Patrick Reddington: Joe Ross takes a cautious first step

In spite of their needs in the rotation, with Stephen Strasburg currently unavailable, the Nationals resisted the urge to rush 23-year-old righty Joe Ross back.

Dusty Baker was excited about the idea of adding Ross to the mix after he missed more than two months working his way back from right shoulder inflammation.

"I've heard guys around the league tell me that when he's right, he's as nasty as any young pitcher in the big leagues," Baker said last week before Ross pitched in the majors for the first time since early July.

In a relatively brief outing against the Braves at Turner Field, Ross had a 1-2-3 first, gave up a run on three singles in the second, and worked his way into and out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam in his final inning of work in the third.

He threw a total of 51 pitches, striking out five of the 15 batters he faced in what ended up being a 6-2 loss.

Baker said he thought Ross was impressive. "(His command) was the most impressive. And his arm speed. And he didn't seem like he was favoring his shoulder. He had good tempo."

Baker said the third inning, in particular, was a good test for the second-year starter.

"That was great," Baker said. "Because the first inning was almost too easy. It's the stressful innings that show your makeup. He was very determined. He was glad to get back on the mound and we were glad to have him back on the mound. He looked fine. Hopefully his next start we can take him a little further."

Ross said he was happy with the outing.

"I think I did well," he said. "Kind of pitched myself into a jam and then had to work my way out of it in the third. But I felt good, and that's really what I was mainly concerned with today, was just going out there and feeling good and competing."

Nationals GM Mike Rizzo was watching closely too and told 106.7 the Fan that he, too, liked what he saw from Ross in Atlanta.

"I liked the way the ball came out his hand," Rizzo said. "His velocity was good. His spin rate on his slider was very, very good. He got a lot of swings and misses, which is something that he's noted for. It was a very good, small test that he's going in the right direction, and as he gets additional starts throughout the rest of this season, hopefully he'll get two more starts, and we can stretch him out and get his pitch count up a little bit higher and maybe get him to 85 to 90 to 100 pitches possibly where, if we were in a playoff scenario, he could pitch a game for six or seven innings or so if need be."

It's a slow build, however, just like starters do coming out of spring training, so it's going to be gradual. Next time out?

"He went three innings and 50 pitches," Rizzo said. "We're hoping to get him to 65 or so pitches, maybe 70 pitches next time out. And again, there are a lot of things that go into that. What is the leverage of those pitches? The intriguing thing and the exciting thing last time is he really had to step on the gas that last inning where he had bases loaded and nobody out and really pitched extremely well to get out of that inning unscathed with no runs scored. And it was a good time to get him out after that.

"Good taste in his mouth, he really had to step on the gas, and those pitches really counted for a lot."

So it was good that he was tested and had the opportunity to work some high-stress at bats?

"I wouldn't say necessarily good to be in the jam," Ross joked, though admitting it did provide a test.

"That's as tough as it's going to get without it being later in the game, so I think to get out of it like that was good for myself just to build a little bit of confidence, being able to work out of that in the first game back. Hopefully, I don't put myself in that spot coming down the stretch, but it was good to get that experience under my belt again."

Can he show enough in the next two outings to give the Nationals confidence they can trust him to make a postseason start?

The next test comes in Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

Patrick Reddington blogs about the Nationals for Federal Baseball and appears here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. Follow him on Twitter: @federalbaseball. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.