And welcome to Nats chat for Thursday, March 18th, 2021, along with Nats Insider, Mark

Suckerman of Massinsports.com. I'm Al Galdi, host of the Al Galdi podcast. Two weeks from today,

April 1st, opening day, Nats Mets, Nationals Park, presumably Max Scherzer versus Jacob de Grom, and we will have fans at Nationals Park. Finally, mercifully, that is official. We'll get to that on this installment in that chat. But Mark, two weeks from today, opening day, are you ramping up or are you dealing with like arm fatigue or are you going to be good to go come opening day? You know, I had that dead finger period where I was typing in my stories there like a lot of writers have about that time of spring, but I've gotten over it. I am starting to build back up. And, you know, I feel like I'll be ready to cover the full nine innings on opening night. That's what you strive for. You know, spring training, it's maybe five innings that I'm good for. But I can keep score for the full nine. I can write for the full nine. I'll be ready to go. So yours is not like a Blake-Snell situation where we got to yank you after five innings. Like you can go deep into the game. Who's an old school complete? I'm Levan Hernandez. I'm a complete game guy. Ah, yes. Yeah, I'll be there for all nine. You're not pulling me early, no.

We need to do a whole pod on LeVon one day. I feel like you probably could do like an hour and a half of story time just on Levinanis. Oh, yeah. Oh, there are some good ones there.

Yeah. Once we get into the season, I think there'll be some stories that apply to various things

like rain delays and other things during the season that'll work with Leibon Hernandez very well, yes. The ultimate innings eater. He was a ton of fun to have here. Well, we have a lot to get into this installment of Nat's chat, including the latest for the Nats rotation. John Lester set to make his exhibition debut on this Thursday. That's, of course, a particular note given the Stephen

Strasberg situation. Our Carter Keyboom struggle is going to lead to an earlier than expected call-up for

Luis Garcia. And I got a question I want to post a mark. Why weren't the Nats in on the big

free agent fish this past off season, especially George Springer, do want to get to that?

And we are going to play for the first time on the Nats chat podcast here. Nats trivia. Mark is going to slaughter me in Nats trivia a little later on. Just please take it easy on me, if you would. No promises here with the help of our producer, Tim Schovers. I think we have some good ones. But I even had to turn down a couple that he requested because I didn't even know the answer on some of these or the full answer on some of these. And I didn't think there was any chance that you would. You may surprise me, but I didn't think you would know those. I think this could be an offer. We'll see. I mean, some of these questions are brutal. It's all pre-2012 match trivia, too. It's just like the dark days of the franchise. Well, this is how we determine true fandom. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so.

That definitely could be. trivia too, which is like the dark days of the franchise. Well, that is how we determine true fandom.

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. That definitely could be bloody.

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inquiries. Email the aforementioned Tim Shovers again, Natschat podcast at gmail.com.

But yeah, Mark, you know, these are kind of like the dog days of the exhibition season.

But this Thursday is kind of a significant day said to be the Grapefruit League debut, really,

I guess right, the N's debut for John Lester

off the parathyroid surgery. With Lester and also with Steven Strassper coming off this left calf ailment, where are we right now in terms of the likelihood of both guys being ready for the start of the regular season? I think we're going to know a lot more in the next couple of days. We're at sort of the critical period here. Let's start with Lester, who, yeah, is finally ready to make his first start.

He's probably going to go two innings, 30 pitches, 35 pitches, something in that range. If he's really efficient, maybe they let him take the mound again for the third inning. So obviously he's behind the other guys by a couple of starts, but they feel like he didn't

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