The Washington Nationals were dealt a tough blow early on Sunday morning ahead of their series finale against the Atlanta Braves. If the club figured things couldn't get more difficult in terms of the performance of their starting rotation, they clearly had thought incorrectly.
Jake Irvin, who was removed early from arguably his best start of the season on Saturday afternoon, was placed on the 15-day Injured List with what is being described as right shoulder tightness. The injury itself is perhaps a best-case scenario from what it could have been, but still losing one of your veteran starters in a struggling rotation was not what you wanted to have happen there at all.
Despite Irvin's subpar surface numbers, having pitched to a 5.23 ERA and 1.355 WHIP so far, he has produced the best FIP of his career so far with a 4.23, and he is striking out batters at a higher clip than he ever has in his big league career. A lot of that is a testament to new pitching coach Simon Mathews and his staff, but Irvin is still executing a lot better than he has in the past.
Called up to replace Irvin on the roster will be lefty PJ Poulin, who had just been sent down a few days ago to make room for Clayton Beeter, who was coming off the IL for some injury struggles of his own. As of now, it is a bit unclear what the team plans to do to replace Irvin's spot in the rotation, as their other potential starting options on the roster might not make sense from a timing standpoint.
Andrew Alvarez is seemingly tied at the hip to Miles Mikolas at this point, as the two have overlapped start days for a while now, with Mikolas often coming into games following an opener, with the team using Alvarez as a multi-inning reliever to close out games.
Whether or not the Nationals choose to stretch out someone like Brad Lord, who has been fantastic out of the bullpen this season, remains to be seen, but the Nationals will have a couple of days until they have to make a decision on how things will play out moving forward. Hopefully Irvin recovers quickly and does not need much more than the 15 days, but it remains to be seen at this point.
What do you think of Jake Irvin being placed on the 15-day Injured List after his brilliance yesterday? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.
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