Washington Nationals News: Updates on Jayson Werth, Anthony Rendon
By Pablo Roa
Good afternoon DoD readers, and welcome to today’s District Daily! Check out some great Washington Nationals articles from around the web below.
In today’s Daily, the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes gives an update on the injury situations of Jayson Werth and Anthony Rendon. As Janes notes, Werth is still dealing with swelling in his left wrist. Rendon, on the other hand, is working his way back from knee and oblique injuries and took batting practice yesterday.
Needless to say, the Nationals need both Werth and Rendon back in the lineup as soon as possible. Werth already missed some time on the disabled list earlier this season recovering from shoulder surgery, and he was just beginning to get things going at the plate when he bruised his wrist last week. While the wrist isn’t broken, the swelling is still a concern for the Nationals and until it goes down, we won’t know how much time Werth will miss.
Rendon has yet to make his 2015 debut and has suffered a number of roadblocks in his recovery from the original injury. As Janes notes, Rendon hurt his oblique while rehabbing the knee injury last month. Hopefully for the Nationals, Rendon’s rehab will go as planned this time and he’ll be back in the lineup sooner, rather than later.
Also in today’s Daily, Federal Baseball’s Jim Meyerriecks looks back on the trade that brought Denard Span to the nation’s capital in 2012.
Be sure to check out both articles below, they’re definitely worth a read. And as always, stay tuned to DoD for all your Washington Nationals needs.
Jayson Werth still has swelling in his wrist, Anthony Rendon takes batting practice
(Chelsea Janes, Washington Post)
These days, despite the brace on his swollen left wrist, Jayson Werth hustles out to the outfield during batting practice and pursues fly balls, hat in hand. For now, the wrist is still too swollen to use a glove — or do much of anything, really. Though it is not broken or damaged structurally, it is swollen, and Werth cannot rotate it or swing.
“They’re treating him aggressively,” Nationals Manager Matt Williams said. “It’s multiple rounds of treatment every day. The problem is if the swelling gets int he joint, then it can be really stiff and if you start going at it hard, it just exacerbates the problem. We gotta calm it down first before we can get back at it.” Read full article here.
Revisiting the Washington Nationals trade for Denard Span
(Jim Meyerriecks, Federal Baseball)
In November of 2012, the Washington Nationals traded top prospect Alex Meyer to the Minnesota Twins for Denard Span. It was a deal that made a lot of sense for both teams at the time. The Nationals were coming off of a 98 win season that saw them finish with the best record in baseball, but they lacked a true big league center fielder and a traditional leadoff man. Minnesota was coming off of a 66 win season that saw them finish with the worst record in the American League and didn’t have a lot of potential impact starters in the high minors. It was a textbook win-win trade.
The move has certainly worked for the Nationals. Since being acquired, Span has hit .292/.342/.405 for the Nats while providing an above average glove in center field. He’s also led the team with 54 stolen bases and ranks fourth on the Nats since the start of 2013 with 8.3 fWAR and 6.8 rWAR. Span has been exactly what the Nats were looking for when they acquired him. Heck, they even went out and replaced Alex Meyer with A.J. Cole and Blake Treinen in the Michael Morse trade later that winter. Read full article here.