Rotation plans hinge on Strasburg and Lester's progress

The Nationals remain hopeful Stephen Strasburg will be able to make his next start after straining his left calf Sunday but are preparing contingency plans in case he needs more time to heal.

Strasburg is scheduled to receive treatment at the club's complex in West Palm Beach, Fla., today, after which he and the Nationals medical staff will decide whether he can attempt to play catch and test his leg. If everything appears fine, he would then likely progress to throwing off a mound, where the weight of landing on that leg following his delivery would be more stressful.

"For me, it's going to be just him stepping on it a little bit," manager Davey Martinez said when asked via Zoom this morning what test Strasburg needs to pass to be cleared to pitch. "Maybe throwing a (bullpen session) or a few pitches, just to see how he feels. Because it is his plant foot. We want to emulate how it happened and to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Strasburg was cruising along during Sunday's start against the Astros until his 45th pitch of the game: a 3-1 curveball to Jose Altuve in the bottom of the third. His left leg landed a bit awkwardly, and he could be seen testing it out a few times afterward as catcher Yan Gomes watched intently.

After a brief conference at the mound with Martinez and head athletic trainer Paul Lessard, Strasburg walked back to the dugout, his start cut short for precautionary reasons.

Strasburg said afterward that doctors told him the injury is "nothing major" and stressed he probably would've continued to pitch had it occurred in a significant regular season or postseason game.

"It's not something that's going to require any sort of long-term recovery," the right-hander said. "So it's definitely good news."

Strasburg, who pitched only five innings last summer before needing carpal tunnel surgery on his right wrist, had enjoyed a healthy spring with no restrictions to date. Now with this hiccup he faces a delicate timeline to be ready to open the season on schedule.

Strasburg is scheduled to make two, possibly three, more starts this spring in advance of his 2021 debut. If the calf prevents him from making his next start on time (tentatively, Friday vs. the Astros), there's a chance he could be pushed back a day or two and still be OK for the regular season.

Any delay longer than that, though, and the Nationals would need to make more significant changes to their season-opening rotation plans.

"I think we could make it work," Martinez said. "I talked to (pitching coach Jim Hickey) this morning about it, if he had to pitch on maybe (Saturday) or (Sunday). But after that, it would be some kind of adjustment.

"Hopefully, though, today he gets some treatment and he feels good and we can get him back out there to just throw a little bit and see where he's at. His calf is going to dictate that. When he gets in and gets his treatment, we'll see how he feels."

The Nationals already are facing some rotation uncertainty as they wait for Jon Lester to make his first start of the spring following his March 5 surgery to remove a parathyroid gland from his neck. The left-hander threw to live hitters for the first time Sunday, though, and the results were encouraging.

Depending on how he recovers from that session, Lester's next time on a mound could be a 35-pitch start in a game.

"If we can get him in a game here his next outing, that would be great," Martinez said. "If not, we still feel like we've got some time where he could throw another sim game, build his pitch count up again and then see where he goes from there."