Durable as ever, Gonzalez starts seventh year in D.C. on right foot

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The good news: Gio Gonzalez looked a lot like his 2017 version in his first inning of 2018. The bad news: That meant the Nationals left-hander was pitching out of the stretch with runners on base, forced to battle his way out of a jam.

At this point, the Nats know that's simply what they're going to get from Gonzalez, who managed to walk the tightrope all last season and emerge unscathed the vast majority of the time.

"He knows for him it's (important) to avoid that big inning and just work on strikes," new manager Davey Martinez said. "The way to do that is just limit damage. If a guy gets on, just don't worry about it. Just limit the damage. Know you've got seven guys behind you that can catch the ball. And he did good."

Gonzalez's first competitive inning of the spring was straight out of his longstanding playbook. The Marlins' Magneuris Sierra led off with a single to left, forcing Gonzalez to immediately start working out of the stretch. He got Miguel Rojas to fly out, then watched as second baseman Howie Kendrick made a diving stop of Justin Bour's sharp grounder.

When Cameron Maybin walked, Gonzalez found himself a in a two-out jam ... which he promptly escaped when he got Tomas Telis to send a soft liner toward shortstop to end the inning with a zero on the board.

"I felt good," said Gonzalez, who cruised through a 1-2-3 top of the second and departed having thrown 27 pitches (16 strikes). "The ball was coming out of my hand pretty good. The first inning was just trying to get a timing rhythm going again. The second inning was going after hitters."

If you followed Gonzalez last season at all, you know the drill. He was among baseball's best at escaping jams; opponents hit only .175 against him with runners in scoring position, the fourth-lowest average in the majors, despite ranking in the middle of the pack for plate appearances in that kind of situation.

It's probably too much to ask at this stage of his career for Gonzalez to get significantly better at putting runners on base in the first place, but the Nationals do believe he can continue to be successful when facing the pressure of a tight spot. The key: Maintaining an upbeat tempo and not slowing to a crawl when things get rough.

"I told him I want him to work quick, so he doesn't think," Martinez said. "And he was great (today)."

Now in his seventh (and likely final) season with the Nationals, his 11th big league season overall, Gonzalez has firmly established who he is. He may never be consistently effective enough to anchor a rotation, but does consistently take the ball and give his team a chance.

Consider this doozy of a stat: Since 2010, only seven major league pitchers have started at least 250 games. During that span, Gonzalez owns a 3.41 ERA. Only two others have been better: Max Scherzer (3.22) and Justin Verlander (3.24).

Durability is an awfully valuable trait in today's game, and it's going to help Gonzalez earn a nice contract next winter when his awfully team-friendly deal with the Nationals - they'll end up paying him a modest $65.5 million over seven seasons - finally expires.

There's no particular secret to Gonzalez's durability, but he has learned as he has gotten older - he's now 32 - how to devote more time to arm and body maintenance.

"You do spend a little more time in the training room getting loose," he said. "That's also being a little wiser and not thinking you're 22 years old anymore. You've got to get that extra stretch or that extra 30 minutes in of whatever you did before in the past. I'd like to think my mind and body still feels like it's 22 years old. But I speak for myself when I say I have to get a little more loose and stretched a little better."

Gonzalez will spend the next month continuing that process. He'll take the ball every fifth day and build up his pitch count. And he'll spend the other four days keeping his arm in shape, so he's able to take the mound on day five.

Nobody's challenging him for a spot in the rotation. He'll slot right back in the middle of the pitching order, behind Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg, ahead of Tanner Roark and whoever ends up as the No. 5 starter.

He's not the best pitcher in baseball. But for six seasons in D.C., he's been there every time the Nationals needed him to be there. And he doesn't expect that change in his seventh season wearing a curly W cap.

"I think the most important thing is just to stay healthy," he said. "That's the most important for me. If I can stay healthy, that gives me a chance go out there and do what I can do on the mound."