The late postponement of the game made for an annoying Friday night for everyone who had already gathered at Nationals Park and had to turn around and head home. It also created a new annoyance for the Nats, who must figure out how to fill out their rotation over the next week to account for today’s doubleheader.
Teams have the ability to promote a 27th player from the minors for doubleheader games and often elect to call up a spot starter for one of the two games. In this case, the Nationals elected to promote reliever Andres Machado and have him available for both games.
Machado opened the season in the Nationals bullpen and posted a 2.45 ERA in 10 appearances, but was optioned to Triple-A Rochester once rosters had to be reduced from 28 to 26 at the end of April. He had less success with the Red Wings, allowing five runs and nine hits in seven innings since the demotion, but his experience and ability to provide more than one inning if needed made him the choice for today’s promotion.
“He’s been throwing the ball well,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Based on what we think (the Rockies’) lineup will be, and the righties they have, if we needed someone, we wanted to get a right-handed pitcher up here that can give us multiple innings.”
Aaron Sanchez, who had begun to warm up before Friday night’s game was postponed, said he was good to start today’s first game. Joan Adon will pitch tonight as originally planned. And Josiah Gray will remain on a normal schedule and start Sunday’s series finale.