Washington Nationals Remain Unsure of Next Step for Rehabbing Veteran Pitcher
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Coming into the season, it was the Washington Nationals' lineup that was garnering a lot of attention for the upside that it possessed.
It was hard to ignore all of the young talent manager Davey Martinez had at his disposal when it came to positional players. But, it turns out, he had some hidden gems on the pitching staff, too.
MacKenzie Gore, Mitchell Parker and Jake Irving have gotten off to a wonderful start and look to be a great trio to build around for the future.
One of the goals the Nationals had coming into the offseason was to find some veterans to help elevate the group with Patrick Corbin a free agent along with Trevor Williams.
Williams re-signed, but taking Corbin’s spot as a veteran presence was Michael Soroka.
Injuries have derailed his career after a stellar rookie campaign in 2019 when he finished second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, sixth in Cy Young and was named an All-Star.
Nine starts are the most he has made in a season since, missing 2021 and 2022 because of injury.
After looking great in spring training, there was optimism that Soroka would be one of the biggest steals of the offseason.
Unfortunately, the injury bug bit him again in his regular season debut against the Toronto Blue Jays.
On his third pitch of the sixth inning, he spiked a breaking ball and was clenching his fist, which is not normally a good sign. Luckily, it was only a cramp in his bicep he was dealing with but he has been on the injured list since with a bicep strain.
He has recently taken the mound again, completing his second rehab start Sunday afternoon against the Erie Seawolves.
Soroka threw 4.1 innings and 78 pitches. Those are the important numbers to keep an eye on, as his statistics are secondary to him ramping his activity back up and being stretched out enough to make Major League starts.
If it were up to him, his next appearance would be with Washington.
“I'm absolutely ready to compete. It's time,” he said via Bobby Blanco of Masn. “So I think again, it depends what they want to do. We got to have that conversation. I still got to talk to the medical staff and there's a lot that goes into it. But yeah, obviously I threw about 80 pitches, and, again, I felt pretty good coming out of it. So no problems there.”
However, the Nationals may have other plans and have him make at least one more rehab start before re-joining the team. Martinez mentioned a pitch-count benchmark he would like to see reached.
“I haven't talked to him yet. I'm gonna sit and talk to the trainers and get their thoughts and sit with Hickey,” Martinez said. “We'll come up with his plan for the next outing. It's a good possibility we may send him back for one more. But I want to talk to him first, see how he's doing. I'd like to get him stretched out to about 90 pitches if we can. But let's see how he's feeling. He said he feels pretty good, but I want to just really get eyes on him and talk to him.”
Where his next start this week will be is up in the air, but it is encouraging to see him making such good progress.
It won’t be long until he rejoins Gore, Parker, Irvin and Williams in the Big League rotation.
