Notes on tomorrow's doubleheader, Murphy and Espinosa

Doubleheaders often create a headache for managers and general managers, who typically have to find someone to make a spot start, throwing a rotation out of whack.

The Nationals, though, lucked out this weekend. With an off-day Thursday and another Monday, they're able to stick with their regular rotation and make it through tomorrow's day-night doubleheader against the Marlins without disrupting much of anything.

Stephen Strasburg will start the 1:05 p.m. opener, with Tanner Roark then pitching the 7:05 p.m. nightcap. Joe Ross takes the mound for Sunday's finale, and then thanks to the off-day, the Nationals can pick right back up with Max Scherzer for Tuesday's opener of a big series in New York against the Mets.

As things currently stand, that National League East showdown at Citi Field will feature Scherzer vs. Noah Syndergaard on Tuesday, Gio Gonzalez vs. Bartolo Colon on Wednesday and either Strasburg or Roark vs. Matt Harvey on Thursday.

Though they won't need to call up a spot starter, the Nationals are still allowed to promote a 26th man for the doubleheader. They will wait until after tonight's game to decide whether that extra man will be a reliever or a position player.

"We really don't know yet," manager Dusty Baker said. "We're going to see how it goes tonight. It depends how many pitchers we use, or it depends if the game gets delayed due to weather or whatever. So we figured we have enough time. (General manager Mike Rizzo) and I talked about it. We have enough time to get somebody here at a decent hour."

The Marlins do have to call up a starter as their 26th man. Right-hander Kendry Flores will be promoted from Triple-A New Orleans to pitch the nightcap, the 24-year-old's second career start. Lefty Justin Nicolino starts the matinee game.

* Daniel Murphy is hitting cleanup again tonight, a seemingly obvious move after the second baseman went 3-for-4 with two RBIs Wednesday night after swapping lineup spots with slumping Ryan Zimmerman.

But there's more to it than that. Baker explained he has been thinking about using Murphy right behind Bryce Harper for "the last couple weeks, on and off," but the decision to do that this week is mostly due to the fact the Marlins currently have no left-handers in their bullpen after designating veteran Craig Breslow for assignment earlier this week.

"This series, actually, is an exception to the rule," Baker said. "They don't have a left-hander in the bullpen. So they can't bring in a couple left-handers and take care of my left-handers. So that kind of makes my decision easy."

* Danny Espinosa quietly has gotten himself on a bit of a roll at the plate at long last. The Nationals shortstop, who was hitting just .185 a week ago, is hitting .350 over his last five games, with a key homer in Wednesday's win. He has homered three times with eight RBIs in his last 13 games, raising his season average to .210 with a .320 on-base percentage.

With top prospect Trea Turner waiting in the wings at Triple-A Syracuse, Espinosa's job security has perhaps been in question for a while. Baker hasn't addressed that subject specifically with him, but he has talked to Espinosa about his own performance and approach.

"It's up to him to create job security," the manager said. "It's not up to me to tell him. And it's not like he's a kid. I just told him that he needs to remain positive, put together good at-bats. And above all, you've got to have confidence. Myself and (hitting coaches) Jacque (Jones) and Rick Schu, we just try to stress to him to stay through the zone. He doesn't have to hit the ball out of the ballpark to help this team and to be successful. So Danny's taken it upon himself to work hard. I have to give him full credit. And even when he wasn't getting hits, he was hitting the ball pretty good. He was our tough-luck guy."