Harvey reinstated, Adon optioned and Tetreault transferred

ATLANTA – Hunter Harvey was seen in the Nationals clubhouse this morning before the series finale against the Braves at Truist Park. His hair is hard to miss.

That meant a roster move was coming. When it became official about 30 minutes later, the Nats had reinstated Harvey, optioned Joan Adon to Triple-A Rochester and transferred Jackson Tetreault to the 60-day injured list.

“I've been feeling a lot better since the last time, so that's always a plus,” Harvey said at his locker of his recovery from a right pronator strain. 

The Nationals placed him on the injured list on April 21 after he pitched only 2 ⅔ scoreless innings over four appearances. Now after missing 71 games, he’s finally back.

“It took a little bit longer than we wanted to,” Harvey said of his rehab. “I had a couple of setbacks, but we took a little bit extra time and made sure everything was OK, and now I feel a lot better than I did before.”

“He's been throwing the ball well. And he's thrown a lot,” manager Davey Martinez said of Harvey. “So we thought, hey, we might as well just bring him here. Give us another good arm in the bullpen. Like I said, he's been throwing the ball really well. He felt great. But we had no issues, so we just decided to bring him here.”

The right-hander had tried to pitch through the injury, but it got to a point where he decided to get it checked.

“It wasn't anything, like, crazy,” he said of the pain he felt. “It just kind of kept feeling like I was having a cramp in my forearm. I threw with it that night and it was whatever, and I didn't feel great about it. Went and got it worked on, and they found a spot that was pretty tender. So got an MRI and had a little strain, but nothing bad.”

Harvey made three rehab appearances between the Florida Complex League and Rochester. He tossed 2 ⅔ scoreless innings with four strikeouts and two walks.

“I didn't really change anything,” Harvey said. “I'm mixing in some new stuff in my pregame ritual stuff, I guess you want to say. Got some new stretches and stuff I'm doing, but other than that, just rolling what we got.”

As for Adon, this is the third time he’s been sent to Rochester in the last month. He was recalled twice to make spot starts for the major league club, and is now 1-12 with a 7.10 ERA in 14 starts.

“We're going to send Adon back just to continue his development process,” Martinez said. “I talked to him earlier. He was throwing a lot more changeups down in Rochester because we want him to. He didn't throw as many. We want him to get comfortable throwing it. I know we've been talking to him about his breaking ball usage, when to use it. So it's just part of his development. We had a great conversation this morning. He understands.”

Adon will now pitch for the Red Wings on Wednesday, which means the Nationals need a starter for Wednesday’s afternoon finale against the Mariners. But Martinez is just going to use tomorrow’s off-day to stick with the starters he has on normal rest: Josiah Gray on Tuesday and Erick Fedde on Wednesday.

It was also unfortunate news for Tetreault, who is now on the 60-day IL with a stress fracture of his right scapula. The rookie right-hander was 2-2 with a 5.14 ERA over his first four big league starts.

“We felt like it's gonna be a little bit longer than we thought,” Martinez said. “It's still the same thing. We just want to progress it, want to get him stronger. So we thought the best thing for him is to give him some time. And we'll get him ready when we can.”

* Martinez made some significant changes to his lineup for today’s getaway day game.

Luis García moves up to the leadoff spot for the first time this season and just the third time in his major league career (he led off twice in 2020), while Josh Bell bats second and Juan Soto moves down to the three hole. The switch-hitting Bell will bat second to break up the two lefties in García and Soto.

“I just wanted to move things around a little bit and see what it looks like,” Martinez said. “The biggest thing with Luis, we've noticed that he's been getting an influx of breaking balls. We want to see if we can get him some fastballs early because he's really good fastball hitter. So I put him up at leadoff and I put Josh two and Soto three, Cruz four. So we'll see what happens today.”