Washington Nationals’ Matt Adams avoids IL stint for now...

Matt Adams missed 16 games on the Injured List earlier this season (May 4th-22nd) with a left shoulder strain, but the 30-year-old slugger returned to the lineup and helped start to things around, going 13 for 50 (.260/.302/.480) in 16 games and 12 starts, including in the series opener in Chicago on Monday night.

Adams singled the first time up, but in his third trip to the plate he tweaked something while swinging, and he was replaced in the field when the Nationals headed out to the field in the bottom of the sixth.

Talking to reporters after what ended up a 12-1 win, Nats’ skipper Davey Martinez shared the news on his bench bat and backup first baseman.

“He has a left oblique strain,” Martinez said. “He’s going to get reevalutated tomorrow, but they’re treating it as that right now.”

Gerardo Parra filled in for Adams at first on Monday, and Howie Kendrick has played there as well, but with Ryan Zimmerman still rehabbing and trying to get rid of the pain from plantar fasciitis in his foot, missing Adams for any length of time would be a blow for the Nationals’ depth at first base.

So how concerned was Martinez?

“I’m a little concerned,” he said. “Whenever it’s an oblique, that’s going to be days missed.”

When he spoke to reporters before the second of two in Guaranteed Rate Field on Tuesday, however, the manager was more optimistic.

“Actually, he’s a lot better than we anticipated,” Martinez said, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.

“He woke up today and he’s not as sore. We’re going to wait. The day off helps us. So right now he’s day-to-day, which is really nice.”

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Since they could get by without him in an AL park, where they could use the DH, Martinez said, “potentially not losing him for 10 days is nice.”

Will this end up being another situation where the issue doesn’t heal up and they end up putting him on the IL in a few days anyway, which they can do retroactively since he did not play on Tuesday?

ALSO ZIM UPDATE: Where is Ryan Zimmerman? Davey Martinez provided an update on Zimmerman, who’s been out of the lineup since April 27th. He was spotted taking batting practice on Tuesday night in Chicago...

“He’s doing all baseball activities,” Martinez said, “so we’re going to get him back home and hopefully get him running again. We try to schedule his running, but they want to see him go through this whole week of just baseball activities, ground balls, hit, be on his feet a lot, so now when we get back home we’re going to get him back and see if we can get him on that AlterG [treadmill], and run the first two days and then go from there.”