Ryan Church (baseball player)

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**Ryan Church**
Major League Baseball debut
Washington Nationals — No. 19
Right field
Bats: Left	Throws: Left
August 21, 2004 for the Montreal Expos
Selected MLB statistics (through October 2, 2006)
Batting average	.269
Home runs	20
Runs batted in	83
Former teams
Montreal Expos (2004) Washington Nationals (2005-present)

Ryan Matthew Church (born October 14, 1978 in Santa Barbara, California) is an outfielder in North American Major League Baseball. He currently plays for the Washington Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos.

Church made his major league debut for the Expos in August 2004, struggling in the 30 games he played in the last two months of the season. He ended the season with a .187 batting average.

After struggling in the first month of the 2005 season, he began to play well, and was considered a candidate for the Rookie of the Year Award, until he injured himself running into the outfield wall at PNC Park on June 22, 2005. At the time of the incident, Church was batting .325 with a .544 slugging percentage. After the incident, Church made two trips to the disabled list and was unable to match his hitting performance from the first half of the season.

In 2006, Church was demoted to Class AAA New Orleans after struggling early in the year. However, Church was sent back to the majors on July 23, and ended up hitting .276 with a career best 10 home runs and .892 OBP. His 10 home runs in just 196 at bats in 2006 projects to around 30 home runs for an entire season. For this reason, many in the Nationals organization believe Church should be given an entire season to prove his worth. Others, however, believe that prospect Kory Casto should be given the opportunity in left field for 2007 instead.