After Home Depot and manager prank, Lord makes first Opening Day roster

For a young baseball player, there’s no better moment than learning you’re going to the major leagues on the Opening Day roster. For a baseball manager, there’s no better moment than delivering that message.

For Brad Lord, it was a long road to this moment. For Nationals manager Davey Martinez, the opportunity to mess with the young pitcher was too good to pass up.

The 25-year-old right-hander has been waiting around D.C. for the past couple of days. He joined the Nats on their trip north from West Palm Beach ahead of their opening three-game series against the Phillies.

An exhibition game against the Orioles on Monday was rained out. The Nationals held one final workout at Nats Park on Wednesday, with Lord still unsure if he was staying around or packing his bags for Triple-A Rochester to start the season.

Then he got the call into the manager’s office. An answer was finally waiting for him: He had, indeed, made the Opening Day roster.

“I showed up to the locker room yesterday, we had a workout,” Lord said in front of a large gathering of local media members at his locker ahead of today’s game. “It was shortly after I got here, got dressed, they pulled me in the office and told me.”

But they didn’t tell him in the traditional way you typically see in viral videos. Instead, Martinez took a Michael Scott-esque approach.

“I guess I was a bit of an ass, maybe, because I told him he was going back down,” the skipper said with a laugh. “It's a running joke for all the young kids. But once I told him I was kidding, his face lit up. It was kind of funny, actually. But he was really excited and rightfully deserved.

Lord has traveled a long road in his baseball life to get to this point. The 2022 18th-round pick out of the University of South Florida was one of the Nats’ fastest-rising prospects last year, going 10-4 with a 2.43 ERA and 1.195 WHIP in 25 starts between Double-A Harrisburg and Rochester (with one rehab start at High-A Wilmington).

That earned him his first invitation to major league spring training. But before he reported to West Palm Beach, he had to pick up another gig, working at Home Depot this past fall. After about three months at that job, he started getting ready for the baseball season, not knowing he would make the transition from starter to reliever.

“Coming into camp, I really didn't (think he would make the Opening Day roster). I wasn't expecting to have a chance,” Lord said of becoming a bullpen arm. “And then halfway through, I was kind of like, oh, I can maybe do this. So that gave me some hope.”

Lord was charged with 16 hits and 10 runs (nine earned) in 13 ⅓ innings, but he struck out eight while only walking three batters in Grapefruit League play. And instead of being sent back down to Rochester to get stretched out as a starter in light of DJ Herz’s left UCL sprain, he beat former first-round pick Jackson Rutledge for the final bullpen spot.

“I would say just holding nothing back,” Lord said of how his mindset changes from starter to reliever. “You know, starting, I may not throw every pitch max effort. Try to conserve a little bit. But in the bullpen, it's one pitch at a time and give it all you got.”

“Here's a kid that started for us in spring training,” Martinez said. “We felt like he was going to be a big piece, maybe out of our bullpen. He did it. He did it really well. So we're excited. And I'm glad to see that he's on our Opening Day roster. He's done really well. I know he's excited.”

From being a late-round pick to two seasons in the minor leagues to two other jobs outside of baseball, how could Lord not be excited when reflecting on his journey to the majors?

“It's been a long journey, going through the minor leagues and everything, grinding your way up,” he said. “It's been a long journey, but it was a lot of fun.”

Whether he pitches today against the Phillies or not, he’s going to soak in every moment of his first major league Opening Day, which he will share with his parents, wife, sister and sister-in-law in the stands after making the literal last-minute trip to D.C.

“After the whole conversation, I asked him if he found a place to live, and he said no, because I took too long to make up my mind,” Martinez said. “So I said, OK, you got me. But this kid's gonna have a real bright future.”

“It was just really like a flood of emotions,” Lord said. “I don't think it's still really set in yet. But I was overjoyed with it. … I didn't sleep very much last night. So I woke up very excited and I'm ready to get out there on the mound.

“I'll definitely probably take a look around at all the fans and soak it all in.”