Treinen optioned to Triple-A after first major league start, corresponding move TBA

Blake Treinen pitched his heart out tonight in the Nationals' 8-3 loss to the Dodgers, allowing just three unearned runs over five-plus innings against a dangerous Los Angeles lineup.

Now Treinen will head back to Triple-A Syracuse and try and build off a strong first major league start.

The Nationals optioned Treinen back to Syracuse after tonight's game, but they are not yet ready to announce a corresponding roster move.

"We don't know that at this point," manager Matt Williams said. "We'll make that decision in the morning. We'll make some kind of move tomorrow."

One potential move would be activating catcher Wilson Ramos from the disabled list. Ramos has been out since fracturing the hamate bone in his left hand on opening day, an injury that required surgery to remove the broken bone.

Ramos was with the Nats today after playing in four rehab games the last handful of days (two of which aren't officially considered rehab games since they came at extended spring training). He was put through a full workout before today's game, and the Nats will evaluate him tomorrow to see how he's feeling.

"He looked fine," Williams said. "He ran. We'll see how he is tomorrow morning. But he took BP. No issues. He ran, he threw, he did all the stuff that he would normally do pregame, and looked fine. ...

"That's one of the options we're looking at in the morning."

If the Nats activate Ramos tomorrow, that would give them an extra bench player in tomorrow's series finale against the Dodgers. Third catcher Sandy Leon would then almost certainly be optioned on Friday when the Nats need to make room for right-hander Doug Fister, who will be activated off the DL to make his Nats debut against the Athletics.

The Nats plan to keep Treinen stretched out as a starter at Syracuse, and will try and put him on a stable five-day throwing program after a weird start to his year, which saw him begin the season at Syracuse, come up for six days to join the Nats bullpen and then go back to Triple-A to slide into the rotation.

"He's going to go back and get on a normal rotation at some point here," Williams said. "It's been kind of hit-and-miss on him because of some need up here and some decisions that we had to make. It'd be nice to get him on a normal rotation so he can just take it from here, from this start, and move forward."