And welcome to Nats chat for Monday, March 15th, 2021, along with Nats insider Mark Suckerman of Massensports.com. I'm Al Galdi, host of the Al-Galdi podcast. You know, we got the news on Sunday that, in fact, A-Rod and J-Lo are sticking together. You see, two is better than one. So I don't know for like the A Rod and J-Lo of Nat's podcasting, Mark, but maybe there's some kind of good

juju from this. are sticking together. You see, two is better than one. So I don't know if we're like the A-Rod and J-Lo

of Nat's podcasting, Mark, but maybe there's some kind of good ju-ju from their situation that we can get in our circumstance. I'm not even going to ask which of us is who in that relationship there, but I will just say, we're going to start off on a real tangent here, but I've been thinking for the last year, every time

we see A-Rod, you know, appearing at like the Super Bowl or New Year's Eve or the inauguration, like, J-Lo's got to be one of the only people in the world that is a bigger name than A-Rod. And we're like, he's second fiddle. And I've always thought that's impressive that he could actually handle being second-fiddle. maybe that was some of the issue there. I don't know. Hopefully they can work this out and he's okay with being second fiddle because clearly she's number one in that relationship, right? Maybe she just had no idea about the PED stuff and someone smartened her up and now she's like, wait a second. He cheated. He took PEDs. I can't trust that home run total, that OPS total. Forget you. Get out of here. So they had to

maybe work through those things. I don't know. You know, if he'd hit 500 legitimate homers, she'd be okay with it, but 700 illegitimate. That's a different story. That's a problem. That's a problem. Well, lots to do today on the Netset podcast, plenty to discuss. We had an injury scare for Stephen Strasberg on Sunday. Stop me if you've heard that before. How scared should we be?

Hopefully not too much, but we'll get into that. plenty to discuss. We had an injury scare for Steven Strasberg on Sunday. Stop me if you've heard that

before. How scared should we be? Hopefully not too much, but we'll get into that coming up here in just a bit. Joe Ross, it certainly seems, has extended his lead in the competition for the number five spot in the Nats rotation. Victor Robles has been looking very good in that leadoff spot. Carter Keyboom, not looking as good, at least not so far.

Is it time to count out Tanner Rainey for the start of the season? in that leadoff spot. Carter Keyboom, not looking as good, at least not so far.

Is it time to count out Tanner Rainey for the start of the season? Maybe the Nats best

reliever are going to be unavailable to begin the year, and we'll get into the latest regarding

the nationals and fans being in attendance for games at Nats Park at the beginning of the regular season.

We're closing in an opening night. April 1st is sooner than you may think. You're Nats Mets, presumably, right? Max Scherzer, Jacob DeGrom, cannot wait for that. You can hit us up on Twitter. Continue to get so many great tweets from you guys at Nats underscore chat. You can email us, Nats chat podcast at gmail.com. You have questions, you have comments, you have advertising inquiries.

We want to hear from you. You can hit up the mastermind of this podcast. Tim Schovers again,

Nat's chat podcast at gmail.com. And you know, Mark, last episode, we solicited for emails,

especially from Nat's listeners beyond just the DC area. And we continue to be just inundated

in emails and, you know, alerts from

people from outside the DMV who are Nats fans who are listening to this podcast, the rally

mullet listening in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, two hours away from South Central or in South

Central PA. He writes, I mentioned this because there is a pocket of Nats fans in Pennsylvania. We all root for the Nats.

Eric J. and the Dominican Republic from the hometown of Luis Garcia sent us a very nice email.

We got an email from Bernie, used to live in Virginia, now living in Denver, hitting us up.

So the Nats representation across the country, across the globe mark, continues to be very strong. Like we've been saying all along, it knows no bounds. And my wife has given us a new challenge. She heard the podcast where we were talking about North Korea trying to break through there. She has an even greater challenge for us. She'd like us to get a listener on the International Space Station. Do you think we can do that? Ah, can we pull that off. I don't know. We can try. That would be a big step for us if we can get off the planet, you know. But I think it's doable. I think it is possible. There's got to be Nat's fans up there in waitlessness. I think we can do it. I am with you on that. I just want to get an email from Smiley Gonzalez. I think if we get that, we've truly arrived. So hopefully that's coming. Smiley, we're calling on you to hit us up,

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