Daniel Murphy has now missed over a week with a strain of his left buttock. Over the weekend, Dusty Baker told reporters that the injury wasn’t responding to treatment, so the Nationals made the decision to shut the second baseman down completely for a few days.
Though Murphy clearly aggravated something legging out a double and sliding into second base during the Nationals’ visit to Atlanta’s Turner Field two weekends back, Baker said he didn’t think it was something that happened on one play in particular.
“Usually you don’t really do it on one play,” he said, as quoted by Washington Post writer Chelsea Janes.
“It’s a progression when your legs are getting tired. And Daniel, like we knew this in the beginning, he’s a legs person. Whether it’s playing defense or offense. So we just feel fortunate that we pulled the plug when we did.”
Baker updated reporters on Friday afternoon, before the start of this past weekend’s series with the Pirates in Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.
“We sent him for an MRI and he has a mild strain in his buttocks. So, he has trouble running.”
While the Nationals used Murphy in pinch hit situations in Miami, Baker was clear then that they were only using him in situations where he wouldn’t likely have to run, but they wouldn’t even do that over the weekend.
“We’re going to have to shut him down for a few days and hopefully he gets well.”
“They’re doing everything they can to try to alleviate the pain and get rid of whatever is in there,” Baker explained.
“We’ve got some very capable staff here and I’m glad he didn’t do it any worse. Like I said, that’s why we didn’t put him in a situation where he had to run, but now we’re not going to put him in any situation to make sure he doesn’t have to run.”
Baker updated reporters on Murphy’s status again this afternoon, explaining that he’s making progress, but still shut down for now:
Asked if he expects Daniel Murphy to be ready for the postseason, Dusty said, "Yeah, I expect him to be." Still shut down, but progressing.
— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) September 26, 2016
Here’s the Nationals’ Murphy-less lineup for tonight’s series opener with the D-Backs:
#Nats vs #DBacks 1 of 3: Turner - CF: Werth - LF; Rendon - 3B; Ramos - C; Drew - 2B: Zim - 1B: Goodwin - RF; Espinosa - SS; Roark - P
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) September 26, 2016