The Nationals have expressed interest in free agent righty Javier Vazquez according to MLB.com's Bill Ladson (via Twitter), and it's possible that the club could make him a contract offer as soon as next week. Vazquez expressed an interest in pitching for the team at the end of last month.

The Nats have let if be known that they are ready to spend to upgrade their rotation, showing interest in everyone from Cliff Lee to Carl Pavano and now Vazquez. They'll have competition from another NL East club though, Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez met with Javy in Puerto Rico earlier today. The 34-year-old righty had a 5.32 ERA in 157 1/3 innings for the Yankees in 2010, but he finished fourth in the NL Cy Young voting in 2009 and was good for 200 or so innings with lots of strikeouts on an annual basis for the decade before that.