Ryan Zimmerman still not able to swing bat, Danny Espinosa has strained hamstring

With the season winding down, the chances of seeing Ryan Zimmerman play again during the 2015 regular season are dwindling.

Zimmerman has been out of the lineup since September 7 against the Mets. He has been listed as day-to-day with left oblique soreness.

Every day the media comes into pregame and asks Nationals manager Matt Williams if Zimmerman has returned to baseball activities. Specifically, has he been swinging a bat?

"No, not yet," said Williams. "We were thinking about it over the weekend. And he's still got some pain in there. So we got to make sure we get that out of there before we even think about swinging again, so next couple of days hopefully. We'll tentatively say that's the plan."

Williams said they are being extremely conservative with Zimmerman before they get back to baseball activities. He needs to be completely pain free in his core before they allow him to swing a bat again.

"We got to make sure that we do everything that we can to strength wise, he's doing a lot of core work, a lot of rotational work, just not swinging the bat yet," Williams confirmed. "Hopefully in the next couple of days."

Is there anything the team can do to adjust Zimmerman's offseason strength and stretching regimen to better prepare him for each season? Williams said some of the injuries, the thumb last season, were "freak" injuries.

"I know that he wants to play every day," Williams said. "Certainly moving over to first base is an opportunity to do that. We've seen what he can do when healthy and it's pretty special. It's not easy to train for baseball other than to play baseball. Because you just don't know. The foot thing, who knows how that happens. He went through spring training fine and didn't have an issue there.

"That being said, there's no real way to guard against it because he has to play to get into shape and we want him to play every day. I think that it's a little bit of is a string of bad luck, the thumb and the hammy. Again, last year when he had the hammy, he was hot as anybody, too.

"I know he works hard. (Assistant strength and conditioning coach) Matt Eiden works with him all winter long. He's local, so we've got somebody that works with him. I think he's doing all he can. Hopefully, that's all the end to it and when he's back, he's back fully and won't have any more issues because he's a really important part of our team."

But Williams also said no thought has been given to shutting down Zimmerman completely, even with only 13 games remaining.

"No, we can't think that way at this point," Williams said. "If we have a healthy Zim, then we are fortunate and we are better off. He's pushing as hard as he can and so are we."

Infielder Danny Espinosa has been out of the lineup with a hamstring strain, revealed by an ultrasound. He will have a more significant test Tuesday.

"He's OK today," Williams said. "He's scheduled for an MRI tomorrow and take a look at it. He had an ultrasound, which revealed a strain in the hammy, so we'll send him for a further test tomorrow, see where he's at. But it's there."

Williams said they believe the Espinosa injury occurred last week in Philadelphia.

"I believe it was on the slide in Philly," Williams said. "He scored from third base on a slide in Philly and felt it there and then was really non-functional the next day. We've been trying to get him a spot where he could pinch-hit potentially and we can run for him since we've got extra guys. But other than that, he really hasn't been able to go. Again, we'll see how he warms up today and what capacity we can use him."