"Antsy" Law finally faces live hitters, Finnegan scheduled to pitch tonight

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – For nearly a month, Derek Law has been at Nationals camp. He’s been in the clubhouse. He’s been on the practice fields. He’s been healthy. And until today he hadn’t participated in anything that resembled a game situation.

“I’ve been super antsy,” the reliever said. “These guys get here, and I’m just playing super-light catch, and these guys are ripping it like that. You just get the itch, because everybody’s having fun. You want to be a part of it. It almost feels like a rehab, but I’m not.”

Law isn’t rehabbing from any injury. He’s simply been on a pre-planned, delayed throwing program as the Nats attempt to get him ready for Opening Day without using up too many bullets in spring training.

One year after becoming the Nationals’ first reliever to total 90 innings since Tyler Clippard in 2010, three innings shy of Saul Rivera’s club record from 2007, Law is setting the bar high. He wants to be available anytime Davey Martinez needs him. Which means he wants to enter the season with a full tank, while still finding a way to adequately prepare.

So that meant sitting back and watching everyone else fully participate from day one of spring training while he waited for his time to come.

“Obviously, I want to do what I did last year again, and I can’t throw 12 innings and a bunch of (live batting practice) in the offseason to do that again,” he said. “There’s probably no way. I want to break the record.”

So Law finally took his first true step this morning, throwing 30 pitches to live hitters on a back field as coaches looked on. The pure results – a first-pitch home run by Yohandy Morales, then later an opposite-field homer by José Tena – suggested Law has a long way to go. But the 34-year-old wasn’t so much concerned with results today as he was making sure he threw strikes and had proper movement on his cutter and slider.

“I was really happy with the energy I kept through the 30 pitches,” he said. “Honestly, just finishing all my pitches where I was for the first time against hitters, (if it was) the first week of the spring I’d be super happy about that stuff. It’s hard not to put pressure on myself right now, because we’re inching closer. But it’s right there, which was great to see.”

Barring any setbacks, Law will probably throw to live hitters at least twice more in the coming week before he finally makes his Grapefruit League debut. He believes three game appearances will suffice to get him ready for Opening Day.

If nothing else, he was just happy to do something today that resembled what his teammates have been doing for weeks.

“I think it’s more antsy than anything,” he said. “So that was fun to do that and be a real baseball player again, not just a body.”

* Kyle Finnegan is scheduled to make his game debut tonight when the Nationals face the Marlins in the second game of their split-squad doubleheader.

Finnegan, who re-signed with the club two weeks ago, already faced live hitters Friday and believes he’s physically ready to pitch in games now. He hopes to make five or six appearances prior to Opening Day, which would be a normal spring workload for him.

* Michael Soroka’s next turn in the rotation falls on an off-day for the team, so the right-hander will face hitters on a back field Tuesday and build up his arm for his next start five days later.

Trevor Williams is scheduled to start Wednesday against the Astros.