With Mike Morse' rehab stint in Triple-A Syracuse coming to a close, the Washington Nationals will designate Willy Taveras for assignment, giving the team 10 days to trade or release the veteran outfielder. 

 Taveras, 28, hit .200/.243/.257 for the Nats in 37 plate appearances.  He had four RBIs (all in one game), with one steal.  He was caught stealing twice.

Lifetime, Taveras is a .274/.320/.327 hitter, but those numbers are propped up by one good season in 2007, when he hit .320 with a .370 BABiP for Colorado.

According to reports, Taveras took the news as well as can be expected, but was undecided if he would return to play minor league ball should the Nats wish to retain his services.

Morse played in four games early this season before he injured his calf making a play on a routine fly ball.  It seemed a trivial matter at the time, but has held him out of major league action for six weeks at this point.

Morse earned part of a platoon situation in right field coming out of spring training, sharing time with left-handed hitter Willie Harris.  But Roger Bernadina has played well after his recall though, and to start with, Morse will probably get at bats against tough lefties and provide some measure of pop off the bench--where there is a dire shortage.

Morse is a .291/.352/.405 lifetime hitter in the majors over 398 plate appearances.

It wasn't easy, or very pretty, but the Washington Nationals rode three innings of scoreless relief from Tyler Clipaprd, and a career day from journeyman outfielder Willy Taveras, to beat the New York Mets 4-3 before a chilly, but sun-drenched Citifield crowd of 33,044.

The win raises the Nats record to 2-3 for the 2010 season.

Following the old Yogi Berra-ism, "It's ain't over till it's over," the Nats didn't have this one in the win column until a sinking line drive off the bat of the New York Mets' Rod Barajas nestled safely in the glove of left fielder Willie Harris for the third out in the ninth inning.

Harris dove headfirst back toward the infield to snag the quickly sinking liner, reminiscent of the diving catch he made last season to rob the Mets of an early season win.

The heroics were necessary because closer Matt Capps (S, 2) struggled again, loaded the bases on a single and two walks.

The game was full of heroes, though.

The pitching hero was Tyler Clippard, who relieved starter John Lannan (W, 1-1, 8.31) and threw three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and no walks, striking out seven of his nine outs.

Clippard mixed his low-90s fastball with a devestating change-up and hard-breaking slider to confound the Mets hitters.  Clippard's slider was the key to his performance.  Usually his change-up is his best pitch, and hitters will attack his fastball, but the slider gives him another weapon in his arsenal to keep hitters off his fastball.

Clippard's day was so good, he also singled against reliever Ryota Igarashi when left to hit for himself in the seventh inning.

Lannan went five innings and allowed three earned runs on six hits and three walks, striking out two.  He was not sharp, as he nibbled around the strike zone all day--though he was not helped much by home plate umpire Daryl Cousins.

Lannan gout out of a tough jam in the third.  Alex Cora reached on an infield single that third baseman Ryan Zimemrman couldn't come up with, David Wright walked, and Jason Bay reached on Ian Desmond's third fielding error of the season.

Lannan bore down though, and got Jeff Francoeur to tap a ball just in front of home plate, where Ivan Rodriguez completed the 2-3 double play, then coaxed a ground ball from Gary Matthews to end the inning.

Today's batting hero was as unlikely a source as you could find.

Willy Taveras, who hit .240/.275/.285 last season for Cincinnati--including .219 against left-handers, went 2-for-4 with a triple and a career-high four RBIs, pacing the Nats' offense against Oliver Perez (L, 0-1, 6.35) and a trio of Mets relief pitchers.

Taveras tripled in the first inning, scoring Josh Willingham and Rodriguez, and hit a two-run single in the fourth, both off Perez.

So the Nats, looking for heroes, found three today in the forms of their utility player, middle reliever and fifth outfielder. 

But they'll take heroes anywhere they can find them.

Tomorrow in the series finale, Livan Hernandez will make his first start of the season against Mets ace Johan Santana (1-0, 1.50) at 1:10 pm.

NATS NOTES:  Ryan Zimmerman left the game in the late innings due to a strained left hamstring.  In his post-game interview, manager Jim Riggleman hinted that Cristian Guzman might make his regular season debut at third base tomorrow filling in for Zimmerman.

Despite the win, the Nats were outhit 8-5. 

Both teams made two errors.  Desmond made his third of the season when he booted a routine grounder that could have been a double play, and Adam Dunn misplayed a grounder at first for his first error of the season.

The Nats first four hitters in the lineup went a combined 0-for-16 with one walk and five strikeouts.

Here's a report from Enrique Rojas of ESPN.com on their "MLB Winter Meetings Blog" :

The proposed trade between the Nationals and Rockies involving right-hander Tim Redding and outfielder Willy Taveras fell apart because one of the players did not pass his physical exam.

You mean the Willie Taveras? The same guy who went .251/.308/.296 last season in 470 at bats. Read that middle number again. He had a .308 on base percentage last season. Granted, he led the NL in stolen bases. But you know what the result was? 64 runs scored. SIXTY FOUR.

Willie Harris scored 58 runs in 100 less at bats from the bottom of the order for the most part.

For the SABR inclined reader, his OPS+ was 56. This number is based off how good a player is plus-or-minus 100. Of players with 350+ at bats, Corey Patterson was the worst in the NL at 48. Taveras was bottom ten.

He led off for the bulk of his at bats, and while in that slot OBP'd a cool .299.

Lifetime, his slash stats are: .283/.331/.337 (OPS+ 72). So at age 26, when a player starts to enter his prime years, Taveras had his statistically worst year in the bigs. Oh yeah, as a point of reference, Nook Logan's career OPS+ is 76.

Harris has OPS+'d 94 and 98 the last two years as a part-time player. His lifetime OPS+ is 75.

Of Taveras' 558 career hits, 80 have been of the extra-base variety. He's never had 20 doubles in a season, despite all that speed. His career triples high is five, despite all that speed and playing in Colorado the last two years.

He's had seven career home runs in 1972 at bats.

Now, I'm not going to argue that the Nats shouldn't trade Tim Redding if they get a good deal for a player in a position of need. But Willie Taveras, statistically speaking, was one of THE WORST regular position players in the majors last year. If you have a fantasy team where you need stolen bases and have a bunch of high average guys to cover for Taveras, sure, trade Redding for him. But real baseball doesn't work like fantasy.

Taveras is good for only one thing: Stealing second base when one of his weak ground balls manages to make its way through the infield.