Nationals will take the rest after rainout; starters up in the air

If there ever was a good time for weather to postpone a baseball game, it was tonight. Stricken by injuries across his ballclub, Nationals manager Matt Williams was planning to field a lineup with Bryce Harper, Ian Desmond and six reserves in the series finale against the Reds.

Shortly after heavy showers ended any chance of playing, Williams was asked if the rain dance worked.

"Next," Williams said with a sly look while trying to hold back laughter.

The recent wet weather over the past five days left the playing surface at Nationals Park unplayable.

"The field's in bad shape," Williams said. "We've had so much rain. The first (shower) at about five o'clock or whenever it was, there was standing water everywhere. It's been saturated. And then (after) the last round, it just wasn't draining. We know we had a little bit of a window but not much."

Williams continued to keep his starting pitching plan secret for his team's upcoming series in Baltimore. Before tonight's postponement, Williams was presumably mulling the decision on whether to pitch Max Scherzer on Sunday at Camden Yards. If that happens, Scherzer, arguably the National League's best pitcher thus far, could not participate in Tuesday's All-Star Game.

However, left-hander Gio Gonzalez, who was scheduled to pitch tonight, could potentially slide into Friday's opener against the Orioles, with Jordan Zimmermann following on Saturday and Doug Fister starting the series finale on Sunday.

"We'll know more tomorrow," Williams said. "I'll go back in and talk about it. We certainly have a lot of options so we're in the process of doing that now."

It seems Williams prefers to maximize Scherzer's availability to get an extra start in before the break.

"It's important for us to win games," Williams said. "Anytime you can have your guy go, it's important. We'll evaluate that and see where we stand as of this weekend and go from there. But every time we can give the ball to Max, we feel very comfortable with that."

It won't be easy to for the Nationals and Reds to makeup tonight's game. It was scheduled to be the last time the two teams would play this season. August 17 and September 28 are the only mutual dates when both teams aren't playing for the remainder of the year. The latter date seems likeliest considering the Nationals will play at San Francisco on August 16 and in Colorado two days later. Beyond having to overcome two cross-country flights, the Nationals would also be playing 23 straight days if they chose August 17, which would need approval from the Major League Baseball Players Association.