Living the dream

Nationals fans shouldn’t worry so much.

The team in the nation’s capital might have the worst record in Major League Baseball right now, but on brighter note young talent will soon be swarming Nationals Park, putting their pitching, hitting and running skills on display.

Nats fans might have to wait a while to see these prospects take the field, though.

The Nationals will be hosting the Pitch, Hit and Run Competition’s team championship event June 20 and 9-year-old Culpeper resident D’Ago Hunter will be one of many youngsters from the East Coast showing up to show off his arm, bat and speed.

“The crowd at a place like that could be tough if you’re not used to dealing with it,” D’Ago’s father Dana said. “It will either scare you or make you better. D’Ago doesn’t let stuff like that bother him, though. He just goes out there and focuses on what he has to do.”

The MLB’s Pitch, Hit and Run competition gives boys and girls ages 7 to 14 the chance to compete at the local, state and national levels. Top finishers at the local level go on to regional competition and from there they go on to the team championship round — which is hosted by all 30 MLB ballparks.

The top scorers from each age group then move on to the national finals at the MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis.

“We are hysterically proud,” Dana Hunter said. “He (D’Ago) is a humble kid, but someone his age doing what he has done is a big deal. He’s done a good job and we couldn’t be more proud of him.”

In addition to getting to compete on the field before the Nationals take on the Blue Jays, D’Ago will get to hear his name announced before the game, he and his family get tickets to the contest and he gets a uniform and cap to wear during the game.

“It’s really exciting,” the third-grader at A.G. Richardson said. “I feel real confident but I’m a little nervous.”

D’Ago — a pitcher for the minor league Pirates of the Culpeper Little League — took on the competition from the Culpeper area at the Culpeper Sports Complex May 10 and finished first overall in the 9-10 age group. He won both the hitting and running portions of that contest.

“We decided to take him out there and see what he could do,” Dana said. “I can’t really put my finger on what makes him so good. He’s just a natural athlete I guess.”

After running through the local competition, D’Ago went up against competition from all over Virginia at the sectionals event in Manassas May 16 and came away with another first-place finish.

“Manassas was a much bigger stage because there were kids from all over the state,” Dana said. “But that’s good because he (D’Ago) got to see kids from other places and put himself up against them.”

During the pitching event, competitors get six chances to hit a standard MLB strike zone (17-by-30-inches) from 45 feet away. They also get three opportunities to hit a ball to straight-away center field from a stationary tee. The hits are measured for distance and accuracy.

The young ballplayers are also graded on how fast they can sprint from second base to home plate.

D’Ago said hitting has been his strongest event so far, and he thinks that trend will continue.

“He’s just be a kid not worrying about anything right now,” Dana said. “He told me he was a little nervous before the Manassas event, but I told him that’s good because if you aren’t nervous before something big then something is wrong.”

With the Nationals needing all the help they can get and star players getting younger every year, the future of the Washington franchise might just end up taking the field next Saturday before Ryan Zimmerman even gets his jersey on.