Washington Nationals’ Juan Soto day-to-day with elbow soreness; MRI clean

“Juan Soto has been scratched from today’s lineup with left elbow soreness,” Washington’s PR team tweeted about 45-50 minutes before the scheduled start time of the first game of the Nationals’ doubleheader in Atlanta last night. In a season like the 2020 campaign, that was enough to set off a panic in the nation’s capital, but coming as the news did after the pregame press conference with manager Davey Martinez, everyone had to wait until after both games were played to get any sort of update on the 21-year-old outfielder.

“Juan Soto came in with — his elbow was sore,” Martinez told reporters after the Nationals split their twin bill with the Braves. “Got an MRI, everything came out clean, we’re going to give him a couple days. He’s pretty tender. It’s his throwing elbow, so we’re going to see how he feels tomorrow and then go from there, but I’m assuming he’s going to need a couple days off.”

Martinez explained that there wasn’t any hint of a problem before Soto showed up at Truist Park and told team trainer Paul Lessard about the soreness.

“Honestly, he said he just woke up saying his elbow was bothering him today. And he said it was really stiff, so he got an MRI on his whole elbow, and they deemed that everything came back negative, and they said he just probably needs some days off. Hopefully it’s just — they iced him, they did a bunch of work with him, it released a little bit, they got a sleeve on him now, so hopefully we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”

Martinez did seem concerned though.

“He was pretty sore, when he saw Paul he was pretty sore to the touch. So, Paul came to my office and said, ‘Soto’s elbow is really bothering him.’ And I said, bring him in here and let’s see what’s going on.”

“I told him, I said, ‘Okay, can we get an MRI?’ And we got an MRI, and it came back negative, and so he’s going to be day to day.”

The news on Soto comes after Adam Eaton left the series finale in Philadelphia after he had jammed his knee on first base as Martinez explained it.

In the second game of Friday’s doubleheader, Josh Harrison was hit by a pitch on the wrist and had to leave the game as well, adding to the list of injury issues the Nationals have now.

“Josh Harrison, they went and got X-rays and an MRI,” Martinez said, “... and he’s got a contusion on his forearm so we got lucky on that one because he got hit pretty good.”