Nats taking final pitching decisions down to the wire

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals are down to their final 96 hours in Florida, which would typically be around the time club officials are paring down the roster and making their final choices for the Opening Day 26-man squad. As they prepare to take the field tonight against the Cardinals, though, they still officially have 45 players in big league camp (39 of them healthy).

And it doesn’t sound like the paring down is coming yet.

“We still haven’t made any final roster decisions, really at anything, except the obvious,” manager Davey Martinez said. “I can tell you CJ’s going to play shortstop.”

So there’s your breaking news for now: CJ Abrams will be the starting shortstop. Try not to express too much shock at that surprise revelation.

“The next few days, we’ve got a lot of decisions to make,” Martinez continued. “These guys have all done really well. They’re making things hard. For me, it’s a good problem to have until the day comes when it’s not so good.”

The Nationals are still figuring out their No. 5 starter, though that should come into much clearer focus over the next 24 hours, with Zach Davies starting tonight and Trevor Williams starting Thursday afternoon.

They may need to take their other decisions down to the wire, especially in the bullpen.

As things currently stand, there are 11 healthy relievers and only eight available jobs. (Seven if Davies wins the starter’s job and Williams is bumped to a long relief role.) Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey, Tanner Rainey, Dylan Floro and Jordan Weems should be locks, so that leaves six others competing for three jobs: right-handers Derek Law, Matt Barnes and Jacob Barnes; lefties Robert Garcia, Richard Bleier and Joe La Sorsa.

Those relievers should have several more opportunities to pitch this week, with games tonight and Thursday, a Friday game that Martinez said will be a bullpen game and split-squad games Saturday.

All of this makes for a far more vast competition in late March than the Nationals are used to.

“It’s been a while,” Martinez said. “I was thinking about that the other day. Usually you come in and you’ve got maybe one spot. We have a couple. We have a couple guys who have done really well, so we’ll see how it all plays out.”