Washington Nationals Injury Update: Dusty Baker and Mike Rizzo on Trea Turner’s hamstring...

Before he was placed on the 10-Day Disabled List on Wednesday, (retroactive to 4/9), Trea Turner was off to a slow start at the plate, going 3 for 19 (.158/.158/.211) with a double and seven strikeouts in five games.

Turner injured his right hamstring stealing second base on Saturday in Philadelphia, but the Nationals waited until Monday before making the decision to put the 23-year-old infielder on the DL.

In an interview with 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies on Wednesday, Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo talked about the decision to DL Turner.

“It was a slight — we called it a slight Grade 1 strain of his hamstring,” Rizzo explained.

“Our thought process was — if we were still at the 15-Day Disabled List, minimum, we probably try to nurse him through without putting him on the Disabled List for 15 days and maybe he’s out five-to-seven days or something like that, but because of the new 10-day thing, we figure — this is a speed player, his legs are his skill set, and we want to just make sure that we get it right and we rest him.

“These young players, they don’t want to sit out, they’ll lie to you, they’ll mask what’s going on and they just want to go out there and play because they love the game, they’re new at it and they want to establish themselves and Trea is no different. He’s a guy that is going to mask the pain and play through it, and a guy that we really have to be careful with, because, again, especially when you’re talking about hamstrings and his legs, his legs are his skill set and he needs to be the speed guy that he’s been.”

Before this afternoon’s series opener with Philadelphia’s Phillies, Nats’ skipper Dusty Baker talked about Turner’s progress, though he didn’t have much to report when he was asked if there was a timetable for the shortstop’s return.

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“We don’t know yet,” Baker said, “because he hit the other day, he said he felt pretty good. He’s been getting a lot of treatment, riding the bike, running, as tolerated, and so my experience with hamstrings is whenever they tell you you’re ready, I believe in giving them another couple days.

“I haven’t really pressed him on how he’s feeling, because like I’ve told you many times, you have to be injured and then somebody is always asking you every day because it doesn’t change that much from day-to-day. I’m kind of waiting on him to come to me or me to observe him on the field, even though he does most of his work prior to anybody getting here and is working in the training room during the game.”

The good news, Baker said, is that Turner didn’t try to mask the injury. He admitted it was an issue right away and in doing so, his skipper said, avoided a more serious issue.

“On the positive side, I think he caught it himself before he did some real damage to it,” Baker said.