Mattheus on his return to the Nats

Reliever Ryan Mattheus is back with the Nationals for the first time since the club left Viera, Fla., in March. The Nats called up Mattheus and sent starting pitcher Taylor Jordan to Triple-A Syracuse. Mattheus found out last Thursday that he would be returning to the Nats after he was ejected from a game. Mattheus threw one pitch against Indianapolis in the eighth inning. The ejection came one night after Syracuse and Indianapolis exchanged bean balls with one another. "It caught me a little off-guard," Mattheus said of the promotion phone call. "As tough as it is, you try not to try to predict when the call is coming because it's counterproductive when you do that. ... It was kind of an eventful twist." Mattheus was limited during spring ball after suffering a chest injury near the beginning of camp, leaving the team to send him to Syracuse in order to build up his innings. "It was just more of logging the innings," Mattheus said. "You know, when you're first coming back like that, you'll have a day where you feel great and two days later you don't know where anything's going. So I had to work through that. ... I just needed the workload and everybody else broke camp with 12, 13, 14 appearances in innings and I needed to go do the same." The injury came after a tough 2013 season in which Mattheus was limited to 37 games because of a broken hand and subsequent ineffectiveness. Mattheus is just happy to be back with the Nats and wants to prove how valuable of an asset he is to the team. "Get guys out and contribute," Mattheus said of his role with the team. "I know there's a lot of people who know I'm still capable of doing that. Just to contribute is the biggest thing. Just to be out there, help this bullpen, help these guys that are working hard, my friends. It's just good to be back with this group of guys. Hopefully I fit in and contribute." To the naked eye, Mattheus' numbers at Syracuse may seem a little off. The right-hander had a 5.40 ERA in 10 innings with the Chiefs. But Mattheus said they were skewed. "I wasn't happy with the numbers," he said. "They were a little misleading. Had some really great outings, but had a couple that weren't so great. Anytime you're a relief pitcher, if you give up three (runs) in an inning, it's going to stick with you for a while. But the work that I put in, the work that I got done was more important than the actual numbers." For now, Mattheus is enjoying being back with his Nationals teammates. "This is where we all want to play," he said. "This is what we dream of. It's fantastic. It's even better to see all of the guys. It's great being back."