Friday morning news and notes from Toronto

TORONTO - Some Friday morning news and notes for you as the Nationals prepare to play their first series north of the border since a 19-year-old Bryce Harper was asked a "clown question" back in 2012 ...

* Erick Fedde's second big league start of the season was less impressive than his first start, but this one was a far tougher assignment. After getting his feet wet against a Padres lineup that scores 3.87 runs per game (sixth-worst in the majors), the rookie right-hander had to go up against the Yankees, whose 5.39 runs per game top the entire sport.

So it's tough to fully evaluate Fedde based solely off his five-inning, four-run outing at Yankee Stadium. This much was clear: He had some jitters, falling behind in the count to the first three batters of the game and falling behind 2-0 to five of the 22 hitters he faced overall.

"The first inning he was excited," manager Davey Martinez said. "Yankee Stadium, I get it. He's working fast. And then he settled down a little bit. But as I tell all the pitchers, you got to get ahead of the hitters. It's different here when you fall behind hitters, 2-1, 3-1, 2-0. You've got to work ahead. But his stuff was good."

Indeed, Fedde continued to show off a mid-90s fastball that simply wasn't there last season while he battled a forearm injury. But the 25-year-old remains an unfinished work. He has yet to allow three or fewer earned runs in a big league game, and he has completed six innings only once in five starts over the last two seasons.

The Nationals need to figure out what to do next with Fedde. Thanks to all of their off-days of late, they've been able to get by with a four-man rotation. But with both Stephen Strasburg and Jeremy Hellickson on the disabled list, and with games now on the schedule the next 12 days, they're going to have to use some inexperienced pitchers.

Gio Gonzalez, Max Scherzer and Tanner Roark are slated to start this weekend against the Blue Jays, so the next open slot comes Monday against the Yankees again in the makeup of their May rainout at Nationals Park (which will be preceded by the completion of their suspended game). They may not want to throw Fedde back to the wolves against the same New York lineup, but neither Strasburg nor Hellickson figures to be ready by then, so the only other options are minor leaguers Jefry Rodriguez, Austin Voth or Tommy Milone.

"We'll sit back and address that when the time comes," Martinez said.

* It got lost in the shuffle during Wednesday night's dramatics by Juan Soto and the bullpen, but the Nationals' baserunning nearly cost them the game. Four of the first nine outs they made came on the bases, and they later added a fifth.

The mistakes weren't lost on Martinez, who offered up a rare public criticism of his team after the game.

"Let me be honest with you: It was ugly," the first-year manager said. "It was. I'm not going to lie. We gave them five outs. Typically when you do that, you don't expect to win the ballgame."

The Nationals actually rate as the eighth-best baserunning team in the majors, according to Fangraphs' analytics. But it certainly feels like this team could rank even higher if it could avoid the kind of mental mistakes it made Wednesday.

Martinez was asked if this was just a bad game or a sign of a larger problem.

"We talked about it already (with the players after the game)," he said. "We need to clean that up, we really do. If we're going to do the things we want to do, we can't give teams two, three, four outs like that. We can't. It was addressed. I want them to be aggressive, but we've got to be aggressive smart."

* Martinez has some more interesting lineup decisions to make this weekend. With the DH still needed in the American League park, Daniel Murphy can continue to bat without having to play the field, but that leaves four outfielders and only three starting spots.

It doesn't necessarily help matters that the Blue Jays are starting three right-handers (Aaron Sanchez, Marco Estrada, Sam Gaviglio). It's a little easier to give Harper, Adam Eaton or Soto a day off against a lefty, as Martinez has done in recent days (even though Soto has a remarkable 1.407 OPS against left-handers).

Martinez doesn't want to sit Michael A. Taylor for four straight games (Wednesday's game in New York, plus all three here in Toronto). So that means Eaton almost certainly will get one day off, and then either Harper or Soto could get another.

* A familiar face (but an unfamiliar voice) will be in the MASN booth this weekend: Michael Morse. The former first baseman/outfielder is filling in as the game analyst for F.P. Santangelo, who is attending his son's college graduation in California.

Some of you already may have watched Morse as a fill-in pregame and postgame analyst in the studio last month, but this will be the first time he's ever been a game analyst. The 36-year-old, who was forced into retirement last season after he suffered a concussion in the Nationals-Giants brawl at AT&T Park, was at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday to get a firsthand look at how the broadcast works, and he's admittedly a little nervous about this weekend's assignment.

Maybe the MASN crew can pipe in some A-Ha in the booth before first pitch to calm Morse's nerves and get him in a good frame of mind.