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When Washington Nationals' skipper Davey Johnson initially spoke about the Nats' September call-ups last week he told reporters that it was a little different situation this year than in previous seasons when they were calling players up to see what they had in the system and how they performed at this level. "I really was [looking forward to adding players] last year," the Nationals' manager said, "Much more so than this year. This year... I don't know how many we had last year, but we couldn't have had too many. This year we'll probably have five or six and the majority of them, if not all of them will have been here." With the Nationals atop the NL East as the rosters expand, the Nats explained yesterday that the moves would be made to fill holes and help the team the rest of the way.
"'We are not in the situation where we are going to bring up guys to take a look at players like we did in the past,'" Nats' GM Mike Rizzo told reporters including MASN's Byron Kerr Friday afternoon, "'The players that we bring up are going to be players that can help us in real games for a playoff stretch.'" In yesterday's pre game press conference, Davey Johnson broke the news about this year's call-ups, announcing that left-hander John Lannan, catcher Sandy Leon and outfielder Eury Perez would be getting the call. The Nationals made the announcement official this afternoon and added that IF Mark DeRosa had also been activated from the DL:
Nationals recall LHP John Lannan, C Sandy Leon & OF Eury Perez from Syracuse...reinstate INF Mark DeRosa from DL.
— Nationals PR (@NationalsPR) September 1, 2012#Nationals
The 22-year-old Perez will be making his MLB debut when he gets in a game though he did impress against MLB competition this past Spring. Mark DeRosa has been on the DL since August 5th with a groin injury. In 81 PAs this year, the veteran infielder has a .152/.288/.212 line, but his positive influence in the clubhouse has been mentioned often by team officials and teammates.
Shortly after the call-ups were announced, the Nats also Tweeted the lineup for this afternoon's game with the Cardinals as Jordan Zimmermann and the Nationals take on Kyle Lohse and the Cards:
— Nationals PR (@NationalsPR) September 1, 2012
#Nationals lineup vs. STL - Werth 9, Harper 8, Zimmerman 5, LaRoche 3, Morse 7, Desmond 6, Espinosa 4, Suzuki 2, Zimmermann 1
• REMINDER: First pitch today is at 4:05 pm EDT instead of 7:05 as it was originally scheduled because FOX has the Nats and Cards as one of their national games.