Lee prepared to start Sunday, if Nats call on him

The Nationals need someone to start Sunday’s series finale, but they aren’t going to make any final declarations about the identity of that starter until they first play today’s game against the Brewers, recognizing anything can (and often does) happen to spoil best-laid plans.

“Let’s get through today,” manager Davey Martinez said with a laugh, “and then we’ll know more.”

The Nats’ hope and plan seems fairly clear: If they can avoid using him in relief today, they would like to have Evan Lee make Sunday’s start, only his second in the big leagues. The rookie left-hander allowed two runs in 3 2/3 innings during his June 1 debut in New York, and though he’s spent his time since then in the bullpen (making one relief appearance) he’s been prepped in a manner that would allow him to start Sunday if needed.

Lee threw 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief Tuesday in Miami, on what would essentially have been his next turn through the rotation. He then was seen warming up in the bullpen during the final inning of Thursday’s game against the Marlins, not because he was preparing to enter that game but because that essentially served as his between-starts throwing session.

“We tell him all the time with everything going on right now, especially this next week, anything can happen,” Martinez said. “He’s well aware of that, and making sure he stays sharp.”

All of this has been an adjustment for Lee, who two weeks ago was a starter for Double-A Harrisburg before getting the call to make his major league debut in a spot start against the Mets. His only prior bullpen experience came last year in the Arizona Fall League, which helped him get a better sense of how to prepare to enter at a moment’s notice.

“You just have to stay on edge, stay ready,” he said. “It’s a little different with the warmup, what you do before the game and things of that nature. The experience out there helped a lot. And just knowing what I do really well and being able to execute it, that’s the biggest thing with me.”

Lee, a 15th-round pick in the 2018 draft out of Arkansas, insists he just appreciates this opportunity the Nationals are giving him, no matter the role. He feels good about the way he’s handled pitching as both a starter and reliever so far, and has come away with one important lesion about life in the big leagues.

“For one, the zone’s tighter up here,” he said. “You’ve got to adapt to that. You’ve got to get guys out in the zone, because the chase rate is not what it is in the minor leagues. You’ve got to get ahead, because if you’re not, things don’t go well. That’s what I learned. I’ve just got to get better at it.”

Though he’s spent most of the last week watching games from the bullpen, Lee actually watched Friday night’s game from the dugout, sitting alongside starters Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Josiah Gray and listening to them dissect Erick Fedde’s outing as it was playing out right in front of them.

“If we needed him out of the bullpen, we could run him down there to get ready,” Martinez said. “But I wanted him to watch, listen, sit him down with the starting pitchers and listen to them talk. He was very in tune to the game yesterday, so that was good to see.”

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the Nationals were prepping Lee to start Sunday afternoon. As always, though, they won’t know that for sure until they get through today’s game first.