Steve Mears: Opportunity in offing as Zimmerman awaits blessed event

Have you looked lately to see what the one-two punch for the Syracuse Chiefs have been doing? Trea Turner and Brian Goodwin are just tearing up Triple-A while wreaking havoc on the base paths. They are usually running the bases two times a game if they get up five times since both are hovering around a .380 on-base percentage and have found other ways to get on base. Both are almost certain locks to be called up in September or sooner, and the Nationals might have a need real soon as it turns out.

Heather Zimmerman could be a key to Goodwin making his major league debut. What? How? Directly, not really, but indirectly a lot. Heather Zimmerman is married to Ryan Zimmerman, and she is about to give birth to their second child. In 2011, Major League Baseball added a three-day paternity leave for all players who are about to have a child. One lucky player will be called up when Ryan Zimmerman goes on paternity leave, and it could be Goodwin, Turner, Matt den Dekker or Pedro Severino.

In 2014, you might recall that Daniel Murphy took paternity leave for the birth of his child and was criticized by many in the Mets fan base for taking time off under the paternity policy. Imagine that.

On April 26, 2011 Grayson Desmond was born, and Ian Desmond was the first Nationals player in history and one of the first major leaguers to take paternity leave under the new policy. "Players should be able to leave and be with their wives,'' former Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said at the time. "But it's good to be able to have a replacement (player). What would happen to a team if two players had to be gone at the same time?" The Nationals called up Roger Bernadina as the replacement player when Desmond went on his first paternity leave, and that could be the answer to a future trivia question.

The paternity policy allows the teams to not go a man short, but it could also be a way for the team to take a quick look at a player like Goodwin, or maybe Dusty Baker will take the opportunity to move Murphy to first base. Murphy has logged almost 200 major league games there, and started his pro career as a corner infielder. In fact, Murphy has a career defensive plus-7.0 UZR at first base, and has always felt comfortable there. If the Nats were to do that, Turner could get the paternity call up and play some second base, which he did last year for the Nats.

The path of least resistance would be to insert Clint Robinson at first base and just call up the guy who seems to have a bag packed all the time. Yes, den Dekker. The guy who arrives mid-game and hits game-winning doubles. He already knows his way around the airports near Syracuse.

Time will tell, as Mother Nature is about to tell Ryan Zimmerman that wife Heather is about to give birth!

Steve Mears blogs about the Nationals for Talk Nats. Follow the blog on Twitter: @TalkNats2. His thoughts on the Nationals will appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. 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.