Washington Nationals: Adam Eaton scratched with left ankle bone bruise...

When the lineup for tonight’s game was originally released, Washington Nationals’ skipper Davey Martinez had Adam Eaton penciled as the leadoff hitter, playing left field, but the outfielder was subsequently scratched with what the Nats reported on Twitter is a “... left ankle bone bruise.”

Eaton, 29, originally injured the ankle last April when he suffered a high ankle sprain on the same play he tore the ACL and meniscus in his left leg, which he noted after he tweaked it on sliding awkwardly into the plate on a play at home in the Nats’ home opener last week.

“I did tear everything in my ankle too, so we kind of forget about it,” Eaton explained. “It’s on the back burner, but like I said we’ll give it some attention and get back out there.”

He said at the time that he was told it was scar tissue breaking up in the ankle.

“I never had any scar tissue break apart before, so it was really weird,” he said. “I feel strong, everything that we tested out was good, it was just as soon as I started running, that whatever nerve or whatever was being agitated was getting a little angry with me, so we taped it and then we went back out and it felt better, but this is the big leagues, and you’ve got to be able to run and do a lot of things at a high level.”

Eaton returned to the lineup for the finale with the Mets on Sunday, after a pinch hit at bat in Saturday’s game, but was out of the lineup last night for the series opener with Atlanta.

According to reports from Nationals Park yesterday, Eaton was just given the night off after he played all 12 innings of the Nationals’ late game on Sunday night.

No information is available yet, but the assumption is he didn’t suffer a subsequent injury and this is tied to that awkward slide last week.

More info when it’s available (likely from Davey Martinez after tonight’s game).

Here’s the updated lineup with Brian Goodwin taking over for Eaton in the leadoff spot and in left: