Williams on Span's injury and more after 4-2 win
By Dan Kolko
Nationals fans surely held their breath when they saw Denard Span get removed for a pinch-hitter in the third inning after making a remarkable, tumbling grab to end the top of the third, but the good news - on top of the 4-2 Washington win tonight - is that Span doesn't appear to have suffered a serious injury.
Manager Matt Williams said after tonight's win that Span just banged and scraped his right knee while making that sliding catch on a Matt den Dekker liner to the warning track in left-center, and that Span should be fine.
The Nats don't want to be without their leadoff hitter and starting center fielder, but they managed to get by without him tonight, thanks largely to Adam LaRoche's three-run homer off Bartolo Colon in the fifth and Tanner Roark's 6 2/3 strong innings.
The Nats' magic number to clinch the best record in the National League is now two, and can drop further if the Dodgers lose tonight.
Here's Williams after the win.
On how Span is doing: "He's fine. He scraped his knee up pretty good, banged it a little bit. But I don't think it's going to be an issue for him."
On if Span could've kept playing if the circumstances were different: "Yeah. Of course. Sure. It's pretty scraped up. I mean, it's a great catch. He had to go all-out for it. And body control at that point is probably not the most important thing for him. Just getting the ball in his glove. And he banged it a little bit. Came down hard on it. Scraped it up. But he's fine. ... He was due to hit second in the inning. It was sore coming off the field. That's why it took him so long to get off. So we just didn't want to take any chances. Get him in here, get some ice on it, get him cleaned up."
On Roark's outing: "Tanner was good. Ran into some trouble in the seventh and ... he had two guys on there and I didn't want to have things go haywire for him, so decided to go to the bullpen."
On LaRoche, who also homered off Colon in New York last week: "The last two times he's seen Bartolo, he's hit a homer. So he's been seeing him good. And we got in a situation where we had a couple of guys on and he delivered. He doesn't panic. He understands the situation. Doesn't get too big and too violent in those situations. Just put a nice swing on the baseball. ... If he stays in the middle of the field, those things happen for him. ... The measure for Adam is the ball back through the middle and the ball to left-center. If he's doing that, then he's right on."
On if LaRoche has been less streaky this season: "Streaky with regard to homers is probably everybody. With the exception of some great years by guys, those homers don't come very often, but when they do they come in bunches. That's the same with Adam. (Ian Desmond's) the same way."
On it being hard for players to tone down the effort and play carefully to avoid injury: "Everybody is playing hard, and he's not going to shy away just because it's this time of the year. I wasn't concerned with him hitting the wall. The way he went down was concerning. But they're going to play. You can't play any differently. You have to go get it. You have to dive. You have to go in and break up two. All of those things. Like the way we've been playing all year. We can't change now. ... When he starts limping, of course there's some tense moments in the dugout, for sure."
On what's been the key to Roark pitching so consistently: "For him, it's just the fact that he can throw multiple pitches for strikes. So if he gets in an issue out there or has lost command of one of his pitches, he can go to another. For him, that's key. He doesn't blow the radar gun up by any stretch, but he makes pitches and works both sides of the plate. And he's got four pitches to work with. So if his fastball's missing, he can use the changeup, the slider and his curveball. And he's been able to do that. That's the art of pitching. He's been very consistent with that."
On all five of his starters pitching so well into September: "It says that they work hard. And that they've been resilient all year, first and foremost, because you get to this time of year, you've got guys pushing 200 innings, you've got Tanner going to places he's never been before. It's important for them to stay strong and do their work in between starts. They all do that. And it's important for them to compete. When they go out there, they compete. It makes for tough decisions but those are good, tough decisions. You would not want that decision made for you this time of year. You want to be able to say, 'Boy, this is a hard one.' That's a good thing for us. They're all pitching really well."
On if the guy who is left out of the postseason rotation will understand: "Of course they will. Of course they'll understand and at this point in the year, not everybody will like it, but everybody will understand. We are all on the same end of the rope. And everybody must do their part for us to get to where we want to get to."
The Nats don't want to be without their leadoff hitter and starting center fielder, but they managed to get by without him tonight, thanks largely to Adam LaRoche's three-run homer off Bartolo Colon in the fifth and Tanner Roark's 6 2/3 strong innings.
The Nats' magic number to clinch the best record in the National League is now two, and can drop further if the Dodgers lose tonight.
Here's Williams after the win.
On how Span is doing: "He's fine. He scraped his knee up pretty good, banged it a little bit. But I don't think it's going to be an issue for him."
On if Span could've kept playing if the circumstances were different: "Yeah. Of course. Sure. It's pretty scraped up. I mean, it's a great catch. He had to go all-out for it. And body control at that point is probably not the most important thing for him. Just getting the ball in his glove. And he banged it a little bit. Came down hard on it. Scraped it up. But he's fine. ... He was due to hit second in the inning. It was sore coming off the field. That's why it took him so long to get off. So we just didn't want to take any chances. Get him in here, get some ice on it, get him cleaned up."
On Roark's outing: "Tanner was good. Ran into some trouble in the seventh and ... he had two guys on there and I didn't want to have things go haywire for him, so decided to go to the bullpen."
On LaRoche, who also homered off Colon in New York last week: "The last two times he's seen Bartolo, he's hit a homer. So he's been seeing him good. And we got in a situation where we had a couple of guys on and he delivered. He doesn't panic. He understands the situation. Doesn't get too big and too violent in those situations. Just put a nice swing on the baseball. ... If he stays in the middle of the field, those things happen for him. ... The measure for Adam is the ball back through the middle and the ball to left-center. If he's doing that, then he's right on."
On if LaRoche has been less streaky this season: "Streaky with regard to homers is probably everybody. With the exception of some great years by guys, those homers don't come very often, but when they do they come in bunches. That's the same with Adam. (Ian Desmond's) the same way."
On it being hard for players to tone down the effort and play carefully to avoid injury: "Everybody is playing hard, and he's not going to shy away just because it's this time of the year. I wasn't concerned with him hitting the wall. The way he went down was concerning. But they're going to play. You can't play any differently. You have to go get it. You have to dive. You have to go in and break up two. All of those things. Like the way we've been playing all year. We can't change now. ... When he starts limping, of course there's some tense moments in the dugout, for sure."
On what's been the key to Roark pitching so consistently: "For him, it's just the fact that he can throw multiple pitches for strikes. So if he gets in an issue out there or has lost command of one of his pitches, he can go to another. For him, that's key. He doesn't blow the radar gun up by any stretch, but he makes pitches and works both sides of the plate. And he's got four pitches to work with. So if his fastball's missing, he can use the changeup, the slider and his curveball. And he's been able to do that. That's the art of pitching. He's been very consistent with that."
On all five of his starters pitching so well into September: "It says that they work hard. And that they've been resilient all year, first and foremost, because you get to this time of year, you've got guys pushing 200 innings, you've got Tanner going to places he's never been before. It's important for them to stay strong and do their work in between starts. They all do that. And it's important for them to compete. When they go out there, they compete. It makes for tough decisions but those are good, tough decisions. You would not want that decision made for you this time of year. You want to be able to say, 'Boy, this is a hard one.' That's a good thing for us. They're all pitching really well."
On if the guy who is left out of the postseason rotation will understand: "Of course they will. Of course they'll understand and at this point in the year, not everybody will like it, but everybody will understand. We are all on the same end of the rope. And everybody must do their part for us to get to where we want to get to."
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