Ahead of Wednesday's series finale against the Cleveland Guardians, the Washington Nationals announced a flurry of changes to their starting rotation and bullpen picture. Following an injury in his first start of the season, righty Michael Soroka has been reinstated from the 15-day Injured List.
Soroka had been working his way back on a rehab assignment, and had his best appearance of his rehab stint with AAA Rochester last week. In that start, he went 5.0 innings and allowed just 1 earned run on 4 hits and 3 walks, while striking out 11 batters. That swing-and-miss ability is part of what made Soroka such a coveted free agent by the front office, and why the Nationals are more than happy to get him back into the starting rotation.
He will make his first start back in today's game against the Guardians, facing off against lefty Logan Allen from Cleveland. It will be curious to see what Soroka looks like for the rest of the season, and Nationals fans everywhere will have to keep their fingers crossed that he can avoid the injury bug for the foreseeable future.
As for the corresponding moves that were related to this move, the team optioned struggling righty Eduardo Salazar to Rochester, a move that I forecasted yesterday when discussing the promotion of righty Zach Brzykcy for the doubleheader. Salazar seemed like the next piece that had to go, and his latest outing on Tuesday evening proved that even further.
While Lucas Sims has still been an issue, he at least had strung together some positive appearances before a subpar outing on Tuesday of his own. Salazar only had 11 strikeouts in 15.2 innings, and a 9.77 ERA and 2.23 WHIP wasn't helping his case at all to remain in the bullpen. Given that he had options remaining, it made perfect sense for him to get a reset down in Rochester for the time being.
The other move caused by Soroka's reinstatement is that Brad Lord, who has pitched admirably as a starter since Soroka went down, is moving back to the bullpen, where he began the season after surprisingly making the team out of spring training. This was the expected outcome, but I must say I am a little bit disappointed for Lord's sake.
He had looked a lot more comfortable as a starter than he did as a reliever, and definitely had looked much better than Trevor Williams had to this point in the season. Obviously, with Williams being a guy that the front office chose to give legitimate money to, and for multiple years as well, he is going to naturally have a longer leash to prove himself, even if it has to come at Lord's expense. I am at least happy that Lord is getting the chance to stick at the big league level, as he has proven he has more than earned that so far.
What do you think of the latest Nationals roster moves? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.