Starting prospect Lord still in mix for spot in Nats bullpen

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Brad Lord sits in the Nationals’ spring training clubhouse where you’d expect a non-roster invitee in his first big league camp to sit. That area of the room always includes the first group of players sent down to minor league camp, the guys who may have a future in the organization but not yet.

And sure enough, all the guys around him when camp opened are long gone, having relocated to the minor league clubhouse at the other end of the building. Leaving only Lord among a sea of empty lockers, the rest of the pitchers well to his right, the remaining catchers well to his left in their own designated corner.

“It still feels like pretty surreal, I guess,” the 25-year-old right-hander said. “It was like an honor getting invited to big league camp, and I’ve really enjoyed my time. It’s been a lot of fun.”

It’s not over yet. With five days to go before the team heads north, Lord is still here. And increasingly it looks like he’s got a real shot at making the Opening Day roster, not as a starter but as a reliever.

“His stuff plays,” manager Davey Martinez said. “I’m not saying he’s not going to revert back to a starter, but he’s done really well in spring training doing what he’s done. We’ll see. We’ve still got a little less than a week down here.”

It’s mostly gone unnoticed, because minor league starters are forced to pitch in relief in spring training, with five or more major league starters taking precedence when it comes to prepping for the regular season. But the Nationals have been pitching Lord every three or four days over the last month, typically for two innings at a time, always out of the bullpen.

And then Monday he entered for the top of the sixth to replace MacKenzie Gore, proceeded to retire the side on 12 pitches and was told to call it an afternoon. Why? Because Martinez plans to bring him back for another inning today, finding out if he can handle the unique-to-relief workload of pitching back-to-back days.

This is the kind of thing a team does with someone under serious consideration for a spot in the Opening Day bullpen.

“We’ve still got some time to find these things out, but I think he can come in and get us a ground ball in a tough situation, which is nice,” Martinez said. “But it’s the deception. It’s what he can do. It’s everything that he’s become and that we’ve seen that allows us to say: If this guy can throw strikes, he can give us two-plus innings.”

The Nationals historically have shied away from putting young starters in the bullpen as a sort-of breeding ground for an eventual career in the rotation. They would rather keep those guys on a regular routine, stretched out to be able to throw five-plus innings every five days at Triple-A so they’re ready to be called upon if a big league starter goes down.

But they acknowledge they’d like to have a multi-inning reliever in this year’s eight-man bullpen. And if the best option is a promising young starter who went 10-4 with a 2.43 ERA in 25 starts between Harrisburg and Rochester last season, they’ll consider breaking with tradition.

“I don’t know what their plans are. That’s not up to me,” Lord said. “But I’m always open to that. It’s been good coming out of the pen.”

Lord’s performance through the first three weeks of exhibition play was eye-opening. He allowed only one earned run and five hits over 9 2/3 innings, issuing only one walk. Beyond that, his fastball velocity ticked up, regularly reaching 96-97 mph. (And it looks even faster to hitters, thanks to his short-arm delivery.)

“We heard it early in camp with our guys when he was throwing live: They said the ball comes out of nowhere,” Martinez said. “All of a sudden, it’s on you. That’s great. … It’s a very quick, short arm and, poof, the ball’s on you.”

And then came last Thursday’s appearance against the Rays in Port Charlotte. Lord faced 11 batters. He retired only two of them. He was pulled from the game in both the bottom of the fourth and bottom of the fifth before recording three outs.

Afterward, Martinez complimented the 2022 18th round pick from South Florida for how he handled the adversity.

“That’s the big part. You’ve got to flush the bad games and flush the negatives,” Lord said. “If you dwell on it too much, that can leak over into your next outing. It’s in the past. You can’t change it. All you can do is worry about the next one.”

And what did he do four days later? He retired the side on 12 pitches, finishing with a strikeout on a 96-mph fastball.

At this point, six bullpen jobs appear to be locked up: closer Kyle Finnegan; right-handers Jórge Lopez, Derek Law and Lucas Sims; and left-handers Jose A. Ferrer and Colin Poche. That leaves two remaining spots up for grabs.

Orlando Ribalta (13 strikeouts, four walks in 11 1/3 innings) has done everything in his power to earn one of them. Eduardo Salazar (11 strikeouts, three walks in 9 2/3 innings) has also looked sharp. Non-roster invitee Clay Helvey hasn’t allowed an earned run but has walked six in 7 2/3 innings. Rule 5 Draft pick Evan Reifert has walked 12 in only 6 1/3 innings.

And then there’s the guy sitting alone among a bank of empty lockers. The guy who is still regarded as one of the organization’s better starting pitcher prospects. But the guy who might just find his way onto the Opening Day roster as a reliever.

“This experience, it’s prepared me very well for whatever’s to come,” Lord said. “Just learning from all the coaches and players with a lot of big league time, I feel like that prepared me very well.”