Soroka and Nats still deciding next steps after second rehab start

Michael Soroka summoned a small group of media members to his locker yesterday afternoon. He knew his presence in the Nationals clubhouse was noteworthy, but he also had other things to do like meet with trainers, manager Davey Martinez and pitching coach Jim Hickey. He wasn’t sure how much time he would be available, so he wanted to give reporters time to ask him some questions.

An always considerate Canadian.

Soroka, who has been on the 15-day injured list since suffering a biceps strain during his March 31 season debut against the Blue Jays in his home country, had just returned to D.C. from his second rehab start with Double-A Harrisburg. His red Senators hat was in his locker where his red Curly W cap would usually reside.

The veteran right-hander, who signed a one–year, $9 million contract over the offseason, completed 4 ⅓ innings with four hits, two runs, one walk and four strikeouts while throwing 78 pitches in his outing Sunday afternoon against the Erie SeaWolves (Tigers). He surrendered a leadoff home run on an unfortunate ball that seemed to get caught in the wind to carry out of the park. But it was still an improvement from his first rehab start in which he gave up two runs in 2 ⅔ innings on Tuesday.

“Better actually. I kind of made some adjustments a little quicker,” Soroka said. “A couple weird things going on, a little wind ball in the first inning, and kind of had to settle in a little bit. And yeah, found a good rhythm and made some good pitches and found some good shapes. I threw a lot of changeups for strikes, got the pitch count up and felt good at the end. So a successful day.”

The injury first came up when Soroka spiked a breaking ball into the dirt on his third pitch of the sixth inning during that start in Toronto. He immediately looked toward the dugout and started clenching his fist, a scary sight for any pitcher. But he and the Nats were relieved to learn it was only a biceps cramp after the game.

During his rehab, throwing breaking balls was an important benchmark to check.

“There was a lot of other stuff going on that we've been trying to figure out off the field, as far as health stuff,” Soroka said. “So there's a lot of that happening that is probably to blame, but it was kind of a one-off pitch. It wasn't really something that crept up on me. Overextended on a breaking ball and it grabbed me. So yeah, I threw a lot of breaking balls since then, and they all feel good. So we're in good shape.”

Soroka also made sure to throw a good number of changeups during his second rehab start.

“Making sure I got the changeup in there,” he said. “I think a lot of times we find a home with the (four-seam fastball) and the breaking ball. We don't get the changeup in enough, and that's going to pay dividends third time around the order. So yeah, I think we got everything completed that we wanted to in that one. And I still got to talk to them and see what happens next.”

That’s the big question that still doesn’t have an answer: Where will Soroka pitch next? He said he feels ready to pitch in a major league game again, but the Nats may want him to stretch out to five or six innings and around 90 pitches in a third rehab start in the minors.

“I'm absolutely ready to compete. It's time,” he said. “So I think again, it depends what they want to do. We got to have that conversation. I still got to talk to the medical staff and there's a lot that goes into it. But yeah, obviously I threw about 80 pitches, and, again, I felt pretty good coming out of it. So no problems there.”

“I haven't talked to him yet. I'm gonna sit and talk to the trainers and get their thoughts and sit with Hickey,” Martinez said. “We'll come up with his plan for the next outing. It's a good possibility we may send him back for one more. But I want to talk to him first, see how he's doing. I'd like to get him stretched out to about 90 pitches if we can. But let's see how he's feeling. He said he feels pretty good, but I want to just really get eyes on him and talk to him.”

Of course, Soroka would prefer to miss no time at all. But he’s not letting the frustration of an injury in his first regular-season start derail his outlook on the whole year.

“Obviously, when it happened, I hoped it had only been a start or two. But yeah, you always gotta look at it as there's a long season,” he said. “We got five months left. Tons of baseball, and hopefully playoff baseball. So yeah, lots to go, and hopefully we look back on this in a couple months and it's just a little blip.”