Notes on Treinen, Jordan, LaRoche's rehab and more

With Gio Gonzalez on the disabled list, rookie right-hander Blake Treinen gets a chance to show his strong showings over two prior stints with the Nationals this season were no fluke. Treinen, 25, has pitched to a 0.77 ERA over 11 2/3 innings spanning four appearances (one start). In his first major league start on May 6, Treinen allowed no earned runs (three total) on seven hits while striking out two and walking none in five innings. Tonight, he'll look to perhaps top that in Pittsburgh. The hard-throwing Treinen has impressed manager Matt Williams with more than his talent. "Just the way he goes about his game," Williams said at PNC Park. "He knows what his strengths are and he's going to go with those. Yeah, of course, that's a 96-97 mph fastball with sink. Those are rare, so that being said, I like his attitude and the way he approaches the game, and is willing to just take the ball anytime. Certainly now it's in a starting role, but when he was here before and he was relieving, he was ready to go every day. I think his attitude mostly is what I like." Treinen has coupled that with uncommon composure for a rookie during his early appearances in the bigs. Williams doesn't see a jittery pitcher, outwardly at least. "He doesn't show it. I don't know how the hamster's running around inside, but he doesn't show it on the outside," Williams said. "I think he's got a fantastic attitude and he's ready to go, and he'll be ready to pitch today and beyond. So we all like that very much." General manager Mike Rizzo addressed a couple of topics before today's game. Taylor Jordan was removed after three innings in his Tuesday start, but Rizzo said the right-hander is OK health-wise. Jordan was lifted because of high pitch count, as he made 38 pitches in one inning and was taken out for precautionary reasons. Rizzo also said lefty prospect Matt Purke will get a second opinion on his left elbow from Dr. James Andrews. Purke is 1-6 with an 8.04 ERA in eight starts with Double-A Harrisburg. Adam LaRoche (quad) will begin his rehab assignment tonight, playing five innings at Single-A Potomac, hopefully getting three at-bats. LaRoche will then go to Double-A Harrisburg on Friday. Williams weighed in on another topic Thursday - Nats pitchers' drastic improvement holding runners so far this season. Last year, the Nats finished last in the majors by letting 82.6 percent of attempted basestealers swipe a bag successfully. This year, Washington is third in the bigs by holding opponents to a rate of 56.7 percent. Williams said it isn't just the catchers. "I just think it's a product of plan. It's something that we concentrated on in spring training, but it also involves the pitchers, their ability to be quicker to home plate, too," Williams said. "So that's important. They work hard on it, they work really hard. So it's a good thing. We want to try to limit that as much as we can. ... "They've focused on it, so it's an important part of their game, from a pitching staff perspective. So that says something about their work ethic and how they're going about it. That's a good thing. We want to be complete as a team and be able to do all things well. That's one of them and they've done a nice job of that."