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After homering to the second deck in left field in the top of the first inning in Petco Park to provide all of the scoring Washington would need in last night's 6-0 win over the San Diego Padres, Anthony Rendon took a bad hop off his right hand on a ground ball hit his way in the bottom of the fourth inning. The 24-year-old Nationals' third baseman misfired on the throw to first on the grounder off Carlos Quentin's bat, commiting his sixth and the Nats' 50th error in 59 games, but starter Tanner Roark worked around the E:5 to finish the third of the eight scoreless innings he completed on the mound.
Error no.7 for Rendon and 51 for the Nats came in the bottom of the fifth when a grounder off Padres' second baseman Jace Peterson's bat took a bad hop and bounced up and off the infielder.
Rendon remained in the game for another at bat, but was replaced at third by Kevin Frandsen in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Doctors checked Rendon's thumb out and after the game, Nats' skipper Matt Williams told reporters that there was swelling but no significant damage.
"X-rays are negative," Williams said. "Got him pretty good though. Got all bare hand and affected his thumb and his first finger. So, a little sore, so we decided to get him out of there and get a picture of it, but it's negative."
It was a rare instance of relatively good news for the Nationals, who've dealt with two thumb injuries already this season with Ryan Zimmerman fracturing his right thumb and Bryce Harper tearing ligaments in his left thumb.
Both Zimmerman and Harper landed on the DL, but Williams said Rendon should be fine, though he wasn't sure the third baseman would be back in the lineup today.
"We'll see," he said. "It's pretty swollen. So we'll see how he feels tomorrow."
The Nats' skipper was comfortable enough with the results of the X-ray that he joked about the bad injury luck the Nationals have had this season.
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"We don't want any more thumbs," he told reporters. "It's good news that it's negative, yeah."
After struggling through most of a rough .212/292/.323 May, the Nationals' 2012 1st Round pick picked it up at the plate in the last few weeks. Rendon's 1 for 3 night in San Diego while he was in the game, left him with hits in nine of the last 11 games (15 for 50, .341/.420/.659) with a triple and four home runs over that stretch.
Last night's home run gave Rendon nine in 257 plate appearances this year after he hit seven in 394 PAs in his rookie campaign in 2013.
No word yet today on whether or not Rendon will play in the second game of three in San Diego.