Washington Nationals announce NLCS roster for matchup with the St. Louis Cardinals

Victor Robles hasn’t played since injuring his right hamstring running out a bunt in Game 2 of the NLDS, and Washington Nationals’ skipper Davey Martinez told reporters on Wednesday, before Game 5 in LA, that the 21-year-old outfielder was still working his way back to full strength, and they didn’t want to rush it.

“We watched, Vic worked out yesterday. Watched him, he’s better, just not quite there. He’s definitely available to pinch hit. But he’s one of our young unbelievable players. And the way he plays, if you see him play every day there’s no — he can tell you he’s going to try to go 80% or something, but he can’t, he is just not that kind of player. So we want to be smart about this. If we need him to pinch hit later on he’s available.

“And Michael [A. Taylor] is playing really well. And I said this before, there’s really not that big of a difference between the way he plays center field and the way Victor plays center field.”

In a pre-NLCS conference call yesterday, Martinez said they were still waiting to see how Robles’s hamstring responded.

“We’re going to run him again in the morning, tomorrow, and then we’ll see what his status is for the game.”

Kurt Suzuki was a question mark as well, after he got hit with a pitch on his wrist during the Nationals’ win in Game 5 with the Dodgers, and had it ricochet up and hit him in the face.

Suzuki left the game at that point, and Martinez said yesterday that the veteran catcher, who injured his elbow early in September as well, would be ready for the start of the NLCS.

“Suzuki had X-rays on his hand, came back negative,” the second-year skipper said.

“We’ll see, he says he feels good. I talked to him this morning, he says he feels good. We’ll get him some treatment today and I think he should be ready to go tomorrow.”

Those were two of the big question marks, along with how the Nationals would put their relief corps together for the National League Championship Series.

Robles and Suzuki are on the NLCS roster, which was just released. As for the bullpen?

Daniel Hudson is listed on the Paternity List, but will return, and Wander Suero will be removed once he’s back. Javy Guerra made the roster, and Roenis Elías is back in there after tweaking his hamstring twice this season, giving the Nationals two left-handers. Austin Voth is back on the roster even though he didn’t pitch in the NLDS. Hunter Strickland is not included.

Here it is ... the Nats’ first-even NLCS roster: