Showing posts with label Padres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Padres. Show all posts

31 May 2023

CJ Abrams NOW

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 and 974 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals - Base Cards

 Last season when the Mid Season Trade Deadline Came and Juan Soto and Josh Bell WENT to the San Diego Padres for 6 players, I was devastated that the team had traded away two of their best all-around players who could make the big hits. Since I don't follow any teams other than The Nats I had little to no knowledge of the players that had been traded to us. Most of them at the time were in the Padres' Farm System.

Well one of those players has emerged as quite a player CJ Abrams. CJ has quickly become a fave Nat of mine.  The cards I got from Ebay and they are from 2022 Topps Now Baseball. These 5 cards  are technically just "two" cards since 3 are parallel variants. Normally I haven't  been able to find parallel Topps Now cards so I grabbed them since they were affordable. I did see a Red parallel (1/1) of one of them but it was way more than I wanted to pay.

Going by card numbers first up we have card 845 celebrating C.J.'s First Career Four Hit Game on 05 September. I have the "base" card, the Blue parallel #/49, and the Purple parallel #/25.

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals: Base, Blue #/49, Purple #/25

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 Back - All variants have the same back

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals Base
2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals Purple #12/25
2022 Topps Now Baseball - 845 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals Blue #14/49

Next we have card #974 that celebrates C.J.'s First Walk Off Hit on 28 September. I have the Base and the Purple parallel #/25. I like this card better of the two.

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 974 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals: Base, Purple #/25.

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 974 Back C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 974 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals Base

2022 Topps Now Baseball - 974 C.J. Abrams Washington Nationals Purple #15/25.

31 August 2022

Slugging Back to Back to Back

This card might be a little bit of Deja Vu almost but not quite. A few years ago (2017) a quartet of Nats sluggers hit back to back to back TO BACK homers in a game, well this year (2022) the struggling Nats did a trio back to back to back.

In this frustrating losing season on Jun 11 a little bit of sunshine lifted the season a tiny bit. Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Bell hit back to back to back homers scoring 4 runs against The Milwaukee Brewers (traditionally and annoyingly pesky opponent) in an 8-6 victory.

Here is the Topps Now card that commemorates that event.

2022 Topps Now Baseball 331 Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz, Josh Bell Washington Nationals

Sadly a few months later Juan Soto and Josh Bell would be traded to the San Diego Padres. In the final two games of their last 4 game series guess which two players would do San Diego's only scoring for those two games? Yep Juan Soto and Josh Bell. In game 3 they hit back to back homers giving the Padres a 2-1 victory. The next night Josh Bell hit a 2 run homer giving the Padres a second 2-1 win in two nights.


31 August 2021

July Deadline Fire Sale Trades Kill Washington

 OH BOY! The Nationals had a Trade Deadline Fire Sale for a bunch of Prospects. Included in the Trades are Max Scherzer AND Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Another two Nats I really liked were traded to the Oakland Athletics Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison. The other players who are now ExNats are Kyle Schwarber to Boston Red Sox, Daniel Hudson to San Diego Padres, and Brad Hand to Toronto Blue Jays. Each and every one of these trades disappoint me. I like all of them, especially Trea and Max. Sending Trea to LA royally ticks me off.



Max Scherzer and Trea Turner were the big event traded for four players: Catcher Keibert Ruiz, Josiah Gray RHP, Donovan Casey Outfield, and Gerardo Carillo RHP. The Dodgers have two more Nats Killers and now a second named "Turner". Josiah Gray has been showing to be OK, but he hasn't gotten a win as a Nat yet.

Image of Josh Harrison 2021 Topps card from tcdb.com

Yan Gomes and Josh Harrison were sent to Oakland for RHP Richard Guasch, RHP Seth Shuman and catcher Drew Millas


Kyle Schwarber goes to Boston for RHP Aldo Ramirez


Daniel Hudson to San Diego for RHP Mason Thompson and Short Stop/ 2nd Baseman Jordy Barley

card image from tcdb.com

Finally Brad Hand goes to Canada for catcher Riley Adams. Riley is showing to be pretty good offensively. 

Sadly the Nats will probably still have a losing season this year. Each year all I ask is for the Nats to at least go .500. Some years that is way too much to ask.


The images of Nats cards are from my collection except for the Josh Harrison card (I have it but didn't scan it) from tradingcarddatabase dot com. and Brad Hand Indians card also from tcdb.com

30 April 2019

Rookie Duo of Juan Soto

For this quick and dirty end of the month post I am showing two cards from one player. Not my normal sneaky Senator's Singles end of the month post. One of the Nats hot youngsters currently Juan Soto. Juan made his Major League debut on 20 May 2018 vs The Dodgers and unfortunately struck out. However he would start the next game knocking in a 3 run homer his first at bat bottom 2nd, and go 2 for 4 vs The Padres in a 10-2 win for the Nats


Here are the cards both are from the 2018 Topps Baseball Update Set: I got these from Sportlots one seller two auctions (Rookie Debut for 25¢ and the other for 75¢ plus $3.98 shipping for both)

2018 Topps Baseball Update: US104 Juan Soto RC Rookie Debut 20 May 2018

2018 Topps Baseball Update: US300 Juan Soto RC

20 February 2014

Expos Extra: Showing My Dollar Tree Hand

Expos Extra: Extra Inaugural Edition

I got the idea for this feature while composing a post on my regular card blog. That post will be published simultaneously with this post. This new feature mostly for this blog is called Expos Extra. It will be for those older Expos cards of players that never called DC their home at least at first then I might start slipping and adding guys who transitioned onto the Nats in DC. I think now I can justify showing them off here at CWC. I know when I first started this blog I said some of those guys I wouldn't mention here, or show their cards. Well I will allow exceptions since they are all the Expos Franchise. I'm using the bloggers prerogative clause that states "My blog, My Rules... So there!"

On my regular blog in the last few days I mentioned the booty I got from a repack adventure at the Dollar Tree store near me (part 1, part 2). These are the Expos cards I got from the Repacks and well since the latest year of a card pulled was 2002 from the first pack NO Nationals just a few Expos.

This poker hand of cards are Expos ancestor cards of my Homie Team The Nationals. Since these guys never played in DC or called Washington their home I wasn't going to show the cards here at first. Finally I decided I would after coming up with the Expos Extra feature title. Plus it gives this blog some more potential which might help me post to it more often.

Now on to the cards:
1994 Pinacle 355 Ken Hill Expos
(Front and Back)
Pinnacle way back in the day made a very fine product. In recent years Panini (was Donruss) still makes a fine product including some in the Pinnacle name but without the official licensing from MLB so they can't use team logos or the team names. That means logos are airbrushed out, cropped out or covered up by card design.

1994 Upper Deck 274 Home Field Advantage Larry Walker Expos
(Front and Back)
It's all Upper Deck's fault. Yes there I said it, way back in 1989 they set a very high quality bar for the baseball card universe and now everything is in ruins but still very high quality. These Home Field Advantage cards are a sub-set within the main set. I have made a mental note to at least get all of them if not the complete main set.

1984 Topps 390 Tim Raines AS Expos
(Front and Back)
Mr. Raines was "The Rock" way before Mr. Johnson was, but both are cool. It is a shame that the Expos couldn't afford to keep the high salary high quality stars like Tim Raines on their roster. Had they been able to keep those guys in the early 2000s they would still be in Montreal and I wouldn't have a Homie team.

1997 Pinnacle 10 Jeff Fassero Mariners (Marked Mariners but in Expos Uni)
(Front and Back)
I have said before that I don't like this particular Pinnacle year's design because of the gold foil and being difficult to read the players names sometimes, especially when I first got one or two of these cards. When I first got this card I saw the Mariners name and logo and laughed a little. Then I studied the card a little more and discovered the weird picture border cropping they did to the profile picture on the back. I checked the other 1997 Pinnacle card I had gotten from that repack and it had the same weird "crop design". I don't like it. It doesn't do anything for the card.

1984 Topps 503 Elias Sosa Padres
(Front and Back)
The uninitiated are wondering why I have included this "riding into the sunset" (is that a Dimebox term?) Padres card on my Nationals blog in a post of Non Washington Expos? Well just check out who Mr. Sosa was playing for in 1979-1981. Yes Siree them Canadian Fellers up in Montreal.

Oh that's it I've shown my hand. Cash in your chips folks. The game is over.

17 August 2013

Stras First Career Complete Game Shut Out


I know this is a few days almost a week late, but it is Nats News. On Sunday 11 August 2013 in the final game of a three game home series vs. The Phillies, Nats ace starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg went the distance to win his first career complete shut out game 6-0. The Nats swept the Phillies, only their fifth sweep of the season, the last being in early July vs. The Padres.

 2012 Topps Heritage Baseball 221 Stephen Strasburg Nationals

Congrats Stephen! I won't give the game details since I didn't see the entire game and this blog is more about cards not team news, but I do have some links at the end of this post to articles on the game (plus one article on Stras in general).

2012 Topps Opening Day Baseball 190 Stephen Strasburg Nationals

Related Articles:
Can Stephen Strasburg Ever Be a True MLB Workhorse? - Bleacher Report
Strasburg shuts out Phillies in masterpiece - Comcast Sports Net
Stephen Strasburg With A Complete Game Shutout, Nationals 6-0 Over Phillies For The Sweep - Federal Baseball (SB Nation)
Nat's Strasburg shuts down Phillies- Fox Sports
Nats win on Strasburg's 1st career complete game - Idaho State Journal
No limit: Stephen Strasburg coming into own for Nationals - USA Today
Jayson Werth, Stephen Strasburg Gatorade baths - Washington Post
Stephen Strasburg completely dominant as Nationals sweep Phillies - Washington Times

Nationals Mentioned In This Post:
Stephen Strasburg