Belisle believes he reaggravated offseason calf injury in Tuesday's loss

Right-hander Matt Belisle believes he has reaggravated a right calf strain he had originally suffered in the offseason in Tuesday's 4-3 loss to the Phillies.

Belisle was summoned to begin the top of the eighth Tuesday against the Phillies.

David Lough hit a grounder that Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman easily grabbed and stepped on first for the out.

Belisle tried to make a move towards first on the play and quickly realized he had hurt his calf again.

"The reaction to break to the right side on that ball that was hit to Zim, just the way my feet were and I moved, and I strained it," Belisle said. "I had done this in the offseason working on sprints, so I think I reaggravated that, pretty much exact same spot, exact same movement, so I knew it immediately.

"That's why I had to pause, go behind the mound. Luckily it's not near as bad as it was in the offseason, but it was definitely preliminary to what could be worse, so very, very, very frustrating."

Manager Dusty Baker is hoping it is not a bad injury. But Belisle was limping around after the game, not able to put that much weight on it.

"Right now he's being evaluated," Baker said during postgame. "He has a mild calf strain and we're trying to decide the severity of it.

"I don't know which pitch he did it on. It's not important, it's just the fact that he did it. We didn't want him to have to cover first base. He said he could still throw, but he couldn't cover first base or run. We just have to wait and see."

Does Belisle think he will have to go on the disabled list?

"I don't know," Belisle said. "I think we have to really do what we did, which is tough, and make the right move. Ice up, I don't know if we're going to get an image or not, let it calm down and determine tomorrow because nothing good could have come today. Tomorrow we'll have a really good idea."

Belisle has appeared in seven games and allowed only one run in six innings of work for a 1.50 ERA. He pitched in 34 games last season for the Cardinals, accumulating a 1-1 record with a 2.67 ERA.

Belisle said he had felt a slight twinge of the calf in spring, but nothing like he felt in the offseason. Tuesday's injury was very similar to what happen while he was running in the offseason.

"I had it prior to spring, and it's the exact same thing," Belisle said. "And I was preparing myself in spring because I had not really run with the ball in yet. So we did a tremendous job, and I've been flawless since then. But what's interesting is that was the exact same movement as the initial tweak way back in the offseason."

Belisle said he will sleep on it, get treatment and see how his leg feels Wednesday morning.

"I don't know what to say other than I gotta see what happens tomorrow, how bad it is," Belisle said. "But neither time that I've had this did it really get bruised and swell and be a real big issue. So that's real positive, and we've hit this at a spot where I know it's not a high level of aggravation. It's just an area where I need to be extremely careful and see what I'm dealing with."

The bullpen is a bit beat up following Sunday's 16-inning affair. It makes sense they would make a move from Triple-A Syracuse because they need fresh, available arms now.

Left-hander Sammy Solis pitched in 18 games last season with the Nationals for 21 1/3 innings. He had a 1-1 record with a 3.38 ERA. Right-handers Trevor Gott (48 games) and Abel De Los Santos (2 games) are also both on the 40-man and have big league experience.

Left-hander Matt Grace has a sub 2.00 ERA early this season and right-hander Rafael Martin has struggled a bit to begin the Triple-A season with a 7.04 ERA.

How did Belisle treat the calf injury when it happened in the offseason? He said pitching wasn't the issue. But running was where he had to be careful during rehab.

"That's hard to say because I was throwing really quickly," Belisle said. "I was off the mound no problem. But because I hadn't had a job yet and we were coming in late, I was really babying it, so we didn't progress on running for a while, but it was nothing that was too long."