Nationals Dave Martinez Has Discouraging Update on Key Relief Pitcher Battling Injury
The start of the 2025 MLB regular season has featured several ups and downs for the Washington Nationals already.
They lost six of their first seven games before going on a three-game winning streak as things began to stabalize.
One of the biggest improvements from the first seven games of the season to the three-game winning streak was the performance of the team’s bullpen.
Out of the gate there were some poor performances from the relief staff, ruining what were stellar outings from the starting rotation. An inability to hold onto leads was discouraging, but there were some concerns coming into the year with the bullpen.
Those concerns were only exacerbated when arugbaly their top bullpen arm, Derek Law, was forced to start the campaign on the injured list.
He was placed on the 15-day IL retroactive to March 24 as he dealt with inflammation in his forearm.
The plan all spring training was to bring him along slowly after he made 75 appearances in 2024, throwing 90 innings as a work horse for manager Dave Martinez out of the bullpen.
Law believed that he just needed a little extra time for his ramp up period to be ready to perform at the height of his abilities during the regular season.
Unfortunately, his stay on the injured list sounds like it is going to last much longer than anyone anticipated.
Tuesday, Apr. 8 is when Law is eligible to return to the roster but the veteran right-hander is not where he wants to be with his recovery and strength.
“I’m a little worried, but everything I’m hearing is that he is getting better, he’s getting stronger,” Martinez said, via Mark Zuckerman of Masn. “He has his days where he feels really good. And then he has days now where he juts feels OK. Before, he felt good. Now, it’s just OK. So we’re going to keep building up his strength and see where he’s at.”
That doesn’t sound like a player whose services the Nationals will be able to benefit from anytime soon.
Washington doesn’t want to push him and end up making the injury worse, so they will allow him as much time as needed to get to the level he wants to be at.
His early-season absence from the bullpen has been felt, as it is tough to replace such a reliable relief pitcher. He had a 2.60 ERA in 2024 with 76 strikeouts and an impressive 1.9 WAR.
Whenever his number was called he responded and got the job done.
The Nationals are missing that currently with six of their eight relief pitchers recording a WAR of 0.0 or worse over the first 10 games of the campaign.
