Washington Nationals: Jim Riggleman On Jordan Zimmermann And Jason Marquis.

Here's what Nats' Skipper Jim Riggleman had to say in today's pregame press conference about the state of two of the Nationals' rehabbing starters, Jordan Zimmerman, who's recovering from elbow reconstruction surgery, and Jason Marquis, who had surgery to remove bone chips from his right elbow...

• Jim Riggleman on Jason Marquis and Jordan Zimmermann: "Jason [Marquis] just threw out in the outfield, didn't really throw to a catcher, just played some catch out there, and he's feeling good. I think in the near future, any day actually, [we'll] send him down to Florida, let him get on the same recovery/rehab program that [Jordan] Zimmermann's been on...and with Jordan, he threw to hitters out there, threw a couple innings, threw a lot actually, warmed up for a long time, threw an inning, sat down, went out and threw another inning, and threw the ball very well. Very encouraging that he's responded well to everything, to the surgery itself then to all the throwing sessions that he's had since then, so, you know, we're crossing our fingers and hopefully we'll have him back in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not sure how many starts he'll go down and get, but it will be really nice to have him back."

• Are you looking forward to having Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann in the same rotation?

Jim Riggleman: "We try not to focus too much on it, because again, we've really tried to make a point of putting the past years behind us and not looking to the future, just deal with the game at hand, but certainly when you give yourself the opportunity to think about the future with two young power arms like that in there it's encouraging, I think most good ballclubs have a couple, three guys like that, who are really kind of a right-handed power pitcher that's a challenge to the opposing lineups, and can get away with a mistake now and then with their stuff...it's something to certainly look forward to..."