Williams, Leon react to Roark's stellar outing in 4-0 win (with Harper note)

Ian Desmond had three hits and an RBI, Jayson Werth had a two-hit ballgame, Adam LaRoche stayed hot, reaching base twice and driving in a run, and Anthony Rendon had a hit and made a couple of tremendous defensive plays.

But with all due respect to those guys, Tanner Roark was the story today.

Roark delivered a three-hit shutout in the Nationals' 4-0 win over the Padres, his first career big league complete game.

After the win, manager Matt Williams and catcher Sandy Leon discussed Roark's performance, and Williams also offered the latest on Bryce Harper, who sat out today's game with a jammed left thumb.

Williams:

On what stood out to him about Roark's outing: "He's aggressive. He threw a lot of really good changeups today for strikes. That's one of his weapons. He keeps lefties off-balance with that. The comeback fastball in to lefties as well. He threw the ball really well. He was aggressive."

On if Roark is as good as the numbers might indicate: "Well, I think he competes and he's got certainly the ability to pitch at this level. He's got four quality pitches that he throws, all of them for strikes. He can hit. He can bunt. He does well out there. Has the ability to change speeds really well."

On Roark not being fazed by anything: "That's kind of his personality. He waits his turn to get the ball again. He takes the other parts of his game very seriously, as well as his pitching, He fields his position, he throws to the bases, he does a lot of things that are conducive to helping yourself win. And that's not to mention his pitches, the way he goes about it."

On what allows him to have such good success against righties: "Command of the fastball down and away. Right-on-right changeup. Which you don't always see. Good command of his curveball, in and out of the zone. We saw a lot of swing-over curveballs today that look like a strike from the hitter's perspective, but by the time they swing at it, it's not. All of those combined are pretty good traits."

On what's allowed Roark to turn a corner in his career over the last 13 months or so: "I don't know. You just mature as a player and as a pitcher. Maybe some success has allowed him to be more confident in the way he goes about it. I haven't spoken to him directly about that, but it could be. It's that way with any player. You have some success, you start to feel that you can do it."

On Harper: "He showed up this morning a little swollen. The hand specialist saw him during the game. He's currently having an MRI. The X-rays, as we spoke about, are negative. He's having an MRI this afternoon and we'll have more details tonight, in the morning. But he's a little swollen today."

On whether there was any circumstance under which he wouldn't have gotten an MRI: "It's pretty standard these days. You first get the X-ray. We wanted to make sure. It could've been done last night, but you have to make special arrangements. He probably wasn't going to play today anyway. Then we had the hand specialist here to see all three guys today: Zim (Ryan Zimmerman), Wilson (Ramos) and now Bryce. He was coming in anyway, so we figured have him look at Bryce, too. So now he's going to get an MRI, get a picture on it and see."

Leon:

On Roark barely shaking him off at all: "I think it was only three times in the ninth inning. I was working with all the pitches. He got ahead in the count and threw first strikes to most of the hitters."

On if he'd worked with Roark much in the minors: "Not really. (During) 2012 in Triple-A when I went there for like 20 days. It was two times. In my first game here, in New York, I catch him."

On how much Roark has improved: "In 2012, he was good. But now he's hitting his spot with all the pitches - breaking ball, slider, changeup. It's nice to catch him."

On handling Roark today: "It's easy for me because you can call whatever. You know he's going to throw a strike. He's going to throw the pitch wherever you want it thrown. You don't have to think too much, just have fun in the game and call the right pitches."

On the ovation in the ninth inning: "I was kind of nervous, too. It was my first complete game with a pitcher. He wasn't nervous. It was, one, two, three, let's go."