Zimmerman begins rehab assignment at Harrisburg

Ryan Zimmerman is in a starting lineup and playing in a baseball game tonight - in Harrisburg, Pa. Which suggests the veteran first baseman could be back playing in a baseball game in Washington soon.

Zimmerman is beginning a long-awaited rehab assignment tonight, starting at first base and batting third for Double-A Harrisburg in his first game action in nearly two months.

On the injured list since April 28 with plantar fasciitis in his right foot, Zimmerman is scheduled to play five innings tonight for the Senators. He'll build himself back up to a full nine innings, at which point the Nationals would like to activate him back to their active roster.

"He's going to do five innings tonight, and then we'll see how he feels after that," manager Davey Martinez said. "Hopefully, this won't take a whole lot of time, but it's going to be up to just getting him on his feet and playing, try to get him up to nine innings before he comes back."

Zimmerman, who aggravated his injury making a leaping catch of a high throw April 23 in Colorado, expressed optimism at the outset that this case of plantar fasciitis wasn't as bad as the one in his left foot that sidelined him for seven weeks during the 2015 season.

But after experiencing continued discomfort while running two weeks ago, Zimmerman's rehab was slowed down. He's now finally playing in rehab games 7 1/2 weeks after going on the IL, which guarantees this stint off the active roster will end up longer than the 2015 one.

The good news: Zimmerman was able to go through full pregame drills three straight days this week, taking batting practice, fielding grounders and running the bases with no major issues. That paved the way for him to begin playing in games at Harrisburg, and ultimately to return to the Nationals lineup.

Martinez does face a tricky lineup dilemma once Zimmerman officially returns. Matt Adams, Howie Kendrick and Brian Dozier all are hitting well at the moment, and there's only two starting spots on the right side of the infield for the three of them. Now Zimmerman is going to be added to the mix, creating a logjam.

"When he comes back, we will figure all that out," Martinez said Thursday. "The biggest thing is to keep Zim off the injured list when he comes back. We talked about him getting days off as well. I told him Matty's got to play, Howie's got to play, Dozier's doing well now. It's nice you have those kind of guys that can play, but also it helps out our bench tremendously."

One possible temporary solution: With the Nationals playing in Detroit next weekend, there will be three opportunities for one of the aforementioned players to serve as designated hitter.