Washington Nationals’ Will Harris gets good medical news: No blood clot for reliever...

The news on Will Harris changed dramatically over the course of the day today, so read the whole story for the positive update. Here’s how the story unfolded...

HARRIS UPDATE - 2:45 PM ET:

Will Harris made it to St. Louis this week, to see a specialist after an MRI revealed what was thought to be a blood clot in his right (throwing) arm.

“He saw the doctor,” Martinez told reporters on Friday afternoon.

“He had a procedure done and right now we’re just waiting on the results. So, as soon as I find out the results — but it looks like everything went well.

“So we’re waiting to hear back and hopefully we hear something back today.”

Photo by Eric Espada/Getty Images

Harris felt “weird” as his manager put it after his last outing, earlier this month, as he worked to ramp up for the start of his second season in D.C., so they slowed him down, and got him to a doctor to get checked out.

“He had the little tiny blood clot removed,” Martinez explained. “So they said it went well.

“We’ll see what happens. I’ll know more later this afternoon, but I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Martinez said he hadn’t spoken with Harris yet, so all the information he had was from the doctor who performed the procedure, so he didn’t want to speculate at all about when/if Harris would be able to return.

“I don’t want to speculate on when he’ll be back or how, long, I’m just glad everything went well, and when we hear something more I will definitely let you know, but right now I don’t want to speculate on the timetable of when he could return.”

HARRIS UPDATE - 9:43 PM ET:

When the fourth-year skipper met with the media again after tonight’s win over the New York Mets, he had good, though different, news to share with reporters.

“So I just wanted to open up, I told you I’d give an update on Will Harris, and we got some really good news tonight,” Martinez began.

“He did the procedure, it’s called a venogram, and it showed, it indicated that there was no blood clot, he had no thoracic outlet syndrome, which was awesome. He’s going to go back to D.C., get reevaluated by Dr. [Robin] West. So tonight was, not only did we win, but we got some really, really good news, so we’re excited about that.

“So hopefully Dr. West sees him and we’ll get him back as soon as possible.”

So there was no blood clot? None at all?

USA TODAY NETWORK

“No, he did this venogram — this is why we sent him for a second opinion. He went and saw the specialist. They did what they call a venogram I don’t know exactly what it is, but I was told tonight that he had no blood clot.

“He’s got a little incision, because they had to go in, but there was no blood clot, there was no thoracic outlet syndrome, and like I said, he’s going to go see Dr. West back in D.C., and we’ll go from there.”

How do they explain how Harris was feeling, which led to the initial trip to a doctor?

“What he had before was — he had numbness in the fingers, so like I said, he saw a doctor in West Palm Beach and that’s what they told us, we wanted a second opinion, we sent him to this specialist and they did this procedure and luckily, he’s good, so that’s good for us.”

Harris did all the work he could, with the obvious exception of throwing, while they were waiting to get an appointment with the specialist in St. Louis, so the hope is he’s cleared, and resumes baseball activities some time in the near future.

“He did all his leg exercises,” Martinez said.

“He did everything he can to stay in shape. He couldn’t throw, obviously, so that’s good, so hopefully now when he sees Dr. West and gets diagnosed again we can move forward and we can get him back as soon as possible.”

The manager’s reaction to the positive news?

“I was pumped. Like I said, I care about these guys, and the fact that he’s going to be okay and everything came out well, and we’re going to get him back ... he’s huge for our team, and what he does, especially in the back end of that bullpen, it was great news.

“When they told me that, I was pumped up. And the fact that we came back and played well and won the game, was awesome, so it was all-around a good night.”

The next step? Will Harris return to West Palm Beach? Or go to D.C. where the entire team will be soon for the start of the season on April 1st?

“Because he flew commercially he’s got to take an in-take test, so we’ll try to get him that test as soon as possible, but until he gets the results, he can’t do anything,” Martinez said.

“As soon as he gets the results back, we’ll get him back with us, so whether it’s here or D.C. we’ll see when we can get him back.”