Washington Nationals announce roster for NLDS matchup with Los Angeles Dodgers

Washington’s roster for the Wild Card Game was constructed with a win-or-go-home game in mind, so obviously there would be changes made for the Nationals’ NLDS matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“Yes, it could change for the Dodgers series, for sure,” GM Mike Rizzo told 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies on Wednesday.

The Wild Card roster was starter-heavy, with the plan to use Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, and even Aníbal Sánchez out of the pen if they needed to in order to beat the Milwaukee Brewers.

Against the Dodgers? Would relievers like Wander Suero, who was left off the Wild Card roster be back in there?

“The Dodgers have a lot of potent left-handed bats, Wander is one of our really good right-handed relievers against left-handed hitters, so there’s a possibility there,” Rizzo said.

“We’ll go over the roster today. We’ve kind of — in our minds — have kind of completed it, but we’ll make it official today.”

That was on Wednesday morning. As of Wednesday night, following a cross-country flight to LA for the start of the Division Series, Nats’ skipper Davey Martinez still wasn’t ready for any announcements, though he said that even in a five-game series, it’s still pretty much a win-or-go-home scenario.

“It’s always, right now it’s we’re playing for one game, that’s it,” Martinez explained. “And my message has always been clear about now it means more than ever, hey, we need to go 1-0. It’s important, especially to win that first game to have more of a series and then go from there.”

Martinez did announce on Tuesday night, after the 4-3 win over the Brewers, in which Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg pitched, that it would be Corbin going in Game 1 in LA.

“Feel pretty confident [Corbin is] ready to go, so let’s focus on just [winning] the game tomorrow,” he said last night.

As for the rest of the roster, it was still a work in progress as of last night.

“We have done our due diligence,” Martinez said. “Worked, and we’re still working on some roster construction. Talking to guys, how they’re feeling, their availability. But like I said, these are, to me these are all one-game, one-game playoffs. They all are. It’s important if we’re [going] to win. To get ahead, stay ahead. So we’re going to use all options necessary to win a game.”

The Nationals made their NLDS roster official this afternoon:

NOTES: As discussed previously, Davey Martinez liked what he saw from Austin Voth down the stretch, and he’s on the NLDS roster. Two catchers instead of the three in the Wild Card. Michael A. Taylor and Gerardo Parra are on the bench. As mentioned above, Wander Suero is back in the bullpen. We were pulling for Andrew Stevenson . Thoughts? Surprises?