Washington Nationals recall Matt Grace; option Trevor Gott to Triple-A...

Trevor Gott’s second stint in the majors with the Washington Nationals didn’t last too long. Gott, 24, was (2-0) with three saves in 23 appearances for the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs to start the 2017 campaign, posting a 3.30 ERA, a 2.61 FIP, six walks (1.80 BB/9) and 28 Ks (8.40 K/9) in 30 innings before he was called up to the majors this Monday.

Gott tossed two innings total with the Nationals, in his second major league stint for the Nats, then was optioned back to Triple-A Syracuse this afternoon, with Washington recalling lefty Matt Grace.

In Wednesday afternoon’s appearance for Gott, who was acquired from the LA Angels in the Yunel Escobar in December of 2015, he tossed a scoreless inning against the Atlanta Braves, working around back-to-back, two-out singles, but he ran into trouble when he came back out for a second inning of work.

Back-to-back, one-out singles, a two-out wild pitch, intentional walk, unintentional bases-loaded walk, and two-run single followed.

Gott was charged with five runs in 1 ²⁄₃ innings, and he threw 52 pitches total.

Bad as the stat line looked, Dusty Baker told reporters he liked what he saw from the right-hander.

Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images

“He threw the ball well,” Baker said, “we just had to stay with him longer than we wanted to, because we were about bullpen preservation most of the day.

“We’ve got a big series coming up against the Mets, and certainly don’t want to go in there with your whole bullpen tired and beat up, so after a while we were just trying to preserve our bullpen for this next seven games.”

Part of that, obviously, was bringing Grace back up today, since Gott was likely going to be unavailable for the next couple days.

Grace, 28, has been up and down between Triple-A and the majors all season, posting a 3.66 ERA, 3.91 FIP, eight walks (3.66 BB/9) and 21 Ks (9.61 K/9) in 19 ²⁄₃ innings pitched for the Nationals’ top minor league affiliate, and a 4.05 ERA, 3.73 FIP, two walks and a K in 6 ²⁄₃ IP out of the Nats’ bullpen.