirez hit a two-run double that ignited a seven-run burst that effectively ended the competitive portion of the evening. The Nationals stranded the bases loaded in the previous two innings before Ramirez broke through.
That hit was the first of four in a row surrendered by Matthew Liberatore. Juan Yepez followed with a two-run single before James Wood roped a double to center. Keibert Ruiz followed with a three-run homer to make it 9-0. Ramirez added an RBI single in the Nationals’ four-run ninth.
“It started out as a weird game, I think we left 12 runners on base,” Martinez said. “But we came through in big moments as well. The boys just started working good at-bats, getting the ball in the zone, not chasing and really driving the ball in the gaps.”
In his final night as a National, Winker finished 2 for 3 with an RBI before being pulled.
The Nationals signed Winker to a minor league deal this offseason, hoping that he would return to the all-star form he displayed in 2021. In 2022 with Seattle, Winker struggled at the plate. Last season, he hit .199 in 61 games with the Milwaukee Brewers. But Winker, 30, was one of the Nationals’ most consistent hitters, batting .257, with a .793 OPS. He was tied for second on the team in home runs (11) and third in RBI (45). And he became a clubhouse leader and role model for his younger teammates, specifically shortstop CJ Abrams. Martinez raved about Winker’s energy and preparation.
“I think we all leaned on him a little bit,” said Wood, who went 4 for 4. “It’s tough but we always wish him the best. Not too much of the best, obviously, he’s staying in our division, but yeah, he’s great.”
The Nationals filled this roster this year with bounce-back candidates such as Winker, Joey Gallo Eddie Rosario and Nick Senzel, hoping that any of them could reap a reward. Winker’s renaissance paid dividends. Last year, the Nationals traded infielder Jeimer Candelario to the Chicago Cubs for two prospects, one of which was left-handed pitcher DJ Herz, who is part of Washington’s starting rotation. The Nationals hope the Winker trade can help them bolster their roster in the same fashion.
Winker said this was the first time in his career that his name has been floated at the trade deadline, making it hard for him to compartmentalize baseball and the weight of the rumors. Once Harvey was traded before the break, he understood that he might be traded, too. It didn’t seem to affect him Saturday.
Winker contributed in his final game, delivering a bloop single in the third to put the Nationals up 2-0. Jake Irvin, who cruised through 5⅓ innings, ended his start by yielding a two-run homer to Willson Contreras in the sixth.
Winker now heads up I-95 to the Mets, a division rival which is in the thick of a heated wild card race. And in September, he’ll have a chance to face the former teammates he said goodbye to Saturday night.
“I just hope the guys here take it easy on me,” Winker said, smiling. “Or, there’s a lot of good pitchers here. I just hope they take it easy on me.”
Washington, D.C
DC Preservation League files stay request to halt Trump takeover of D.C. golf course
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misstated the plaintiff in this case. It is the DC Preservation League, not the National Links Trust.
President Donald Trump spent Sunday at his golf course in Miami, watching Cameron Young handle poor weather and a lackluster crowd during a runaway victory at the Cadillac Championship.
Of far more intrigue was what was happening in Washington, where his administration’s attempted takeover of a public golf course in that city took its next steps.
Lawyers representing the DC Preservation League filed an emergency stay request Sunday afternoon to halt the Trump administration’s reported plans to take over the East Potomac Golf Course after Sunday.
NOTUS reported late Friday that the National Park Service will close the course and begin renovations, with one of Trump’s preferred architects, Tom Fazio, handling the work. It was news to the National Links Trust, which holds a 50-year lease with NPS to rehabilitate East Potomac and two other public courses in D.C., as well as the DC Preservation League and its legal team at Democracy Forward.
Up until Friday, the administration had maintained that no final decision had been made, “regarding the nature and scope of the renovations.”
The emergency stay is being heard in the District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Despite attestations to the court, the Trump-Vance administration appears to be moving forward aggressively to shut down DC’s largest public golf course to explore another of the president’s pet projects to benefit himself,” Skye Perryman, President and CEO at Democracy Forward, said in a statement. “We are asking the court to act urgently to save this important part of our national park system from being another casualty of a reckless administration. We are honored for the partnership of our plaintiffs in fighting back against this unlawful assault on our valued public spaces, and we are eager to argue this case.”
The emergency stay request isn’t the first legal challenge related to the administration’s plans to overhaul East Potomac Golf Links into a championship-level course.
The DC Preservation League and two area residents filed an injunction in February seeking to stop the administration from moving ahead. The lawsuit came after truckloads of dirt and debris from the White House East Wing ballroom demolition project were dumped onto the East Potomac grounds without explanation.
“The East Potomac Golf Links is a unique cultural landscape that reflects the history of recreation in the nation’s capital. Altering its historic character would undermine a site meant to be accessible to the public,” Rebecca Miller, Executive Director of DC Preservation League, said in a new release announcing the lawsuit.
The National Links Trust signed its 50-year lease with the National Parks Service in 2020 to take over management of East Potomac and its sister courses, Rock Creek and Langston. They are the best and most affordable options for D.C. residents, and NLT aimed to renovate all three.
But Trump has eyed the East Potomac property, which features sight lines to the Washington Monument on almost every hole, and began to make moves at the end of last year toward taking it back from NLT. The Department of the Interior filed a notice of termination on Dec. 31, arguing NLT has not been able to meet a renovation timeline.
NLT, for its part, has argued that it’s made steady progress, including cutting through layers of government red tape to make any changes necessary to the properties. It broke ground at Rock Creek in November.
NOTUS reported that the administration will offer NLT a renewed lease at Rock Creek. The Washington Post reported Friday that the Washington Commanders were approached about taking over Langston, which has a rich history in the city’s Black community.
NLT has still been operating the courses, including a full tee sheet Sunday at East Potomac, and is hoping to mediate and find a solution that could work for everyone involved.
Temperatures to start the first Sunday of May are feeling a lot like the first week of March with frost and freezing conditions along and west of Highway 15.
After a chilly start to the day, temperatures will rebound nicely into the mid-60s with lots of sunshine. This will feel pleasantly cool since our average high for today is 74 degrees.
It will be a little breezy at times, with northwest winds gusting to about 25 mph, and just a few passing clouds.
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Skies remain clear tonight, but it won’t be as chilly. Most neighborhoods will fall to right around 50 degrees by early Monday morning.
Wake up temperatures Monday morning
From the moment they stepped onstage, Boogarins played like they were commanding a festival crowd ten times the size. There was no scaling down, no “intimate set” compromise. Instead, they leaned fully into the grandeur of their sound, flooding the room with swirling guitars, hypnotic rhythms, and a kind of euphoric intensity that made the walls feel like they were breathing along with the music.
The setlist, anchored heavily in Manual, felt both nostalgic and freshly alive. These weren’t just songs being revisited, they were being reimagined in real time, stretched and reshaped with an almost telepathic sense of musicianship. Every transition felt seamless, every crescendo earned. The band locked into grooves that felt endless, yet never indulgent, always pulling the audience deeper into their orbit.
What makes Boogarins so captivating live isn’t just their technical precision, though that alone would be enough to impress, it’s the emotional current running beneath everything. Sung in Portuguese, the lyrics could easily create a barrier for some audiences, but here, language felt irrelevant. The emotion translated effortlessly, carried through reverb-soaked vocals and shimmering instrumentation that spoke louder than words ever could. You didn’t need to understand the language to understand the feeling, you felt it in your chest, in your bones, in the way the crowd collectively leaned forward as if pulled by gravity.
And that crowd, packed tightly into Comet Ping Pong’s cozy confines, responded in kind. There was a shared sense of awe in the room, the kind that only happens when a band and audience meet at exactly the same frequency. Heads nodded, eyes closed, bodies swayed. It was less a concert and more a communal experience, a psychedelic séance conducted through sound.
If this tour is a celebration of Manual, it’s also a reminder of why Boogarins have become such a vital force in modern psych rock. They don’t just play music, they create environments, immersive worlds that you step into and don’t want to leave. One thing is certain: if Boogarins are coming anywhere near you on this run, don’t hesitate. This is a band that demands to be seen live, in all their kaleidoscopic glory.
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