Kendrick and Scherzer shake off missteps in 8-4 defeat

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Spring training inevitably contains missteps and injuries. The Nationals had been lucky enough to avoid both - until today.

Their 8-4 loss Tuesday afternoon didn't hurt as much watching Howie Kendrick pull up lame and limp back to the dugout with a left hamstring strain in the third inning or seeing Max Scherzer labor against a Red Sox lineup populated mostly with bench players and minor leaguers making the three-hour drive from Fort Myers.

Luckily, neither issue seems like it will be a major hindrance. Kendrick and manager Davey Martinez said he will likely undergo an MRI tomorrow, but the injury is not related to the torn right Achilles that short-circuited his 2018 season. Scherzer brushed off the fourth inning he couldn't get out of as a byproduct of trying to increase his pitch count in his third start of the season, and a good learning experience.

Kendrick had looked spry on the field and basepaths - and showed no ill effects when he took off on a stolen base attempt in the first inning on a double by Brian Dozier after being hit by a pitch.

But in the third, after Trea Turner doubled and stole third with one down, Kendrick sent a slow roller up the third base line that easily scored Turner. Problem was, as third baseman Bobby Dalbec was picking up and dropping the ball, Kendrick was hobbling by first base. He quickly retreated to the Nationals dugout to be checked out by an athletic trainer.

"Just felt my hamstring grab," he said in the Nationals clubhouse, his left leg wrapped. "I don't know how severe it is right now, but I mean ... right when I felt it, I tried to slow down as much as possible, so that's all I can really tell you right now. It just grabbed on me, and hopefully it's not that bad."

When Martinez saw Kendrick slowing down three-quarters of the way down the line, he couldn't help but flash back to May, when Kendrick was drifting back in the outfield, stepped on the warning track and crumpled to the ground with a torn Achilles that required season-ending surgery.

"It's a hamstring strain, so we'll be day to day with him," Martinez said. "We'll probably get him an MRI tomorrow and see where we're at, but I'm just glad it wasn't the (Achilles). We'll get him back there as soon as possible.

Said Kendrick: "A lot of people were asking me, 'Oh, is it your Achilles?' No, if it were my Achilles, I wouldn't be walking right now. I'm thankful it wasn't that, but no. Yeah, hamstring. I figure we can deal with that, but hopefully we can get in back in shape quickly and get back on the field."

Because he's been focusing on strengthening his legs and lower body in the offseason and early in camp, Kendrick figures he's got a head start on his rehabilitation from the hamstring problem.

"Just of doing a continued maintenance on (my legs), but these things happen and you can't really foresee it," he said. "All you can do is play baseball. It kind of sucks that it happened, but I guess if it's going to happen, it's better before the season than during the season."

Scherzer will also be back on the field - in five days, after working in the bullpen to correct the "little flaws" that were "amplified" during a fourth inning that saw him retire only one of the six hitters he faced after setting down the first nine Red Sox in order.

The righty ran into trouble in the fourth when Tzu-Wei Lin led off by homering to center field. Blake Swihart singled, J.D. Martinez walked and, after Christian Vázquez struck out, Gorkys Hernández dumped a dying quail over second base and Dalbec shot a broken-bat RBI single to right that ended his day. Martinez scored on a passed ball by Pedro Severino after Vidal Nuño III had replaced Scherzer.

"There was some good and there was some bad," said Scherzer, who was charged with five runs on four hits and a walk in 3 1/3 innings. "I thought all my off-speed pitches were actually really good. I'm really starting to get a feel for mixing and matching and working between all the off-speed pitches - slider, cutter, curveball and changeup. So that was encouraging."

But locating his fastball proved problematic.

"My fastball felt like I was a little mechanically working side to side," he said. "I think my top half was kind of drifting towards third base after my balance point, and that's kind of causing me to fly back open to try to pull the ball. A lot of times, it looked like on film like my fastball was kind of moving east-west instead of directly going towards the plate and working in more of a north-south fashion. That's a little tweak that I'll work on in the bullpen over the next couple of days and try to get that dialed in as well and match where I am with my off-speed."

When a reporter pointed out that a dunk hit and broken-bat single didn't help his line, Scherzer was quick to respond that a little adversity in spring training can result in a positive takeaway.

"It's bad luck, but it's actually good," Scherzer said. "I actually was happy that in the fourth inning I ran into some trouble and had to try to pitch out of a jam and had to try to execute pitches out of the stretch while I'm tired. Every time you get into a new inning, ... typically, that's when you're kind of gassed and fatigued as you're building up your pitch count. That's when you want to have to try to dig through an outing 'cause that's very similar to what you have to do during the season."