And welcome to Nats chat for Monday, March 22nd, 2021, along with Nats insider Mark

Suckerman of Massinsports.com. I'm Al Galdi, host of the Al Galdi podcast. A week and a half

are we from opening day, April 1st, and a man who we now know officially will be the Nats opening

game starter will be on this podcast in just a bit. Max Scherzer, the ace, the three-time

Salyung Award winner, the Future Hall of Famer on this installment of the Nats chat podcast

in an exclusive interview. You do not want to miss what Max has to say about the state of baseball, including the

looming CBA Armageddon and the pace of play issues.

But before we get to that, a lot to get into with you, including the latest on a NADS bullpen

that doesn't look anywhere near as deep as we thought it might be.

Trumbling health news the other day popping up with Will Harris,

a rough exhibition debut for Tanner Rainey on Sunday.

Though Mark, nowhere near as rough as what went down with our old pal Gio Gonzalez on Saturday night.

I saw this.

I said, we got to talk about this on Nats chat.

I know it's exhibition season, but the old ex-Nat-Gio,

seven runs, one out in that Nats win over the Marlins on Saturday evening. He got pulled twice,

Al. The way they're doing this in spring training, you know, you start an inning, and if you get

to a certain pitch count, you can be pulled and then go back out for another

inning. He got pulled in his first relief inning after he didn't get anybody out. I think it was

six batterers, got pulled, came back because he needed more work. And in the second inning,

he got one batter out and had to get pulled again. Not good. This was his first appearance

for them. He's trying to make the team as a non-roster

...