Washington Nationals “at” Houston Astros: Grapefruit League GameThread

Davey Martinez shared his plan on Monday to have Josiah Gray, who is scheduled to throw today, work in a minor league game while a parade of relievers get their work in on the major league side, with the Washington Nationals taking on the Houston Astros in their shared spring home this afternoon.

Washington, as noted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman on Twitter, is expected to send Carl Edwards, Jr., Tanner Rainey, Kyle Finnegan, Andres Machado, Sam Clay, and more out to the mound to get their work in in this abbreviated ramp-up to the 2022 regular season.

Martinez talked in the first week of Spring Training about sorting out his bullpen in West Palm Beach and figuring out how he will assign roles given the new rules NL teams will be playing under this year.

“Right now I’m focused on who is going to be in our bullpen,” he said when asked about potential roles and who will fill them. “I mean, so, but yeah, it will be nice to have roles for these guys once they get going and we see who is actually going to pitch in the bullpen for us. So, yeah, the good news is you don’t have to worry about the pitcher’s spot. So if a guy comes in the game and gets two hitters and he’s doing well and he’s a good matchup for the guy leading off the inning, we don’t have to worry about that pitcher’s spot coming up and double-switching or anything like that. That’s where it comes in. And quite honestly, the other thing is, we’re getting a really good DH, so that’s kind of nice.”

That DH [ed. note - “It’s Nelson Cruz. He’s talking about Nelson Cruz.”] is in the lineup today for the matchup with the Astros in the FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches.

Cruz is 1 for 19 to start the spring, but we know not to put any real weight on ST stats, right? Right? If not, Davey’s got you.

“For me, nobody knows those guys better than themselves,” Martinez said, as quoted by MASN’s Zuckerman on Monday.

“I go back and I look at the history of what they’ve done in different camps, stuff like that.

“Some guys do have bad spring trainings, and they work on different things. So I’m not overly concerned.”

See. Now enjoy today’s game. You can watch it on MLB.tv or the MLB Network in D.C.

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR TODAY’S GAME WITH THE ASTROS: